Clique at work

[AttractiveAlpaca]

NC for this, as I've posted quite a bit in my old name.

I'm a teacher in a relatively small school, with approximately 55 teachers / TAs / office staff. I've worked there for 15 years, and it's always been a cliquey place - social events arranged in secret etc. Membership of the clique is both male and female, and all ages. It isn't long-timers; new staff get invited to join by some mysterious process as the other members decide they are suitable. If non-clique people go to the (few) social events that are properly advertised to all staff, we are subtly made to feel unwelcome & generally don't bother going again.

There have recently been some milestone birthdays amongst clique members, and the clique has made a huge fuss about these - banners, balloons, tiaras, photos of social events with lots of "Oh it was so funny" type stories. Naturally, this has just emphasised the division between the staff. A very long-serving teacher (who is actually a lovely person & would be devastated to know people felt this way) is leaving in the summer, and the clique organised a leaving do for them on their invitation-only WhatsApp group. This was discovered, and protests made that everyone should be invited. There's now a What'sApp group called XX's Leaving Do, which non-clique members have been invited to join. However, it's blindingly obvious that it isn't the main WhatsApp group, and has been created to fob us off. Should we (a) say nothing and quietly leave, or (b) say "Are you sure you've added us to the right social group? There don't seem to be many here 🤔"

Thank you if you've managed to get to the end of this! I realise that it's ridiculous to be giving it so much head space, but it is bugging me. I really don't see what's so bloody difficult about putting a notice up saying (for example) Everyone welcome at the pub after work on Friday.

@FiftyNotNifty one thing that massively changed my social life at work was changing role which meant moving office. Suddenly I was physically at the opposite end of the school, had more things to do which got me out of my classroom and department and busy doing other things. My current role is pastoral so it’s really pupil focussed which I like, so I get my ‘social’ fix chatting to them as they pop in all lunchtime and break time to ask about various things to do with exams and other bits and bobs. It doesn’t replace having a work bestie, but it does mean that I’m not eating lunch on my own which I did in my previous role, in an office by myself in a corner of the school where no one ever goes 🤣

I appreciate that you're upset about this, OP, but it still sounds like a total non-issue to me. It doesn't sound to me in the least as if you were 'deceived' or 'added to a 'fake' WhatsApp group' -- a separate group was created for the purpose of the all-staff leaving do, called 'X's Leaving Do', and you were added to that. Where is the intent to 'deceive'? Why would you expect to be added to their separate friendship WhatsApp, which presumably doesn't make any pretence of being for all staff, just their own friends?

I don't see the issue with the Christmas do either. Your friend was nice enough to give a lift to someone, and that person thanked her and bought her a drink. Did your friend think she was exchanging a lift for this person's company all evening or 'clique entry' or something? Again, with 55 people at a party, isn't it natural to tend to cluster into smaller groups with people spending most of their evening talking to the people on the staff they're closest to?

Are you saying that other than this group, there are literally no other subgroups out of the 55 staff members who see one another socially out of work time, or just tend to chat more in the staff room?

How many people are in the 'clique' out of the 55? It would be a different affair if the 'clique' consisted of 53 people, leaving only two outliers, but I assume if this were the case, you'd have said so?

I don't know exactly how many people are in the bloody clique Midwinter because I'm not part of it!

You seem very hung up on the '55 staff' figure. That's an estimate of the total number of teachers, TAs, office staff and ground staff. Probably thirty or so actually use the staff room in my phase of the school. Teaching is a lonely job, and, as you work in a university department, you will understand the importance of adult company at break or lunch time. It would be nice to have a supportive, inclusive environment, which unfortunately it isn't. I discovered this week that one of the TAs has, for many years, held a summer party to which "everyone goes" and "it's great fun." Well no, not everyone goes, and those who attend clearly know it's impolite to exclude people because they've kept it a secret all these years!

Very sensible rules @SilverGlitterBaubles

@AttractiveAlpaca that type of "summer party" shit is so gutting isn't it!
It is a lonely job, and I hate that I spend time wondering why I'm nor accepted or wanted

These are certainly Golden Rules, especially if you are a team leader. After I retired I became good friends with 3 ex teaching colleagues. Two of whom I had little contact with in school and the third was a member of my faculty.
I doubt if we’d be friends if we’d had day to day close contact, with all the work dramas.

This!

I agree but it leaves you feeling you can't trust your colleagues even on a professional level which, in a career such as teaching where you need to all have each other's backs, can leave you feeling very vulnerable.

