To feel like I don’t fit in?

[needingaholiday3]

My work place is, and isn’t, very diverse. Out of 7 managers, 6 are south Asian. Out of their members of staff, about 10 out of 60 are not South Asian. I am white and younger than the majority of the office. The office was more diverse in the past but many have left.

The day to day running of the office is fine, but the majority of the staff are very close to each other. It started off with Eid, all the men in the office arranged a lovely dinner together at a local restaurant, which has now turned into a weekly meet-up. It’s now evolved where a few of the women are invited too. They have group chats on teams and WhatsApp and social media.

I haven’t been invited to any of this, which is fine as I’m not very close to the majority of the people invited outside of work. However there has been a shift in the office dynamics since this started - feels very cliquey. Certain popular people from this group get a lot of development opportunities such as deputising or given key projects to lead on as they heavily socialise with the managers outside of work. They essentially get an easier shot at promotions whilst others are stuck with the more generic admin tasks with no opportunity for development.

aibu to dislike work now? Just feels like I’m on the peripherals

Nope, that seems perfectly reasonable, but I can see some people viewing it as "poetic justice" (i.e. systemic discrimination from a western minority that is the majority in a certain context). Thing is, most acknowledge that, while unfair, career progress is about who you know and not necessarily what you know, or how hard you work for that matter. But, when you're not given an equal opportunity (either real or imagined) to play the game so to speak, it's natural to feel resentment.

Have you tried to initiate another social for a more culturally neutral reason? Maybe you could invite colleagues out for birthday drinks? If they excluded you purposefully and withhold promotions because of your gender/race you'd have grounds for discrimination, but it might well be a dynamic that you could try to positively affect.

@MapleLeafMoose yes, you are absolutely right. It would be nice to be included in more opportunities and I’m happy to network. But it’s sometimes hard to find common ground because we’re in different life stages outside of work, and I kind of feel like I have to force a friendship because they already have enough friends, so aren’t interested.

@NellyBarney I have been on quite a few work nights out in the past but many of the people I were closer to have left. To be honest I spend lunch alone most days so even arranging a work outing with the current office set up would be hard! I guess I can try to be more social and see what happens.

thank you