To be upset that I don't seem to fit in at my workplace?

[CleanaholicSpendaholic]

I have been in my current job for about 15 months. Everyone there is nice enough but I don't think they see me as part of the gang or particularly like me.

It is just small things such as being excluded from things like the Secret Santa planned for next month. Or not being asked to sign peoples' birthday cards. Or everyone just disappearing at lunch time to the cafe down the road and no one asking me if I want to go.

What is more hurtful too is a new member of staff started only a couple of weeks ago and she's been welcomed into the gang and is treated like an old friend.

About a month ago our boss rearranged our seating plan and put me in a small office with one other woman, who is also very much part of the gang. She's pleasant and polite enough but it's like she can't wait to get away from me. Today she was perched on the end of a desk in the main, larger office for a couple of hours. I feel isolated in the office just left on my own and hearing the others laughing loudly. Quite often if I've been to lunch I get back and she is back at her desk with 2 or 3 other colleagues in our office with her but they all exchange pleasantries with me once I'm back and go into their offices and she then follows shortly.

I have tried so hard to be friendly and to make an effort. I don't want to be best buddies with them all but I'd like to have 'work friends'. One of them is a similar age to me (the others are mostly younger) and said she wanted to take her kids to a place one weekend and I said mine would like to go there too and perhaps we could go together and she looked like she'd been sucking lemons and just said nothing.

I know the answer is to not care but how do I do this? How do I stop giving a shit about whether people at work like me or not?

I used to fit in well at work but lots changed while I was on maternity leave (new people starting, new friendships formed etc). Since I came back earlier this year I've been kind of left out of things too - work-related and social things. It sucks.

I agree with previous posters - don't let them get to you and keep your eyes peeled for something else. That's what I'm doing.

I have this at my work - I moved to a different department because of a re-structure (but am still doing the same job) and my new team are real meanies. They have their "special friends" and while they are always very polite, but never very friendly - almost nine months on I feel like a new person and really isolated. Fortunately I have friends within the company to go for coffee/lunch with, and I am out of the office a lot, so I am now just resigned to it. It is shit though. Some days I pretty much say "good morning" and "right, I'm off home, goodnight" and that's it from 8.30 - 5!

Office I work in I'm youngest by like 10 years and sometimes I feel excluded. The office next to me though are all around my age and the bitchyness and clique-ness I hear from them is ridiculous lol.

I tend to bring in cupcakes now and again for the office. That tends to get people talking to you and being friendly.

That's rotten OP. FWIW, I recently joined a company as a manager of a small team, and one person in that team was being excluded. She tried her absolute best, but it was too late and she was never going to be accepted - sadly I gather she made a faux pas in her first week, way before my time, and had succeeded in compounding that error repeatedly before realising and trying to reverse the damage (she was rather arrogant and dogmatic in her treatment of other people). In her angst over being unable to win them back over, she ended up going off sick with stress. I had many meetings with her, mopping up her tears of anger and despair, poor girl.

I didn't find her particularly unlikeable personally, she was a bit of a know-all at times, but I thought she was vulnerable and maybe damaged, and felt rather sorry for her. Anyhow, luckily she managed to transfer to another department and I'm pleased to say that she seems to have fitted in very well so far - she looks brighter and happier and really seems to have blossomed in her new environment. Just goes to show, being a tricky personality doesn't mean you can't belong somewhere. It just means it can take some time to find your spot.

And the moral of all that waffle is to say, fuck em - life is way too short to feel unhappy at work, it doesn't have to be like that. Move on!

Oh before I am misinterpreted I am not trying to insinuate that you are a tricky personality!!! Just relaying the story of a girl who was excluded, for whatever reason, but found comfort and acceptance elsewhere when she finally escaped. That was my intended message.

It's them - not you op
Have RTWT and for me it sound like there is a rather toxic and unkind culture . And your boss sounds like a shit too . I think all you can do is strengthen your resolve as they sound very unkind and who wants to befriend People like that ?
There is better out there op

I agree with this also cliques have to have an outsider for the rest to be insiders. As to why you- no real reason

I have similar where I work and I've seen the outsider change sometimes, but there is always one or two deliberately excluded.

