WIBU to tell my team members they must attend this leaving do?

[regenerator]

Ok, I know I would be but I do feel I would be justified in raising the matter.

We are a small team in a larger organisation and one of our team members is leaving having been with us for almost 5 years. Everyone was positive about going out to say goodbye, and we usually go out as a team at Christmas/when someone leaves etc - we don't socialise a lot but mark occasions and always have a good time when we do. Organising a date for a 'do' was hard as we are all busy people, but we finally got one that suited everyone.

We decided to have the meal in a location about 30 minutes drive from where we work, which is nearer to where leaving girl lives. Aside from one person, no one lives in the town we work in, so there is no 'obvious' location we could go to that would suit everyone.

The day after we settled on a date, the management of our organisation announced that there would be a 'summer party' held on the same date in our place of work - a licenced bar, buffet etc. Two of our team members immediately started saying they would like to go to that and leaving girl immediately started trying to accommodate them, suggesting other dates etc. None were any good and they said they would go to the staff do for an hour or so and then come to the leaving do.

However, the leaving girl feels it isn't fair to expect them to come as, with the distance, if they don't have a meal it won't be worth the time spent to get there - neither of them wants to drive, which is obviously fair enough. She has left it with them and nothing has been said for a day or so and she has said to me, sadly, not sulkily or in a flounce, that she may just 'leave it'.

I feel so bad for her as she has been a great person to work with and a friend and now may leave without it being marked. I also feel these two were incredibly rude to go back on plans made and would like to gently point this out. I get that, for one reason or another, they both know a lot more people in the wider organisation than the rest of our team does, so that's why they want to go to the summer party. But...no one else is leaving, they can go to any number of occasions with their other friend. Our colleague is leaving and we probably won't see her again. It may well be that they don't realise how she is feeling...

WIBU to do that? I am the manager of the team, if it matters.

[RortyCrankle]

I suggested up thread that you change the date of the leaving do - why does it have to be on one specific day?

[bbcessex]

Sorry OP.. didn't see your update. Glad you've calmed down .. night time is always the worst lens to look through!

[user1476869312]

Sounds like the rest of your team don't care for you or the woman who is leaving and you don't care for them. Why don't you take your mate out for a nice dinner instead of going to the staff party? Then everyone will be happy.

[gillybeanz]

I like being nice, courteous and friendly to colleagues during work hours.
Quite a lot socialise outside work for leavers or birthdays.
No way, would I go and you'd be told to Fuck off if you started preaching that I had to go.
There is no contract anywhere that says you are expected to socialise with colleagues in your free time.
Do you have any management qualifications as this is level 2 / GCSE stuff.

[bbcessex]

OP... your 2 team members want to go to the company event that was announced the day after they'd committed to the leaving do.

They can't rearrange the company event but they can rearrange the leaving do (date). Do that.

DO NOT 'gently ' reprimand or suggest anything other than that.. your management style is coming across in need of refreshing.

[Mymouthgetsmeintrouble]

What about an office buffet lunch with cake and leaving cards / presents on her last day of work, no one has to travel and everyone is already there

[ParanoidBeryl]

Correction - not to show photos, but to share stories.

[ParanoidBeryl]

I've been reflecting on this thread. I have been a manager of various teams for over 20 years. In all of that time, I can't recall ever organising a leaving do for someone in my team. It's something that the other team members generally do amongst themselves, and I might go along for a bit.

The usual format is a late lunch / early dinner and those who want to stay out for longer and have a few drinks do so. There are often also buns and coffee at some point during the day for those who aren't going out, and also for any speeches (who wants to sit in a restaurant and listen to another table giving speeches?)

It would be rare that any leaving do is organised for the evening. I have never, ever, travelled 30 miles to go to a leaving do, nor would I.

If people are leaving, it's nice to wish them luck, sign a card, put a couple of quid in an envelope, but tbh, no-one really cares that much beyond that. I really struggle to understand why you care that much, because it really isn't the norm.

