Not invited to the Xmas do?

[chinchincharlie]

I'm a remote worker and although I'm not massively far from the head office, it's an hour or so away.

I've been with the company for about 5 months and I've just seen on social media that they had a work Christmas do this weekend, one I hadn't been invited to.

Now, I probably wouldn't have been able to make it anyway but I'm assuming I should have been invited?

How often are you in the office? I would have maybe expected an email about it, but perhaps most of the planning and talk about the party has been done face to face. So if you've only been in the job 5 months, and aren't in the office much, then I can see how they might have missed you out.

Were any other remote workers at the party?

Yes you should have been. Very mean!

That's really off - of course they should have invited you! Are you a freelancer? Sometimes freelancers get the short end of the stick, unfortunately :(

Yes you should have been invited out of basic professionalism and politeness. Could the organiser not be aware of who you are? I was 'volunteered' to organise the departments Christmas party as I was a newbie but, as I've not been there long, I had to rely on someone else giving me a list of who to invite.

I'm not in the office lots but was there recently and nothing was mentioned. No, not a freelancer. I'm directly employed (and having been a freelancer for 5 years prior, missed having a Xmas do).

I think they may have assumed it was too far/wouldn't be able to get childcare but I've actually got a relative in that particular area I could have stayed with had I been invited.

It's not the end of the world but it looked really fun.

Freelancers (not saying that you are but in response to previous) shouldn’t attend or be invited. iR 35 and all that

That’s crap. Sorry :( can you talk to your manager sometime about how you can be more generally included in things? Maybe think about ways they could involve remote workers better and offer suggestions?

How long ago was it organised? I'm going to a party night next week that, no word of a lie, was organised in February. So could it be that it was planned before you started? Especially if it's a big organised thing.
Having said that, it is shit to be left out, I totally understand that you feel hurt/offended. We always invite everyone to our Christmas meal, but the invites are not always reciprocated...

Yes, you should have been

Are you the only remote worker? And if not did the others attend?

I’m home based and our office had their party on a Friday, us home based field workers shall celebrate with a meal in January at our quarterly meeting. Maybe your office employ this strategy. Ours was implemented 2 years ago to avoid weekends being taken up with travel for the field based staff.

Sorry you feel excluded, it’s never nice.

I don't think I am, but I'm the only one "out of area".

I genuinely think it was probably assumed because of a young family and the distance.

I'm not massively upset but more a bit "Oh?!" about it.

I think I'll probably get invited next year. It's a very small team (less than 10) and I get on well with people, so think it was a mixture of genuine oversight and a bit of assumption really.

That’s really bad on their part and badly organised. We send our Xmas party invites to the team email lists which everyone is on, so even if they aren’t office based they still get the invite.

It probably wasn’t malicious but poor planning on the organisers part to not consider remote workers.