Unfortunately getting another job isn't an option for me but neither have they taken it the level you describe. The secret santa and card thing pushes this into workplace bullying in my opinion. It is not a professional way to treat colleagues to exclude someone in such a blatant way from activities which may be social but are nevertheless based in the office.

Wagglebees awwwww thanks

Fuck 'em op!! I'm in the exact same boat as you and currently looking for something else. 16 colleagues arranged to get Chinese food delivered for lunch the other week - and sat and ate it in the kitchen together - all except me and the 2 directors. It all went quite quiet when I walked in to fill my water jug. I just smiled and said "looks delicious" and walked out again. You're better than them op, I'm sure you wouldn't sit back and watch whilst one person was being isolated and alienated. Chin up and march on!!

Re secret santa. Buy yourself a great present and bring it in on the day and pop it in your desk. Say "wow, it's so nice to be included". Seriously, I'd leave. I usually give myself 6 months in a job. I've been with my present company 10 years.

With the secret Santa, you could be more bold, go up to the organiser and tell her that you would like to join and put your name down, when you see a card going round, say Oooh I would like to sign that too. If you see them all going for lunch together, oh can I join you!

to the posters who have said about maybe making a faux pas at the beginning or something

what kind of twats would make that person pay for their (unknowing) mistake for the whole rest of the time they are working there? that's not ok? surely better to just point it out ffs

I hate the subtle politics of office work, absolutely can not be arsed with it at all, am self employed now and would rather jump off a cliff than have to work with others again, and pray I never have to

I was a PA and went for a client dinner along with several other colleagues. and my dp at the time picked me up when it was over, as i didnt have a car, and apparently (I found out the next day) dp collecting me was completely wrong and "everyone was completely mortified "APPARENTLY and I got so much shit for it. he didn't come and sit at the fucking table all he did was pop his head round the door so i knew he was there, no one had mobiles then. I was only 19, just a kid years later still clearly gets to me

Get out of there asap

I've just spent the last 7 years on the outside of a truly horrid clique of school mums. I was new to the school and area and so I wanted to make friends. Sadly I just didn't fit in

A few months or so ago I was meant to be going out with one of them early evening but she texted me at 4.30 from the pub they had all been in since midday telling me she couldn't make it to meet at my house at 6 but could I come to the pub now. I didn't realise there were 15 of them all there and I wasn't invited at lunch It was AWFUL. I felt so small when they were all sat there chatting and laughing. Most didn't even look up and say hello when I walked in alone The worst thing is the organiser said about a hundred times 'oh we forgot you again hah hah' after 7 years? Horrible people.

this year tho before this I've been actively working on other friends and had friendship goals and broadened my horizons a lot. Met some gorgeous ladies and cemented other ones. Joined a book club and a group through meet up. So so so much better. I wish I'd dumped those bitches years ago.

Moral of my story get a new job and don't do what I did - it will eat away at you and it's not worth it. If only I had done that I would have saved myself a lot of grief from their snubs

good luck OP

"I felt so small when they were all sat there chatting and laughing. Most didn't even look up and say hello when I walked in alone The worst thing is the organiser said about a hundred times 'oh we forgot you again hah hah' after 7 years? Horrible people."

Wow, just wow. nina. Glad you found your 'tribe' now.

i truly and honestly cannot, even if i try really hard, comprehend how grown women can behave like this. I have been at the receiving end of attitudes like this from a clique in a different setting. I don't get it. It's so rude, petty and pathetic.

The only thing I can imagine is that women like these have not had a proper upbringing, where they have learned decent manners. I don't become friends with everyone but I treat every person i meet in life in a polite and respectful way, even if I don't actually like them much. It would be nice if others behaved in a similar way.

OP, i second talking to your line manager. If he tries to brush it of, stay calm and say that you are serious. Ask if there is anything that you can do to be more included, or if he is ware of talk about you and can help you adjust, kit is his responsibility and he does have a duty of care!!!

Group activities such as secret Santa should be inclusive or not happen at all at the work place. I would then follow up the meeting with an email summarising what has been said and stating that your very much appreciate his support in this matter so that there is a paper trail. If that fails, could you have a discrete word with an HR person? are they on site?

In the long run I would probably look for a job elsewhere.

