My reply to the ‘office politics’ thread got me all wound up about this, so I’m going to start my own thread on this specific incident.
So last weekend my wife and I have a summer grill out party at my house.
My department consists of 10 people in my local office in my direct vicinity. Of my nine colleagues, I invited 6 of them to my party. Four attended. A good time was had by all.
On Monday and Tuesday a couple of the guys were discussing the party, and looking at pictures I posted on the website. Tuesday afternoon, one of the non-invitees came into my office and asked to talk to me in private. She then proceeded with a litany of questions addressing such wonderful topics like:
“Have I done something to offend you?”
“Why don’t you like me?”
“Why was I the only one not invited?”
and several declarative statements like:
“maybe you guys should talk about your party at work”
ugh…
So i’m conflicted on this.
some my thoughts:
It’s my frickin’ party, I can invite who I want.
I can’t control who talks about what in the office.
since i invited most of the office, should i have anticipated something like this and just invited the rest of the office. (I was already over my agreed upon limit with my wife)
This person is the type if someone stands up and says “let’s all go to lunch”, she’ll later on say “Why wasn’t I invited?”. It’s like you have to invite everyone, and then say "Hey insecure person would you like to join us?
This of course alienates her even more to the group.
So… weigh in on this. what are your thoughts? I don’t think this will turn into a great debate. At least I hope not.
Eh, I don’t see the big deal. It’s your party; it’s not an office function. She’s being childish because she feels excluded. Sorry you can’t make everyone like you, lady. Tough shit.
My coworkers are always trying to convince me that I should invite this one chick nobody likes along with us when we go to lunch, but screw it. I don’t like her and I’m not getting paid to have lunch; therefore it’s MY time and I’ll be damned if I’m spending my time with someone I don’t like. Luckily she doesn’t ever act like it bothers her, but if she did, I’d just be like “I donno. Didn’t occur to me to ask you.” That should say plenty in and of itself.
What sort of relationship do you have with said person? What sort of relationship does she have with your peers, your manager, their manager, etc.? What sort of relationship do you WANT to have with her? All of that affects how to answer her, unfortunately.
For myself, I’d probably tend to go with something like, “Well, you weren’t the only one not invited, first off, and it’s nothing personal. You and I are colleagues; the ones I invited happen to be friends as well. That’s it.”
Then look her politely in the face with the universal neutral “was there something else you wanted?” expression and wait for her to leave.
If she persists, I might unload the big guns. “Look, I don’t mix business and pleasure. If some of my friends happened to be talking about what they were doing, that’s not my problem; if you’ll note, I didn’t say a word about it. It’s nothing personal.”
Further insistence: “We’re done with this topic. Was there anything -business related- that you wanted to talk to me about?”
I don’t tend to get pressured like that very often, though, but maybe that’s because I don’t really hang out with anyone at work, either.
Something similar to this has happened to me recently.
I have a coworker here – call her Sheila – who has always just barely tolerated me, and vice-versa. She’s done a couple of things to me that have really pissed me off, and she’s also managed to misinterpret a couple of our encounters, so she probably has believed that I’ve done wrong to her as well. So be it.
Several months ago, she had a huge birthday party. In addition to all her friends, she invited all of the staff members at our office (and all of the associates) except for me and for one other staff member who was universally hated. Pretty big slap in the face, no? And of course, everyone talked about it afterwards, whereas I hadn’t even known it was happening until the following Monday. As pissed off as I was about the situation, it was her party, and I knew I had no right to insist upon being invited. It was just clear to me that there was intent to leave me out, rather than simply having invited her friends from the office.
Move forward to the present. Although still not anywhere near what you’d consider friends or people who would hang out socially, Sheila and I are friendly enough to one another and joke around in the office and whatnot. This coming weekend, I’m having a birthday celebration, and I’ve invited a very small contingent of my closest friends, some of whom are people I work with or used to work with. The former coworker is someone whom Sheila openly lusted after and has spent some time with since he left the office. He also mentioned to her that he was going to this party of mine.
