About this trip with co-workers?

[RottenTomatoes959]

A few weeks ago myself and a couple of friends from work agreed to do an activity, the activity is in another county so we're going to go down on the day and stay over that night to go out.

This trip is no secret and another two colleagues asked to join us on the trip just for the night out which is great!

The issue is now another colleague has decided she wants to come along aswell. This colleague can be lovely, but is very full on and every single work night out without fail, she drinks way too much way too fast and turns loud, bitch, aggressive (not to the point of violence but very in your face).

She was extremely rude at the Christmas party to a number of people and then shouted at me for asking her to calm down.
Every time.

None of us want to tell her not to come as that is mean but we know our entire night will be dominated by her and obviously with us being in a different city we can't just go home to avoid it.

On top of that the place we work is mostly 40-60 age range so the group of us that is going is pretty much all of the younger crowd so we'd hate to exclude her at the same time.

Would we be extremely unreasonable to ask her not come? Or even try have a very frank discussion about the situation

I'd tell her straight. We'd love you to come BUT don't think we can trust you not to drink too much and ruin it. She can take that how she wants to, but if no one ever tells her, she won't address it.

I think it's lose lose here for you. Either you upset her and say no and she kicks off or she comes and you deal with it. Are there no excuses you can use? Already booked, max capacity of 5 etc

Or you just have a really open conversation that she is an idiot when drunk and noone wants to deal with that.

Tell her it's all booked. Too late to add more people to the booking.

Max 4. Sorry, next time. Sad faces, inner joy.

Agree with the above tell her she can come providing she doesn't get drunk and aggressive. Remind her of how she behaved at the Christmas party and past behaviour and how she treated you when you asked her to calm down. With any luck she'll get offended, floubce off in a huff and refuse to go. If you are the one telling her then get another one or two people to back you up when you do it.

I'll have to go with the discussion then. I can't say she can't come due to it being booked as the two that aren't doing the activity booked their own accommodation and are making their own way there.

Or you just don’t let her dominate the evening - if she kicks off ignore her. Don’t pander to her at all.

Good luck Op. youre a better woman than me, as the most confident person I know I’d rather die than have that chat.

Thanks TSS. I have no choice though as out of all of us I'd be the only one diplomatic enough to do it in a nicer way.

I don’t think you can tell her not to come without causing yourselves endless stress, recriminations, awkwardness and possible repercussions at work.

Lesson learned that next time you’ll have to keep quiet so that she doesn’t get wind of it

I’d let someone less diplomatic than me tell her then.

Maybe diplomacy is exactly what you don't need here, is there nobody in the group that can pull of saying "Sure Fiona we'd love you to come, but we've been looking forward to this for ages so you better not pull a stunt like you did at Christmas by getting too drunk and aggressive and ruin it for the rest of us", she might not even come after that but if she does she'll surely behave, I wouldn't be appointing myself as the one to have a proper talk to her about it

I would tell her straight as otherwise she won't know how her actions affect others and its not fair for the whole group to be upset by her.

I admire you having that conversation, good luck. Let us know how she reacts

When you speak to her make sure you have someone with you as a kind of witness.

Make sure she knows that this is how you all feel, not just you.

Don't say sorry. Be factual then she can't argue.

Be aware of what outcome you want. Are you telling her she can't come and why or are you telling her she can come but she has to behave herself?

Good luck talking to her!

She was extremely rude at the Christmas party to a number of people and then shouted at me for asking her to calm down.

Hmm. I'm considered to be very diplomatic but in this instance it is not diplomacy that is required, in my opinion. If you are going to speak to her, some degree of bluntness is required. I would be reminding her of what happened at the Christmas party.

I used to have a work colleague/friend like that. Note that I say used to.
I wouldn't be brave enough to have that conversation with her - it would also cause an atmosphere at the workplace for a long time.

If she mentions it again I'd stress how much you and colleague are going there to do the activity and your focus is on that. Tell her she'll need to speak to other friends to see what their arrangements are. Presumably she'll also need to fork out for a single room. Hopefully it will all be too expensive for her.

Does she know what she's like and apologise? Or is she so drunk she doesn't remember?

Usually she'd pass it off as only joking, or would call us "dry" for not being on the same level. She did apologise to one girl after the work Christmas party, but only last week and only because me and another friend said she really had to.

It could be the wake-up call she needs as she's minimising her behaviour.

Not saying she'll see that the begin with, expect defensiveness!

But as hard as it is, it's a good thing to do.

Is it in a known party place or is it somewhere where they don't have the same sort of drinking culture?

It will be a difficult conversation. Good luck

I've got a friend exactly like this. I even had a thread on here approx. 2 years ago asking for advice on what to do when I took her away on a long weekend with a group of my hobby friends who she didn't know. Like your colleague, she is an aggressive drunk and I got shouted at to 'fuck off' and 'its like being out with my bloody mother ,so just fuck off coz you're not my fucking mother'... you get the gist? All in front of my sober hobby group of friends

I was awake all night fretting about how to approach her the next day and let her know it wouldn't be happening again on the 2nd night of the trip. I was sharp with her and she asked me what the matter was. I was going to get angry, but let myself down by crying about how upset I was and how let down I felt by her behaviour. She was mortified and couldn't stop apologising for weeks afterwards.

I've never done an overnight trip with her again. I only see her when we are one to one. Or I visit her at her home.

I think you definitely need to tell your piss head mate she's not invited. You might find her reaction is one of shame and realisation of the truth.

@Billy it's kind of the go-to place here for hens and stags so definitely a party atmosphere. And we do all want to go down and go a bit wild, just our version of that is a lot different to hers.

@Thenightsky that sounds awful. I'm sorry to here it came to that!