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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this former colleague needs to move on?

72 replies

user1485342611 · 14/09/2017 13:40

We're organising our Christmas party in work. Normally staff who left during the previous year are invited back, but otherwise it's just the current team.

However, a woman who retired 6 years ago comes back to every party. It's getting a bit awkward as she really only knows a small handful of people here by now, given all the staff changes since she left. I only overlapped with her by a couple of months, and many staff never worked with her at all.

This year, Management want to pay for the Christmas party and provide some Secret Santa type gifts. So it was decided to only invite current staff and no one who has left, even within the last year.

Apparently this ex colleague is really annoyed at being 'excluded' from the party and is putting pressure on a couple of people she's still in contact with to get her invited.

She's married with grown up children and grandchildren living near her, so I don't think it's just that she's lonely and has no other people to spend a Christmas celebration with. She also meets up regularly with friends from when she worked here for meals and things.

AIBU to think she really needs to move on and accept that she no longer works here and the Office Christmas Party really means just that?

OP posts:

Original poster

user1485342611 · 14/09/2017 16:41

ReanimatedSGB

OP posts:

PollyFlint · 14/09/2017 16:42

It's really weird that she feels entitled to keep coming back. An office Christmas party is just that - for people who work in the office.

If she has actual friends who still work at the company and wants to meet up with them, she can just go out for a drink with them any time. Insisting on a Christmas party invite six years later is strange.

Even if she is lonely, she surely can't expect a company she left six years ago to be responsible for providing her with a social life.

ForalltheSaints · 14/09/2017 16:45

I won't be going anywhere near the office never mind socialising six years after I retire. I expect the only contact I will have will be weddings if there are any, and a funeral, which I hope there will not be. However, each to their own, and if for five years in a row an ex-colleague has been invited, then not being can be strange. I think contact from the company management in a polite way would be no bad thing.

Fewregrets · 14/09/2017 16:48

My ex workplace does this. In fact at the last Christmas do, one person had retired 18 years previously, no exaggeration!

MadMags · 14/09/2017 16:53

Surely there could be an accommodation here: invite the woman to post-meal drinks at a local pub, maybe?

Why on earth would they?

Anyone who goes back to their ex-workplace Christmas party is a bit pathetic, but the people who actually work there shouldn't have to accommodate them, surely?!

Most people would give their eye-teeth to get out of the Christmas party

paranoidpammywhammy2 · 14/09/2017 16:54

We had an ex-employee who did this. He was always at any function and he'd pop in around break-times and chat about everything going on in other departments. I'd be trying to get back to work and he's be talking about what he wasn't happy about in 'his' department!

I wasn't 100% sure on confidentiality and what he shouldn't be told so I queried it. It turned out he'd left years ago.

alltouchedout · 14/09/2017 16:56

Is her name Joey Maynard?

FrancisCrawford · 14/09/2017 16:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Slimthistime · 14/09/2017 17:00

YANBU

I'd be wondering if she was a shareholder wanting to keep an ear on gossip or something. How bizarre.

FrancisCrawford · 14/09/2017 17:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ProfYaffle · 14/09/2017 17:04

I can kind of understand it. As a sahm one of the things I missed about the workplace was the Xmas do (much to my surprise) However, I didn't tackle it by crashing my ex employers do - that's just odd.

CaptainHammer · 14/09/2017 17:10

@SadTrombone I was about to say exactly the same thing!

OP it is weird that she joins your work party especially as she doesn't know many of you now and already meets up with old colleague friends anyway.

UnforgivenII · 14/09/2017 17:14

I thought David Brent too.

EamonnWright · 14/09/2017 17:17

One of the guys at our work has brought his wife the last few years. We pay ourselves yet he chips in only one lot with both getting dinner and a few drinks out of what's left of the kitty. Very odd and a very brass neck.

OVienna · 14/09/2017 17:21

OP is there any question because of the nature of what you're company does, having an 'outsider' there means people may not be able to speak as freely as they'd like? Is she nosy about the work too or just chatting socially?

I think it's odd. Not sure odd enough to have it cross my mind much/complain about but YANBU.

2014newme · 14/09/2017 17:27

How is she finding out when the party is? Someone must be telling her. Who is the mole?

AcrossthePond55 · 14/09/2017 17:32

Had one like that at my work. She was expected to contribute to attend whether we were paying or our management was. No free rides.

I never understood it. When I retired I went back twice to visit gloat about being retired. After the second time I never felt the need to go back. I was seeing my 'work friends' away from the place anyway.

exLtEveDallas · 14/09/2017 17:41

If she wants to attend a Christmas party, she really needs to arrange one that is just with the people she knows/knew.

We do this. I go to an Xmas lunch with:
A: who retired 5 years ago
B: who left 3 years ago (me!)
C: who replaced B
D: who left last year
E: who replaced D
F: new recruit
G: same big boss
H: same small boss
I: who is leaving in 2 weeks.

The lunch is self funded and we do a small 'secret Santa' with names drawn out of a hat by the big boss and texted to us. It's lovely to meet up and get the gossip about all the people we know/knew!

C, E, F & G also go to the 'company' Xmas dinner as well that is in the evening and is part funded by the company.

WorldofTofuness · 14/09/2017 17:42

OP YANBU. I am identify where this woman is coming from; at one time work provided me with stability and support that was lacking in all other aspects of my life but I would feel - well - a bit sad really going back to the Xmas party years after I'd gone.

Yup. I'm cringeing slightly on this woman's behalf because I remember being a bit sad not to be invited back a 2nd time to my old section's Xmas dinner (we had the same custom re current year departees onlynot an absolute rule as we pretty much paid for it ourselves). I'd left in the December so only just missed out. The new job & boss turned out to be a bit dismal, so there was a good degree of nostalgia and pining on my part leading up to the non-invitation. Even at the time, though, I recognised it was my problem, and not to be sharedlet alone wailed about as an entitlement.

Mischa123 · 14/09/2017 18:15

This sounds like it could be my mum 😳!!

kali110 · 14/09/2017 18:18

Why people open and engage with threads just to grumble and be offended by them is beyond me.
Because what would they have to complain about then?

She can meet up with her old friends outside of work, no problem, but staff party she's not invited too, no one can bring her either, simple.

Nuttynoo · 14/09/2017 19:03

Is she a pensioner? Or did she take early retirement? Don't see why else she would be invited to a staff do. Change the policy to current staff only.

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