To be annoyed by WhatsApp group chats

[Allthebiscuits]

My phone was pinging away from 9pm. I stopped the work I was doing to see what exciting messages from a dear friend might be awaiting, only to discover I'd been added to a work WhatsApp group?! Too thrilling were the exchanges that I won't bore you with the details, but there was nothing that couldn't have been conveyed in an email. But of course I now have to either put up with the tedious banter or do the very public 'screw you' and exit the group. The difficulty I have is the lack of consent, any moron can add you to their 'group'. Then there's the ones apparently just created for one off events (hen parties) but they always linger on too uncomfortably long after the event as 'Sue' (the one you don't really know how she knows the bride) updates you over the following two weeks about her recovery from the hangover and how much she misses all the girls....FFS. I'm tempted to just send endless photos of my toddlers in this work WhatsApp, claiming I got confused as it was out of work hours on a SOCIAL media platform. The youngest is potty training, so plenty to update the gang about. Has anyone successfully left a work WhatsApp group without flushing their career down the toilet?

Leave it

I feel your pain op
I’m on two for work Not allowed to remove myself as it’s the main way information gets shared - who’s not in today and who’s covering who’s shift etc etc. Drives me mad
Mines on mute

I hate it

I had this! And left the group, which had been commented on a few times by younger members of staff. If my boss needs to contact me she has my phone number and can text or email. Nothing else urgent enough so I need a WhatsApp!

Muting group chats is wonderful.

I had this problem with WhatsApp...not with work but PTA.
It was fine at first then when everyone got friendly it all began!...2 members would start rattling on for hours about utter shit...why they couldn't have done this in a private chat was beyond me!
Then...o dear my phone has deleted WhatsApp, whatever shall I do (not reinstall it that's for sure!)...took them 2 weeks to notice my silence, so I suggested emails would be good for voicing ideas as they just get lost in a chat group amongst the random ramblings (nice way of telling them they talk shit!). Worked for a week, then when they realised I was using messenger they opened a group on that...I deleted it last night as there was 56 bloody nonsensical exchanges within 30mins!
There's only 5 of us in the PTA...and I'm considering leaving because of the bloody group chatting behaviour of these 2! I don't need my phone pinging at stupid o clock with crap chat!
They'll probably revert to frigging carrier pigeon next!

Leave, mute, archive, turn off notifications. Bosh.

YANBU it’s so annoying when someone sets up a group for s specific reason and then uses it for general chatting and stupidness which you then feel obliged to respond do. Actually, it’s not that I feel obliged to respond but whenever I see these people they always make reference to whatever I haven’t responded to ie. oh did you see Alice’s funny cat video? It was sooooo funny! I wasn’t sure if you’d seen it.... PA way of saying “why didn’t you qualify Alice’s hilarious sense of humour with a response?”.

The absolute worst one was/is a parents group from DS’s nursery, it was set up as a sub group away from the main parents one where the select few were added for invites on nights out and in jokes, a bit of a clique actually, but most likely so that the main group didn’t get clogged up with irrelevant crap (so the sentiment was great really). The group name was then changed to something ridiculous like ‘hot mummies who like to party’ and then it was just filled with absolute tripe about eyebrows, fake tans, what’s everyone wearing for the school run today type crap. I was going to leave and then they started organising a night out, when it was on a date I couldn’t do I thanked them, apologised and then left the group - phew. Only I was re-added with the message ‘oh this isn’t just for this night out, it’s for the foreseeable ones too so stay’ which was very kind, but I am certainly not a ‘hot mummy who likes to party’.

So 3 years later and I’m in a group which I’ve muted with a group of mums I see once in a blue moon because my DS no longer goes to that nursery and we didn’t apply for the same school as them. It’s just awkward.

Mute/cancel the cheque.

@Allthebiscuits if you go to settings in the whatsapp app and then select "data and storage" you can turn off the auto download for media so photos, videos and other shit won't download to your phone until you physically tap the image etc for it to.

I have a family group one and a close friends group one and I love them but on my old phone it quickly filled with photos of my brothers food, my sisters kids doing everything (they cute kids but I don't need fifty photos of the first yoghurt, the first strawberry etcetc)

Depending on if you have android or iPhone there should be a "WhatsApp" folder in the photos somewhere so you can purge any ones already downloaded.