I don’t think you need to invite everyone at work to your parties. You just need to not talk about those parties in front of people who were not invited. That is simple manners that every 6-yo kid knows.
Another one who agrees that you can invite who you want to or not. It would be harsh if you invited everyone but one or two - as in Asomovian’s case - but you only invited some.
And if you are one of the ones not invited, take a look at your own behavior, for Og’s sakes. Have you done anything to make people invite you? And by this I also mean are they even your friends? if not, and you have been nice, just smile and move on. Big deal. If you think they are your friend and they didn’t invite you, perhaps it’s time to examine your own behavior.
BTW, I think Asimovian did just fine. I don’t think he had any need to invite her. With people like that it’s best to keep it on a professional basis anyway, and not go to her parties or invite her home.
Also I can’t see that talking about it is going to be avoided…however the host should at least try to keep it to a minimum. That’s only polite.
Lastly, I’d say if you have less than five people in your office, it has to be all or none, or at the least, only one. 10 or more? No way you should be expected to invite them all.
(Then again, after all that, I am of the caliber that would rather not invite any of my coworkers. I like to keep my lives separate.)
Percentages matter. The smaller the percent of the group you are inviting, the more total people from that group you can invite. I think the OP had two problems. He invited two-thirds of the co-workers, which is too high a percentage of the group. And he failed to invite a co-worker who is insecure and prone to getting her feelings hurt.
Inviting six co-workers out of twenty would probably not be a problem. Six out of a hundred–no problem whatsoever. Six out of Seven–big problem, you can’t invite all but one. Six of Nine? Too many. How many should you invite? Probably more like 3 or 4. Or else invite all nine, and hope that the ones you don’t really want to see at the party have other commitments and don’t want to come to your party any more than you want them to come.
Just for clarity, I want to point out a few things (and this isn’t directed specifically at featherlou – my wife pointed out that I might have left out some relevant details of the situation).
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I never expected Sheila to hear about this to begin with. One of my friends slipped and mentioned it in front of her accidentally. So I didn’t have any way of anticipating her reaction because I never expected it to be an issue to begin with.
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Although I’m not trying to antagonize Sheila, I’m not making any effort to try to be friends with her, either. Having things go smoothly between us at work is fine, but I want nothing from her outside of that. She is not part of my social sphere.
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Beyond me, there are eight other employees here who are essentially on the same level of the food chain. If you count the entire office, there are 14 other people here. I invited a total of three of them. Definitely not something that should have been considered an “office function.”
Hope that’s helpful.
And to Enright3, it sounds like things might have been a little smoother for you had you simply chosen to include everyone (going along a bit with what featherlou has said). However, as others have pointed out, it certainly was not your obligation to do so, and it sounds like this coworker would have found plenty to complain about regardless. It wasn’t just this one incident. Inviting her to this one gathering would only have served to postpone the inevitable, it seems.
What, exactly is “the website?”
Invite everyone. The ones that you are not close to will give an excuse why they can not make it. They know how you feel.
You are not obligated to invite everyone.
You cannot invite “almost everyone” and leave just one or two people out (assuming a group size bigger than two or three). That’s just mean. I almost guarentee the person you didn’t want to invite won’t show anyway.
Its rude to talk about parties around people who weren’t invited (as, I agree, we all should have learned in second grade).
Its ALSO rude to whine if you weren’t invited, or to demand invitations, or to otherwise do anything than say “oh, it sounds like you guys had a great time” (perhaps you can fish a little for an invitation next time if its subtle “I really like playing cards, if you ever need a forth.”)