Have you organised the collection for a leaving present?

I also think that your plan of coming in the next day to show photos of the night out is divisive and PA. The only time I have ever been shown photos after an office night out was when the group bumped into a celeb and they got photos taken. Otherwise, I would be thinking 'why, just why?'

I know you may feel you have had a hard time on this thread, but it might be worth trying to reflect on your management style. The impression you give from your posts is over-invested in friendships, pushy, a lack of recognition of autonomy & diverse views, over-involved and controlling. I also think you seem to be taking people's wish to do other things as a sign of personal rejection.

Good management technique isn't something that people just have. It is something that people develop over years, sometimes through painful experience, but also from observing, maturing, studying the theory, and CPD. I also find an informal network of people at a similar level really useful to sound things out. Do you have the opportunity for networking or mentoring from other senior staff?

[TabascoToastie]

You need to stop looking at this from your perspective and start looking at it from their perspective.

You are making a pretty small thing that is really not even about you (co-workers don't want to go to another co-worker's social event) into a massive huge deal, and showing an odd level of anger and over-investment.

The way we come across to others is usually not how we see each other. To an entire group of strangers you are coming across as very pushy and inappropriately involved in your co-workers social plans. You may think of yourself as being non-pushy, but how can you be so sure your co-workers see you the way you see yourself, and not the way strangers who can only judge based on your own words see you?

If you've been a fraction as aggressive and demanding with the co-workers as you have been here, I doubt they felt they could comfortably refuse.

[Northernparent68]

If you tell your staff what they have to do outside work they are likely to make a complaint to HR

[ParanoidBeryl]

What sort of manager do you see yourself as?

I suspect you are very person orientated, and you are therefore very invested in the idea that everyone should work well together as a team. The fact that you want everyone to go out for a leaving do, and that you feel it is of importance to protect your team from some of the recent management changes suggests that. Do you think that your identity is one of a manager of a cohesive team? Is that important to how you think of yourself?

If that is the case, and I recognise I don't know you, but only going by your posts, I think it can be hard to accept when other people aren't so invested in team harmony and relationships.

It doesn't make them worse, just different. It might be worth thinking about, and may explain why you feel so let down by the other team members' decision not to go to the leaving do.

[LaurieMarlow]

There's something about the tone you've taken on this thread with those who disagree with you - more interested in calling out things that are 'silly', 'irrelevant', 'irritating' than listening to the bigger points they're making - that makes me think you're not an easy person to reason with or agree mutually beneficial solution.

So I wonder how much input your team actually had in the plans for the leaving do? Or did you just decide what you wanted, expressed it fairly forcefully and they nodded along, knowing there wasn't much point arguing?

I may be completely wrong of course. I haven't anything to go on apart from what I see on this thread.

It may be worth thinking about. Or not.

I'm glad you aren't going to raise it with them and I hope everyone has a nice evening, no matter how it pans out.

[WankYouForTheMusic]

3.They were railroaded into agreeing in the first place - they weren't, but I can see in retrospect it may not have suited them as much as the others of us.

Mmm. I just wonder what would have happened if they'd have told you at the outset that they weren't up for it, how you'd have reacted. What the process of securing 'agreement' was. Whether they were definitely free to refuse without any negative consequences and, possibly more to the point, whether they could be sure of that. Them having been on team nights out like this before doesn't necessarily back up your point in the way you think it does.

Still though, good that you have found this thread useful. I really would get it deleted too.

[LionsOnTour]

That sounds like a good outcome OP. You've let the whole thing go and now you can concentrate on enjoying your friends leaving do and stop worrying about anything else.

As you say, if they turn up great and if they don't that's fine too

[jarhead123]

People can do as they please. I wouldnt take it upon yourself to try and get them to come.

