To snub dinner with colleagues on work trip

[PeachyT]

I'm going on an overnight work trip to another office later this week, and 3 other people from my office and department are also going. (I don't know any of them that well, but well enough, and we work on the same overall project).

One of them is a manager who is very gossipy and loud, a big drinker. She's desperate for us to go out for dinner and drinks together in the evening. But I'd rather wander around the city as I've not been before (weather permitting!) and then go back and chill in my nice hotel bed with a takeout! Is it really bad to snub them? I also don't drink and the loud manager always makes a big, embarrassing thing out of it.

Also I'll have been up since 5.30am to get the train there. I just want to spend my evening relaxing!

Your title is inflammatory. You’re not snubbing them, just spending the evening alone, after an early start. That’s fine.

If it were me I'd go out with the team. Doesn't look good snubbing them.

You can of course, it won't make you any friends tho. I would probably suffer dinner and then make my excuses.

Agree you should do dinner - push for an early one perhaps and then make your excuses and do your own thing afterwards. Just say you're going back for an early night.

Say ‘see you at the restaurant’ and join them there after a walk round?

It would be unreasonable yep, and probably bad for your career development - it’s a work trip so a work dinner is part of the deal. If you’ve been up that early it won’t be a late one, and you can excuse yourself early.

It’s just one night, I would just go. You don’t have to stay out all evening drinking & can still have time to chill back at the room later.

A work trip with your food and accommodation paid for means your time is not your own.

You need to suck this up.

This is part of the work deal I'm afraid. Team building. Go, and make excuses to leave after the meal and take a circuitous route back to the hotel.

Sorry but you sort of have to show your face since you’re manager is going. If it was all colleagues on the same level then you can get away with skipping maybe, but with your manager there, then you really need to go to the dinner as it’s part of forwarding your career. You don’t have to stay late though; eat and leave before the drinking.

I think I'd "have a bit of a headache", say I "need to get out for a bit of fresh air" and "join them later if Im feeling better" ...then possibly "lost track of time" or just "be desperate to get to bed".

I don't agree that the dinner is part of the work assignment, unless there's actual work being done eg schmoozing clients, listening to a presentation, or whatever. If people are going to be getting drunk, I don't think that can reasonably described as work.

I assume your work are paying for everything? In which case, it's not really optional - it's part of the deal.

You need to suck it up and go.

I always, always bunk off these kind of dinners.
I also have not particularly progressed in my career but I don’t know if these two facts are linked!

Why dont you suggest going for a little walk with them before the dinner? Perhaps if they've already been they could show you some cool places!?

There is no career development in my role, so I'm not remotely concerned by this. I work for a very underfunded public sector organisation. If you want to progress your career you simply need to find a job elsewhere! Also these colleagues have no influence on my career trajectory or success in my role, or how well I do my job.

I would go for the walk, then meet them for dinner (and stay sober)

Tricky one, depends how much you need to seem like a “team-player”.

I was invited to a mostly-funded week in Italy for an international conference with my whole department at work. The thought of spending that much time with people I would never voluntarily socialise with was far too awful to contemplate, so I had a wonderful week on my own in an empty office while they were probably tutting to each other in Italy how I wasn’t a team-player. (This was a “team” that would have had social services crawling all over us if we had been a family.)

I would say I was knackered having been up since dawn, and I’d like to see a bit of the city/town before having an early night.

In your place, I definitely wouldn’t want to go out for dinner either. It sounds ghastly. But I would have to consider whether I cared about appearing anti-social or not a team player in the eyes of colleagues, particularly senior ones. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t go.

Well you don't need an AIBU then and you can do whatever you want

I'd skip it. I was public sector too, and it's nothing like the deal that my private sector friends have to stick up on business trips where they're still talking work at dinner and the bar.

Just say you're knackered because you were up so early, so you're planning on a walk and then an early night. It's fine.

I travel a lot for work and I am very much an introvert in that I enjoy unwinding on my own so don’t always want to go to the team meals but I’d only duck out if we are away for over 3 days. If it’s one or two nights I generally suck it up and go as it feels less rude

I think it depends on the sort of place you work. I’m sure if you work at some kind of very corporate place where you’re expected to network and ingratiate yourself with the senior managers, then you’d be expected to show your face. But where I work (professional regulator, parallel to public sector, ultra-inclusive) it would be absolutely fine to give dinner with a colleagues a miss if you didn’t fancy it - social stuff like that is an optional extra for us and it’s understood that not everyone wants to do it.

I disagree that it's part of the job but I agree you should go for the meal to avoid any awkwardness. Do your own thing and meet them there. You'll get more enjoyment out of the city eating out than you will in a hotel room with a takeaway.

Well you don't exactly sound like a barrel of laughs with your last post so yeah you are probably better leaving the others to have good evening... Without you.

I have travelled for work on and off for nearly 15 years and can say that it wouldn’t bother me at all. I have often said I am just getting room service tonight as has colleagues and nobody bats an eyelid. Definitely never comes up in any review meetings

OP do your own thing, enjoy experiencing a new city (best part of going away for work imo) and most importantly relax in that hotel bed

Currently on route to a Premier inn right now and have told my colleagues who are already there that I will see them for breakfast in the morning.