There's a clique in my school nutrition doesn't bother me. They're all the younger teachers and it's not a mean clique - they're just friends and whilst some of their chat is exclusionary, I don't expect to be included in everything and still trust them professionally. At the point at which it begins to feel like bullying though that trust is lost.

I have Jo interest in being friends or socialising withy colleagues outside for work but we need to maintain professional 'friendships' for our sanity asuch as anything.

I get you op - it's soul destroying.

I've worked a four schools over 25 years and only one was like this and it is it horribly divisive and it is often those who hold positions which should make them more aware (head of re/inclusion /slt). It wasn't so much as a socialising out of work as a elitist cronyism. One started a splinter lunch group in a separate room and only invited certain people including certain new starters. It's was awful looking back. My HOD would stop talking to me and turn their back on me if one of them walked in. There was a key 'coven' and multiple cliques and if your face didn't fit you were largely a lone operator.

You cannot do anything. And unless you have experienced it you cannot understand it. I get the impression some NHS worker have the same experiences

Also its not about being friends with these people but a common decency and civility between colleagues that do a tough job. I was really sick once and no one bothered to check to see if I was ok. And I had no one to ask for a little help other that the chain of command.

In comparison to my current place which is a lovely fun, sociable place to work. We have a whole school and department group chats and there are friendship groups that go out separately too but it just works.

Sorry you experience it. You just have to manage it and lower your exceptions.

yeh, I think it's true that a lot of people who haven't been through it (or who are perpetrating it) will say ''It's just work'', ''they're colleagues not friends'' but you're there all day every day. If I wasn't working I'd have time to go to pilates, and book clubs and coffee mornings and so on and meet more of my social needs outside of work.

Often on these threads somebody or several somebodies will pop up to shame an OP for having social needs. But after my last therapist, I realise it's completely normal and not at all shameful to have some social needs and to hope that they will be partially met at work, where you have to be.

I would recommend changing job if you can though @AttractiveAlpaca this situation has been going on for so long it's just hopeless.

I went four days a week in my own job 5 0r 6 years ago when I was going through this as I wanted to centre myself, I sat around watching philosophy videos and making little sculptures and going for long walks and generally just looking after myself, eating really well. I guess not having been bullied as a child it was the first time I'd thought about my reaction to being excluded and rejected. But my reaction was NORMAL. I had a normal reaction to extremely bad behaviour from one queen bee and a load of sheep.

I was lucky, eventually that woman, I will call her Enid, she got promoted and left. Everybody got her a card and a collection and so on. There was a lunch and a select few were invited! The usual. She always had to be excluding. I wrote on her card ''You light up the room when you leave, congratulations on the promotion''. Ha ha. I saw a thread on here about what to write on the card of somebody who's been a bugger to you and I laughed. I wrote it after everybody else had signed it. Pretty much only she herself would have seen it.

After she left there was almost instantly an environment of inclusion.

But, op's situation is more entrenched I think. It's not just one bad apple. It's a couple of good apples in a barrel of rotten apples.

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the trouble to reply. It's helpful to hear that other people have experienced workplace exclusion and that, however much you try not to give it head space, it's natural to feel a little upset. I think I need to accept that, but not dwell on it or try to victim-blame myself, thinking I have done something 'wrong'. A colleague from some years ago said to me, "Alpaca, they haven't invited you to join their group because deep down they know that you're not like them." I find this comment quite useful; if I have to exclude others to feel good about myself, gossip maliciously and drink to excess, then I'd rather stay being me. (Don't get me wrong, I like a 🍷, but I'm not a going-out-clubbing drinking-shots-after-1am type person!)

I guess that bright and breezy is the way forward, and focusing on the friends I do have, whether in or out of work. Focusing on the good apples rather than the barrel of rotten apples. Unfortunately @Fuerza changing jobs isn't a likely option as I'm at the top of the pay scale and I think I'll be at the school until I retire. Hopefully not too many years, now.

I agree it is soul destroying to be left out of things. Its not hard to have leaving events arranged and invite everyone.
The clique sound a pretty toxic bunch,.. not good in a school environment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. In my first job I was in the clique because I was young and keen and eager to please and be friends with everyone and then I accidentally offended the queen bee and was completely dropped.

I was devastated. And so lonely.

But I realised that whilst I was in the clique I felt totally uncomfortable. They all drank heavily and caused endless drama and had affairs and god knows what. I always felt on edge because they weren’t really my people. Gossip was currency and exclusion was rife.
I kept my head down, some new people joined and things settled down a bit.
Since then, in every new job I’ve had I’ve been very very circumspect, kept myself to myself and tried to just be friendly with everyone but not get drawn in to cliquey behaviour. And I’ve been much happier.