[washinggotdarkedon]

That's the spirit, OP 👍

[regenerator]

Gosh some people are silly - the only reason people ever leave a job is because they don't like their manager and the leaving woman obviously dislikes me. Ok then .

I take on board that I may be a bit over-invested (not to the extent that I see her as a friend as such, but she has been great to work with and I want to give her a good send off) and that I shouldn't speak to the other two. I'm not going to mention it and we will go ahead as planned and if they make an appearance great, if not nothing whatsoever will be said/implied/etc etc. We will share the stories the next day and it will all be fine.

The following comments are totally unhelpful and irrelevant, yet people continue to assert that:

1. We could celebrate at lunchtime - we really couldn't
2. People's careers will be adversely affected by not going to the work do. They absolutely won't be and it won't even be noted. I know this what with me working there and all.
3. They were railroaded into agreeing in the first place - they weren't, but I can see in retrospect it may not have suited them as much as the others of us.
4. I'm a shit manager and my entire team hates me. I'm not and they don't .
5. We never socialise together so they'll resent having been asked. Not so.

This has helped me - had a bit of a vent last night and moving on now!

[user1471517900]

Also, while people don't have to attend work functions etc. It's not gonna look good if a whole department aren't there but are all out somewhere else together instead. Maybe the two understand this and don't want to burn bridges with the rest of the company.

[WankYouForTheMusic]

The more I think about this, the more I reckon you need to get it deleted OP. It's identifying as fuck. If anyone at your work reads this they're going to realise straight away.

[Theycalledmethewildrose]

I just read the OP!s updates. OP would the lady leaving think it would be inappropriate if you suggested meeting up for a drink sometime after she has officially left the company? This might help maintain the friendship.

I think though that you might have to accept that the friendship was enabled by being work colleagues and it might not mean so much to the leaver as it does to you. I have had close friendships with a number of work colleagues over the years where we met outside of work, came for lunch whilst on maternity leave etc, exchanged Christmas cards and little gifts. Yet when I left the company, apart from a couple of emails, I never heard or saw them again.

It is hurtful when it happens but people tend to invest in work type friendships half heartedly when work is no longer the common factor.

[TabascoToastie]

OP, I understand where you're coming from, and I feel sympathy. It sounds like you're going through a bit of a shit time with the awful ex and your close friend leaving, and you were really looking forward to a fun party with your friend, and now that's not happening and you're disappointed, and angry that your friend is being snubbed. If it was a social event and the other guests were friends, you'd be perfectly entitled to feel upset and call them on being rude.

But these people are not your friends, they are not leaving girl's friends. They are work colleagues and honestly the blurring of personal and professional and the emotional investment makes it sound like you struggle with appropriate boundaries. Take the emotion out of it and try to see it as a purely business situation.

[WankYouForTheMusic]

I'm with ShatnersWig. I think OP's colleagues are rude and inconsiderate. It doesn't matter what happens in everyone else's workplace; the point here is that OP's small team socialise together in certain circumstances. This was one of them; they agreed to go and now some of them are ditching it for another event. How is that not rude?

It wouldn't be rude if they'd been railroaded into it initially, and there is at least a hint that might have happened here. That does make a difference.

I agree some of this is verging on an unnecessary kicking, although to be fair this always happens when someone's title and first post don't reflect their later position. People don't RTFT, or they do but they miss the non-combative post. But you cannot simply look at this as people backing out of an initial acceptance because we can't be sure the agreement was properly voluntary. And I do stand by my posts about OP needing to tread carefully here because they might be peeved with her already.

[GahBuggerit]

I always find it useful to Google something before declaring it as being made up

[Sushi123]

Unless they are being paid for their time you have no business in telling them what to do

[Violetcharlotte]

Maybe do it in a few weeks time? We did this when a girl left my work. On the day we did cakes, etc in the office, then had a night out a few weeks later. It was great as we were all really looking forward to seeing her and hear about her new job, and she got to catch up on all the office gossip.