Looking for aniother job is one solution or could you ask to move departments maybe? Being stuck on your own with one other isnt great. Especially as she sounds a lazy one perched outside having a laugh! She must have the boss wrapped round her finger to get away with that.
Office politics are hard, i was bullied in my first job at 17, i ended,up leaving ( or i think i,would have done something very silly) got another after a few months and never looked back for 13 years.
They sound really horrible - good advice on here though as always. Good luck and dont let them get you down too much.

Ugh. How shitty for you OP. I guarantee it won't be something you've done. Remain aloof, and start looking elsewhere. Don't show them you care.

I work in education and have always been lucky that my team mates have been amazing. I now work on my own at a secondary school. I don't have a team, and although other staff are pleasant and chatty to me, I don't get invited to nights out and end up sat on the edge of groups at staff events. Always feel a bit of an odd one out but I think it's more circumstance than malicious behaviour. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter enough for me to change jobs, but it does get lonely.

You really should leave OP, and you won't be a failure for doing so. Spending days ostracised by others is really not good for you.
Start looking for a new job.

Arrange to speak to your manager. This is exclusion which does come under work place bullying.
All very well people albeit with the best intentions I don't doubt telling you to look for another job, but getting another job will like everything in this life far easier said than done, and with the greatest respect. They're not going to pay your bills and mortgage for you. Plus you've done nothing wrong. Why should you be forced to become possibly unemployed because of a group of clique exclusive bitches.

OP, you're not the boss of them are you?

You're being bullied in an exclusionary way. Adults do it too, for reasons only known to themselves.

I would say that possibly the woman in your office is the centre of this bullying. Perhaps she's been there a long time and gathered a clique around her.

Chances are other people are not happy with it but go along with it to keep below the radar and not be on the receiving end themselves (cowardly but human).

You have 3 options:

1. Make a formal complaint. Being excluded from secret santa and social occasions is bullying behaviour. Everyone should be in or they shouldn't happen. Anyone who argues otherwise is a bully.
2. Leave. Chances are after you complain things won't change unless the central instigator leaves/others realise what she is doing.
3. Hope someone joins you in your office and can see from the get go what is happening. This happened in one of my workplaces and at school and both times saved me from feeling increasingly isolated because of one person who found me a threat to the affair she was having with our manager. I didn't realise that's why she didn't like me for years. It was only when the business grew and others joined and we had a sort of sub-group who socialised separately that I was released from the bully cycle and she stopped. Around about the time her co-workers started to leave and she needed to then ingratiate herself to us/me.

Personally, I wouldn't bank on 3 happening unless the business is growing.
So I would either leave and then tell them why or complain and then leave.

Remember: it is never about you. You must be a threat to her somehow for her to want to do this to you. That is all about her weirdness and other people will have noticed it too and are just staying quiet for an easy life.

Op I'm so sorry for you, they sound truly horrible. I've had this happen to me before and it sapped my confidence and like you I was bullied at school, so all those horrible feelings come to the fore. I worked in an office once where my life was made miserable by the women there. There is nothing wrong with you, they are just thoughtless. You have one of two choices end it or mend it. I'd be inclined to look for another job, do you really want to win them round? I know some people may say it's just a job but you have to be happy at work and not dread the people there. Think of it as an exciting change in your life, you sound like a nice person in the way you write. Find a job where you're appreciated. Good luck.

Gosh so not only have new starters got to get used to a new environment, work colleagues, routine and system, they have to be mind readers too! That shoukd be in the job description.

Gosh so not only have new starters got to get used to a new environment, work colleagues, routine and system, they have to be mind readers too! That shoukd be in the job description

THIS ^^

its fucking disgusting that people have been ostracised for one "faux pas" (faux pas, pathetic anyway what is it, work, or tea with the queen?) seriously does anyone think this is ok?

Op this sounds unbearable. This is definitely bullying. You can't carry on like this. I think you have 2 choices.
The easiest choice is leave and find a new job, if you can.
If you want or need to stay then you are going to have to raise it with your manager or further up the chain if they are not taking it seriously. But before you raise it you need to keep a diary for a while so you've got documented evidence. Also if you haven't already, join a union so you've got some back up with raising this. If you've raised this with your managers and nothing has been done, you could get legal advice about going to tribunal for constructive dismissal (if you've been in your job for more than 2 years. )

How's it been today CleanaholicSpendaholic?