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Being excluded at work
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Hi - don't know if this is the right place to post so please move if not.
Anyway, I am quite a senior person at work and the team secretary, who incidentally, I interviewed for her job has just got engaged. One of my co-workers has just returned from her honeymoon (she is at the same level of seniority as me) and the secretary invites all the ladies (minus me and another female colleague) out for a "girlie"lunch to look at wedding pictures and talk about weddings. I am engaged too. I feel quite upset about this as I feel excluded. I only found out about this because one of my colleagues who was going to lunch thought I was going too!
Am I right to feel hurt and what should I do?
Anyway, I am quite a senior person at work and the team secretary, who incidentally, I interviewed for her job has just got engaged. One of my co-workers has just returned from her honeymoon (she is at the same level of seniority as me) and the secretary invites all the ladies (minus me and another female colleague) out for a "girlie"lunch to look at wedding pictures and talk about weddings. I am engaged too. I feel quite upset about this as I feel excluded. I only found out about this because one of my colleagues who was going to lunch thought I was going too!
Am I right to feel hurt and what should I do?
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As you are a senior member at work and therefore respected at work, as you've been there for a long time, I presume, I would also wonder why I hadn't been invited.
As for the solution and reasons why, other than asking the person concerned (who may of course not give an honest answer), I don't know what to advise.
However, it may lead you to be more circumspect in your relationship with them at a job level. In other words, as the expression goes, treat your friends close, but treat your enemies closer.
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here.
As you climb the corporate ladder, you realise you can't be buddies with your colleagues any longer. This doesn't mean they don't like you, it's possible they feel a wee bit 'restrained'. when more senior staff are present.
I really wouldn't worry about it - if I were going for a girlie lunch, I wouldn't ask my boss no matter how much I liked her
Do they ask you on nights out, btw?
You treat her like a subordinate????? ouch.
You may be the sort of person who has changed as she's climbed the ladder.
There is a saying to be careful of who you stand on, on your way up because you might see them again while you're on your way back down again.
Take an honest inventory of yourself, have you changed?
I've spent years in management and it would NEVER enter my head to think of treating any of my staff as SUBORDINATES.
I had sympathy until I read that. Horrible way to treat staff to be honest and not likely to get the best out of them. Never worked for me anyway.
as paulyoung666 says 'office politics' - a bloody minefield!
She's purposely excluded you (and your colleague) for a reason. Learn from this. There's nothing you can, or should do about it, but take it as a sign, and be watchful.
I absolutely agree with you - perhaps I expressed it poorly - prior to this I was very much when I asked for something and she said oh I can't do that today I would say don't worry about it, it is not urgent, try and get it done when you can if you are busy. Now I am being more when she says that she can't get something done I ask why not and what is she doing instead.
Prioritising workload is fine, that's not treating her like a subordinate don't do that, it's managing that is about two decades out of date.
I think you need to ask yourself why she is not respecting you. Why is she prioritising other manager's work over yours. To question her workload is fine, no problem there.
Forget the lunch thing, she doesn't like you are you're being snubbed. Nothing you can do about that.
Don't let her behaviour affect yours though, if you do that she wins. If you are treating her differently to other staff because of personal differences, that's totally unprofessional and the gap will widen.
As a manager you have to rise above it. You have to treat everyone the same, it's hard particularly if you dont like someone but it goes with the territory.
Have you spoken to the other manager who is at your level but in the clique about it? Have you got a senior manager who you can go to for advise?
I was fortunate that I worked for a large company who had their own training department so we had loads of support, loads of management training, residential courses, one day courses, half day courses so that we were supported and guided through the process.
It's not easy, when I was new to management and caught a member of staff on private calls, she had no respect for me and just had a "so what" attitude. I remember wanting the floor to swallow me up whole. I got the hang of it but not without loads of support.
As a manager I've only once ever been able to be my staff's friends and that was a truly wonderful job, it was fantastic but it was one role for a couple of years when I could balance that mix between friend and manager. I never did it before nor after again.
Perhaps that's the line you're looking at, do you want to be friend or manager, but managers unless they want a mutiny should try to treat all staff exactly the same and not pick out one for the subordinate treatment because she didn't invite you for lunch.
Sorry.
Or maybe they are just mean?
Not everyone likes everyone and she's free to ask who she wants to discuss her wedding. Sorry to be blunt.
It's really neither here nor there, so just get on with your life and act like the professional you certainly are.
This sort of thing happened recently to me, where a friend had arranged for me and another chum to go out one evening for a pre Christmas meal. Oh the furore that broke out from one person when I said we were going out 'oh if you're organising the Xmas meal you had better tell XYZ as she thinks she's organising it'. This woman went off and stirred up a hornets nest and in the end I had to say SLOWLY AND LOUDLY (yes, shouting) to all and sundry that three of us had decided some while ago to have a meal out together, and no it wasn't the official 'do', and no I wasn't organising the official 'do', and xyz was still organising it. Followed by 'do you all understand that?' FFS what a carry on about nothing we had. Life is too short
Justifiable cause for throwing a sickie till it all blows over I should think.
It is horrible and I don't blame you for feeling upset. But that you term her lower than you speaks volumes to me about how you view the relationship - subordinate and stupid are the words that stand out. Your secretary might feel that in how you treat her. Just because you are engaged it doesn't mean that you have a right to go to a lunch since it's not the subject but the people who go that matter, as The Vixen says, think about you are with her and the others. Maybe the girls that went were more involved in her wedding or the celebrations at work? Does the other person on the same level treat her differently?
Moving forward, perhaps swallow some pride and organise a lunch too and make it fun. If you sulk or be obviously offended about this then it may galvanise then even more to exclude you or ruin the professional exterior you have worked hard at. As as already been said, if you climb the career ladder then you have to accept that others won't move with you and will be wary of you, it is the price you pay. The other alternative is that you make friends with those who are on the same level and leave them be but remember it is only work, you're best mates should be for home.
If you want a lunch, then arrange your own.