So I just found out recently that Sheila has confronted one of my other friends (someone else who works here) to find out why she wasn’t invited to my party. My friend pointed out to Sheila that 1) it’s a small gathering of close friends, not an office staff party, 2) we aren’t exactly the best of friends, and 3) she made a point of not inviting me to her blowout bash, and I still have to hear about that from time to time. Her response apparently was that “we had moved past that” and she still doesn’t understand why she wasn’t included. :rolleyes: Now she’s pissed off about it, although she hasn’t said anything to me directly. Oh well!
Enright3, I say you don’t worry about it. You weren’t trying to intentionally slight anyone, and it’s your party. It’s for her to get over; not your problem.
I think that is a very dangerous ground to tread. It’s your party, and you invite who you want, but be aware of consequences for your decisions. Not inviting people is a universal sign that you don’t like them. If you work with a hundred people, it’s a lot easier to pick and choose than if you work with nine.
I absolutely agree that you don’t talk about the weekend party in front of the people who weren’t invited. That is the perfect way to create a cliquish atmosphere.
I have to tell you, Asimovian, I think you did step wrong with Sheila. You had an opportunity to bury the hatchet with her, and be the bigger man, and you didn’t take it. You must have known that she would assume that you are doing to her what she did to you, didn’t you? Unless you meant to escalate hostilities with her, in which case, well played.
I’m secretly envious of all of you who could invite only a portion of office mates and not feel badly about it. I tend to feel like chit if I’ve done something to hurt someone else, even if it’s justified. I’m a wuss
That said, I probably would’ve taken the easy way out and said something along the lines of “Sorry, it was last minute and I didn’t have your correct home number - next time, okay?” or “I thought I’d mentioned it to you. I’m sorry for the oversight.”
What did you expect? You had to have known she would be hurt. Was the benefit of not having her present greater than the cost of facing her afterwards?
Mary always invited Ted.
Her parties sucked, but it wasn’t Ted’s fault.
Personally, I think the polite thing would have been to just invite the other 3. Its an outdoor party, you could have just asked people to bring lawn chairs. Or if your wife had a problem with it, then you could have stopped at 1 or 2 coworkers (or none), not 6 out of 9.
In all sincerity, featherlou, I don’t follow you. I don’t like this person, and she brings a different (and unpleasant) vibe to our group. My birthday party is not about her, and it’s not about work people. It just so happens that a three people in the office and one ex-coworker are among my closest friends.
You’re saying that I should have invited a person that no one amongst my friends wants to hang out with just to shut her up? That genuinely makes no sense to me. From my point of view, all that will do is feed her belief that the fact that someone she likes is going along means she’s entitled. Why do I want to support that and ruin my party at the same time?
Just in case it wasn’t clear from before, this is a small party. There are a total of 9 people attending. All very close friends.
and where does it end? Should I have invited my VP (not counted in the original 9)? I’ve hung out with him socially, and would have rather invited him, but chose not to because of trying to keep the numbers down. He was invited to my wedding.
Four of us went down to lunch in the cafeteria the other day to play Pitch. It’s a four person game! I found out later she was upset that she wasn’t invited to lunch in the cafeteria.
Unfortunately, this is a woman who is insecure.
On hindsight, I should have invited the other three (and still ignored my vp I suppose). There was already over 40 people at my house. What problem would ten more have caused? (spouses and children were invited too)
this is easy…
I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.
It wasn’t a work gathering.
By her own admission, she wouldn’t have come anyway :rolleyes:
~sigh~
and finally… I probably shouldn’t even add this reply and let this thread die a quick death.
I can understand that. I think that with the backstory on you and Sheila, you need to be aware how your actions will be interpreted by her, and be prepared for the consequences. Of course she had no right to come to your birthday party, and she shouldn’t be upset about not being invited, but she is upset, and it sounds like it undid all the steps forward you two have taken in your work relationship. If you aren’t trying to make your relationship with her at work better, it makes no difference if you invite her or not. If you are actually trying to smooth it out, inviting her would probably have helped.
