Working in an office

dktreesea

Something to keep in mind when working out who you can trust and who to steer clear of. Office environments are very "shifting sand" places. Allegiances change all the time. Someone you thought you can trust, and could, back then, changes their allegiances, because cosying up to you is costing them too much with, say, their team leader who can't stand you. One guy once said to me, explaining his attitude (he was in management) "The friend of my enemy is my enemy."

I had a close friend who was told by a particular clique who had invited her out (a group I couldn't stand and didn't mix with who reminded me of the airheads group in that film Mean Girls) that they didn't like me and couldn't understand why she was mixing with me. I found this out from someone else in that clique, after my friend had cooled towards me without any explanation, which really hurt me at the time.

So time went on and eventually my "friend" gravitated back towards me. I guess she got sick of being a support act to the couple in the clique who were all "Oh wow! I am so wonderful. Acknowledge me and spend all your days being fascinated with me, cos I am your resident energy vampire" day in day out. But by then I had moved on. And so had my group, who didn't exactly welcome her back. Years later, after she had moved into an entirely different role she dropped me a couple of emails wanting to catch up but I didn't even bother to reply.

Friendships in offices? People who have been in the same company for years and years may not notice this, but for people like me who have moved around, I have found that even very close relationships don't always survive the outside world. People become close in office environments because they are such warlike places, because you need allies in order to be able to survive. Once you get out of the office though, the conditions that drew the people together aren't there.

The close friends I still have after all these years are people I met outside of work. if you want to survive a nasty place to work, just because you like the work and the pay, and don't want to be going home in floods of tears night in night out, you have to have a strong group of friends and social life outside of work.

poet123

I have several really close friends who I met at work, we don't see each other that often now because we are miles apart, but when we do the years roll away!!

MrsE_2

Your manager is responsible for ensuring you are treated fairly & inclusivly at work - they cannot make people be genuinely friendly to you or to like you. You cannot & you manager cannot make people socialise with you outside of work or want to socialise with you.
To be honest they sound like a pretty nasty immature bunch & I wouldn't waste my time trying to befriend or socialise with them, in work or outside of work.
Your best weapon/defense is to NEVER let them think they have got to you or affected you in anyway. Never even acknowledge their digs, pretend you haven't noticed. It's your best defence.

MrsE_2

I apologise for my spelling - damn iPhone!!!

Poppy9

MrsE wrote: »

I apologise for my spelling - damn iPhone!!!

A bad workman always blames their tools!:D

view

I could have written this myself. I know exactly how you feel and it's awful.

I always try to be inclusive at work, not because I want others to 'like' me, but I would hate to have someone hurting inwardly because they were left out - even if their face, voice and smile is trying to say otherwise.

This can (and did) backfire once when a new person to the office that I was trying to make feel welcome saw me as a soft and easy target and turned into resident mean girl - and tried to exclude me! More interesting to watch than hurtful and no-one really bought her attempt at physiological games and passive aggressiveness. She didn't last long, mainly by shirking work and arguing with pretty much everyone!

I try to take myself out of the picture and view it if you're looking in - see it for what it's worth and say to yourself 'how sad XX person needs to act this way, they're obviously threatened or lacking their own emotional stability'. Deal with it in your mind there and then and move on.

People like this are not long term winners.

If you love your job, don't let folk push you out. Keep the smile on, however hard it is, do your job to your best ability. Learn the phrases to ensure your side is heard, especially in a meeting environment.Know that your ideas may not always be the best. Be calm, in control and try to keep an even temper.

When you hear them saying things you can either - make a note or completely pretend you didn't hear and just get on with loving your job. It's like anything - you give something/someone no attention, they'll get tired of doing it and move on. They're looking for a reaction from you - don't give it!

We all allow ourselves to be upset by what someone else says or does - we allow it (yes me too!) and the more you practice at not allowing this the better you'll feel and the more confident you'll become.

You probably have 30ish? more? years ahead of work?.. don't let this little bit of stupid behaviour ruin things early on.

