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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

237 replies

regenerator · 05/07/2017 21:24

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.

OP posts:
Oysterbabe · 05/07/2017 22:18

Leaving dos need to be walking distance from the office so people can get home their usual way if they wish.

Notmybuilderdotcom · 05/07/2017 22:20

YABU of course you can't dictate what people do in their spare time. Whether you think the two are rude or not doesn't matter they've changed their minds, and why should they forego their summer ball for someone who they may never see again ?

Yes I agree it's good to mark someone's leaving with a good send off to recognise their efforts and say good bye but if required it should be done as part of the working day (if you don't want to do cakes or a lunch how about even just a presentation of card and a leaving present) - not forced on to people in their free time. I think if you try to do this your team will resent you and back out last minute anyway

Italiangreyhound · 05/07/2017 22:21

I'd incorporate her leaving do into the staff event and then you take her out for lunch or dinner another time.

But agree with HeteronormativeHaybales "Leaving dinner early on in the evening and then people who want to go to the party can go and the rest of you can stay with leaving lady over pudding/drinks etc."

I think demanding staff attend an event in their own time and at their own cost is wrong. if it is a work event it should be in work time and ideally financed by the work.

We have various options, tea and cake in work time, no one pays, team pays for cakes, or lunchtime event, all pay for own (optional) kind of in work time (but of a grey area!) and evening meal out, own time, pay for self, optional.

Italiangreyhound · 05/07/2017 22:23

PS also agree with Oysterbabe "Leaving dos need to be walking distance from the office so people can get home their usual way if they wish." Or at least very close and lifts offered for people.

If this lady is your friend as opposed to just 'your' colleague, you can take her out for a special meal.

It is not your fault or hers but the plans were just too elaborate, IMHO.

GaynorGoodwin · 05/07/2017 22:23

I'd say maybe do a lunch time 'do', it doesn't have to be on the very last day (day before perhaps) and whoever is there, is there. Basically decide when and where and leave it at that, they can make their own mind up if they wish to attend or not.

RortyCrankle · 05/07/2017 22:24

YABVU. I can't believe an experienced manager would even ask. Of course you can't control what they do out of office hours. The drip feeds don't help either. She could have her leave do incorporated with the Summer Party - her choice if she doesn't want to go but then she will have to accept reduced number at her do..

So the choice is have leaving do with some team members not attending or changing the date.

WankYouForTheMusic · 05/07/2017 22:25

Of course you're BU. And unwise too. It should never have been arranged like this in the first place.

bimbobaggins · 05/07/2017 22:25

Yes yabu, socialising outside of work is a lot of people's idea of hell. Myself included. And if you were my manager dictating where I had to go I'd be most unimpressed ( that's the polite version)
Yes it would appear rude to accept one invite then ditch it for another but maybe they didn't want to go in the first place and were glad to have an excuse to get out of it .

WillRikersExtraNipple · 05/07/2017 22:28

What everyone else said. And don't call women you manage girls.

Xmasbaby11 · 05/07/2017 22:28

YABU although it's kind of you to care so much. I'd do a lunchtime meal during her last week

user1494237944 · 05/07/2017 22:28

At my work if the inner sanctum like you, when you leave, you get a card, present and words - if they don't then no acknowledgement at all!

Saiman · 05/07/2017 22:29

You absolutely can not tell them they have to go.

And if you did and they went they wouldnt want to be there and will cause you issues at work.

MadMags · 05/07/2017 22:30

Yeah you're being ridiculous.

bimbobaggins · 05/07/2017 22:31

Ha ha user, do we work together. I always say it like a popularity contest

Sara107 · 05/07/2017 22:31

Nice pub lunch on leaving day? We never do evening do's where I work, everybody loves in different directions, has out of work commitments etc. So there is always a cake session where the speeches etc happen, and then a pub lunch for the closer colleagues.

Theycalledmethewildrose · 05/07/2017 22:32

Organise a lunch. It is very unreasonable to ask people to miss a free work do and presumably a free bar and it is unreasonable for a manager to insist people have to attend a leaving do. You simply can't force people to go to a party that they don't want to be at and in the very unlikely event they agreed to go at your insistence, it would be a terrible party surrounded by long faces. The poor girl would be mortified.

witsender · 05/07/2017 22:33

Yabu. An evening do 30 mins away is a big ask, especially if there is a works do on at same time. Tbh I would have automatically changed the date of the leaving do when the work do came up. Do it the day before?

But you really can't go around thing people what to do in their free time. Are you planning on paying for their time or the meal?

PNGirl · 05/07/2017 22:34

I don't think it's rude but even if it was I am sometimes prepared to be "rude" if the benefits of doing so are big ones. Unfortunately you have to face the fact that these people didn't want to come in the first place so go with the people who do.

MajorasMask · 05/07/2017 22:34

Regardless of the bit where they went back on going to her do - I have to agree with oysterbabe. The 30 minute drive is ridiculously far, I would bail on anything not within walking distance of the workplace and most other people would, not because they're mean but because they have to get home after a bit, and maybe don't drive (like me).

If she's a close friend I think just go out for dinner, you know you're being U as you said. Please don't seriously consider this!

MrsDustyBusty · 05/07/2017 22:36

I think if I were on this team I'd be going to neither event. If ever there was an occasion where it'd be almost mandatory to say "sorry, I'm not going, life's too short to spend my free time with you losers", thus is definitely it.

Therealslimshady1 · 05/07/2017 22:36

Organise a lunch nearby

Having dinner 30 mins from work is a mistake, the "obvious" location would be to go somewhere close to workplace. Always.

Some people will now have travel an extra hour (2x30)

Theycalledmethewildrose · 05/07/2017 22:37

So no one thinks they were rude to immediately back out after arrangements had been made?

You are missing the point It doesn't matter if they were or were not rude. It is not your job to instil manners in your team. TBH I think the way you are writing screams that you think as their manager that you must be 'obeyed'.

MadMags · 05/07/2017 22:38

Although "organise a lunch" is starting to look like "cancel the cheque".

2rebecca · 05/07/2017 22:38

Yabu you never tell people what to do in their own time. They are not your slaves. Work leaving dos should either be at work or a pub you can walk to from work. A 30 min drive for a short term employee is OTT. If the summer party is that bad how come they want to go?

WankYouForTheMusic · 05/07/2017 22:38

I'd be interested to hear how 'we' decided on this arrangement OP, who it was driven by. It does sound rather like the sort of thing that people were always going to pull out of.

It's nice that you want a good send off for your friend, but you as manager should really be ensuring these sort of events are doable for people in the first place. If it's that important, you have it in work time.