Maybe I’m looking at this from too feminine a perspective; knowing the personalities at work, I’m likely to work with them (to a degree). For example, the insecure lady - I’d make a point of inviting her, knowing that she takes it hard when she gets left out.
Oh dear … I have been that insecure lady. I once sulked so badly about being left out of a colleague’s party that next time he invited me he told me to my face that he was only doing so because I had been so bad-tempered the previous time!
I’d like to think I have learned a lot since then, including the fact that I’ve been something of a jerk for much of my life . I’m working on it.
Anyway, although I agree it is a bit rude to discuss a party around people who haven’t been invited, the fact is that this happens in a lot of workplaces, particularly open-plan offices. The only thing to do if you’ve been left out, IMHO, is just try and ignore the discussions and get on with your own life. I suspect that usually the omission isn’t because of any malice on the part of the party-giver, and it’s just that they don’t have much in common with you.
I throw an annual party, every year even I invite a few of my co-workers, mainly the ones I go for coffee with. People have expressed disappointment, and in one case the silent treatment for 3 months, which was something I wished for from that person for a long time. So that was a good thing there.
The thing is, if I invited my entire office to my house where a lot of my other friends would be it would do two things that I don’t want to happen.
It would sway the party from a gathering of the people that matter to me and Mrs. Prefect to a party of the people whom I already see too much of on a daily basis.
I would be opening up my life to people whom I say hi too, but am not friends with.
It’s your party. Unless you are one of the very lucky ones going to work is a purely business decision. You don’t have to mix business with pleasure just because there are some sensitive souls (or big babies) out there.
I don’t think you’re obligated to invite people you don’t like to your party. Further, your coworkers insecurities are not your problem. If I had a function like yours and after the fact someone that I wasn’t friends with asked why they weren’t invited, I think I’d be inclined to say “Well, we’re not friends.” Assuming they’re not under the illusion that you ARE friends, I see no problem with that.
Anyhow - don’t feel bad. It’s your party, you can cry if you want to. Or something.
The part I don’t understand is the reference to “pictures posted to the website.” Your own personal website? Or the company website?
I absolutely agree that you don’t have to invite anyone to a party that you don’t want to. Parties are personal occasions to which you invite your friends and family – people you want to hang around with socially. Because they aren’t work occasions, merely being a coworker does not entitle anyone to an invitation: You invite your friends (coworkers or not), but you probably don’t invite mere acquaintences (coworkers or not).
So no problem there, IMO.
BUT the line between friend and acquaintence can be one of perception. A person you would prefer to be only an acquaintence or coworker may personally want to be your friend. To have people talk about a party in front of a person who wasn’t invited is pretty insensitive. You’re not responsible for your coworkers’ conversations of course, but it seems like you could have said something like, “Hey, guys, I didn’t invite everybody here at work, so let’s talk about the party later, okay?” Similarly, pictures of the event can be passed around or admired on the web someplace other than work. This is just a matter of respecting the feelings of those who weren’t on the guest list.
IMO, if the event is going to be discussed at work (before or after), or appear in work materials or on the work website, then everyone at work must be invited. If it is a purely social occasion, then it doesn’t need to be discussed at work.
But either way, for her to come in and ask why she wasn’t invited was incredibly rude. The obvious answer is that she wasn’t invited because you didn’t want her to be there: That’s the start and the end of it. To put you in the very uncomfortable position of having to either lie to her or to make that explicit was completely rude. And also counter-productive: Does she think that if she embarrasses you she can bludgeon you into inviting her the next time?
ETA: I see I’ve consistently misspelled “acquaintance” throughout, but it’s too much work to change every one . . . .
I invite a few of my co-workers, mainly the ones I go for coffee with. People have expressed disappointment, and in one case the silent treatment for 3 months, which was something I wished for from that person for a long time. So that was a good thing there.