Please please don't give up. You love this job, you're doing well (and that probably is the reason you're a target). Find the inner strength.

Keep it up and you'll probably end up being their manager one day! ;-)

Best of luck!

marisco_2

asusasus wrote: »

My self-confidence is at zero, I hardly utter two words in the entire working day anymore and they probably think I am a weirdo. It's like high-school behaviour, I'm not in their "clique", I am not invited to lunch, my contributions are shot down in flames. Feel like I'm being pushed out of a job I adore by gossip and rude co-workers.

Poppy9 wrote: »

This is very judgemental and assuming that all the others are at fault.

Poppy9 I am sorry that you feel I jumped to judgemental assumptions in my summing up of the OPs colleagues. Going by what she disclosed to us about her office, as quoted above, I feel I came to a well informed conclusion about her working environment and the people she works alongside.

lippy1923

Personally if I were you, I would stop trying to fit in so much and focus on enjoying your work. It sounds like jealousy as you are so liked and accepted by the boss so that only means you are the ideal employee and doing your job right. Sod all the green eyed monsters!

Are you allowed to wear headphones? If so, just keep working hard and plug in your ipod. Makes the day fly by

Try being the inviter at lunch times and invite the people who you actually like or are worth spending your time with.

splishsplash

[Devil's advocate mode] OP, your colleagues sound petty and immature, but I'm sure your side of the story is not the only one.

As a general rule, I avoid bringing complaints to management unless I have been unable to resolve things myself. To put some perspective on it, in all my (30+) years working, I've brought complaints to management about colleagues exactly zero times.

Do you think some of your current predicament is due to the fact that you complained about a colleague to a team leader without talking to them directly first?

I think if I did that, no matter how justified I felt I was, I wouldn't be surprised to be sidelined by them socially.
Would you be happy to spend your own time with someone you felt had shafted you at work?

I don't for a minute condone the 'grunting' or unprofessional reaction to your suggestions and input. I don't know whether your input had merit or was ridiculous.

I do wonder why the same people who have worked there for many years and who were sufficiently good enough at their jobs to train you up and who were friendly to you should suddenly turn and start gossiping and making sly comments behind your back? Is there an obvious deparity in workloads between them and you? Are you one of the 'favoured employees? Or are you taking on a workload that is perceived to be too much for your contracted hours? Why is it that all the negativity seems to be directed at you? I'm not sure if there isn't more to this that you're not seeing. I know if it were me, I'd be talking to everyone asap to do some fact finding and set the record straight about workloads.
[/Devil's advocate mode]

I hope you find a way to move forward and enjoy your job and hopefully your colleagues too.

Poppy9

marisco wrote: »

Poppy9 I am sorry that you feel I jumped to judgemental assumptions in my summing up of the OPs colleagues. Going by what she disclosed to us about her office, as quoted above, I feel I came to a well informed conclusion about her working environment and the people she works alongside.

Thats okay it's just that as the OP has used an AI and there are no other posts to give a feel about the person so everyone is assuming the "others" are at fault which may or may not be the case.

I think it's helpful to the OP to try to make her see things from other people's point of view. Not one of us is perfect and sometimes when you "know" the person you may have more understanding of why others are reacting to them in a specific way.

i.e. with my DD. Going through school and listening to the normal rants about others I felt I was helping her by getting her to see how her behaviour influences others. Batari box

In the OP she talked about while out socially they all moved to exclude her. I found that very strange as I have personally never witnessed a group of people purposely moving one chair away from the group to drive home that the person was an outsider. I really can't imagine one person saying "lets move X's chair to let her know we don't like her" and everyone saying "yes, great idea". More likely as often happens at social events people chair shuffle and move around the table to talk to different groups. Sometimes you are up dancing, in the loo and you come back and some one is in your seat and there are no spare chairs because someone else has wandered over. So you just hover or ask someone to budge up to share a chair. No offence is meant, people are just socialising.

There is always one group of people who don't move from the table or their seats, in this case it seems to be team managers. Often these people remained fixed in their seat as they are scared of losing their place.