Work colleague has decided to come on holiday with me — again...

[Craquedechevalier]

I work in a school (admin, not teaching). Every year for the last 11 years, I've been away on my own over the summer half-term to attend a big literary festival. My DH and DC have never wanted to come. Both children are now in their 20s.

I register as a volunteer for the festival, book a campsite for a week, do my volunteering duties and attend events at the festival, read, sleep lots, eat what I want and do some work remotely. I have several friends who do similar. It's my 'me' week and I look forward to it very much. Several people at work know what I do and occasionally they turn up at the festival for a day or two. We bump into each other at the festival site, have a coffee — not a problem.

Last year I arrived on the campsite and was setting the van up when someone banged on the window. It was a colleague with her 7-year-old daughter, asking for help to put their tent up. They were camping on the same site in a tent for the week. I helped out, reluctantly. Then they wanted to come in and join me in the van because there was a chilly wind and they were cold. I made them drinks, they poked around the van and didn't seem to want to leave. It went on like that. The weather wasn't great and whenever I was in the van they'd come round and expect to sit with me in the warm or have hot drinks or a meal. They had a car and went out sometimes during the day, but never brought back a takeaway or food to help out. I felt under pressure to host them and so ended up avoiding the van as much as possible. One evening my colleague asked me to look after her daughter while she attended a comedy gig at the festival. She'd already bought a ticket: I didn't feel as if I could say no. I felt as if I'd lost all my down time to looking after them.

They left a day early, which was a relief: they weren't prepared for the reality of camping and from what my colleague said in the weeks afterwards, she had no intention of going back again. Yesterday afternoon I bumped into her in the corridor and she announced that she'd bought a better tent and mattress and thermal leggings and she and her daughter were booked again. Same campsite as me. 'We can hang out like last year' she said.

I'm already booked into the campsite and on the volunteer rota, so I'm committed. How can I politely say that they spoiled last year's break for me, and I'm not doing it again?

Looking at OP’s response at 12.22 it’s clear she’s perfectly capable of being assertive (to put it mildly) when required. She doesn’t need any advice and it’s unclear why she posted the thread in the first place.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I didn’t think it was patronising either - you were trying to stick up for OP. I think she’s doing a lot of damage control now as an earlier PP said it’s been picked up by the press? Now even more awkward at work!! maybe the colleague will get the hint after all?

Imagine if said colleague sees this in the Daily Wail 😳

I've never noticed that you are cack-handed @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius - your posts are usually pretty spot on.

Ask her for coffee beforehand. Tell her that you would love to meet for lunch or coffee outside this trip, but that this trip is personal time away. No explanation on how you will spend your time, because that might leave you open to her judgement on how you spend your time. Also, tell her she has to make other childcare arrangements because you are there to get away from school altogether. If you don't really want to meet for coffee later, just be very busy and put it off. I know this is a lot of work to do it this way, but it salvages your explanation, her judgement and the school environment/relationship which can be gossip-py in many circumstances.

I disagree - it did come across as very patronising to me, though I accept now that it wasn’t intended that way.

And I have apologised, @Fingernailbiter.

Yes, that’s why I said I accept now that you didn’t intend it that way.

I think there have been some good ideas. Sorry not RTFT - if you mean to meet her for coffee or a meal, I would set that out clearly in advance ie “I have a free hour on Wednesday, lets go for lunch” rather than leave it vague or she might encroach bit by bit. I think to some people let’s meet up when we’re there could mean if you see me in the van, just knock. I have a friend in my life who likes to fill every minute doing something with people, who doesn’t like time alone.

I guess the OPs problem would then be solved as colleague would likely avoid OP forever, inside and out if work, if she reads the descriptions of herself and daughter!

she is a CF by the way as she has planned a trip knowing you would be there and have facilities to use and didn’t ask.

Id get a lot of migraines - sorry bad migraine, might see you tomorrow, bye bye. I’d also mention I wasn’t going next year or going with children and put her off.

I thought you came across as understanding of the complexities - I’m a people pleaser and I always think the responses often don’t understand that it’s a process to move away from.

My husband and I run a food stall and our summer is taken up with festivals from May til late August. It is work with a capital W! We don't stop, and I've always made it very clear to friends and family that...no, we cannot provide comp tickets, our van is for us to grab a few hours sleep in...if we're lucky, we can't socialise because we are working and there are no freebies...not for anyone. If u r volunteering at a festival, your free time is your own. Anyone that works a festival circuit understands that time off is very precious, the work is really tough. As a food stall, we have to pay the festival management quite a lot to even pitch there, it varies for each festival, but for some we are talking hundreds before we even begin trading. Therefore, any bonuses belong to us and our team, if we have time to enjoy them, and sometimes we don't. If u r going to a festival, u pay ur ticket, sort ur camp out and pay your own way. Don't expect freebies from the workers, whether traders or volunteers, they earn them.

Dead true. You have to, first, name it to tame it. If you can't or won't acknowledge you have these tendencies you cannot begin to work on them and any change is in my experience exceedingly slow and difficult anyway.

OP, although she has accepted your sincere apology, is extremely prickly with anyone touching on this aspect.

I had a similar situation once. I was away from home for several months to attend a course. A woman who was staying in the same hostel as me, attending a different course, started attaching herself to me. I didn't mind her sitting at the same table for the catered breakfast and dinner - there were 10 other people at the table. But when she started expecting me to keep her company on the weekend and actually disagreeing with what I planned to do because she wanted to do something else, I was pretty mad at her. We didn't have a habit of going out together. One Friday, she asked me what I was doing over the weekend. Upon hearing my reply, she said she didn't want to do that. Hello? I didn't invite you to come along. I avoided her after that to curb her clinginess.

OP, hope you get the message across. You were very helpful to the woman, but she stepped over the line when she expected you to babysit and presented it as fait accompli. Don't let her do that to you again.

If it helps from the flip side I’m a single mum and would feel exactly the same as you about spending our holiday with someone else 😅 you may get lucky and she may be relieved and it’s a case of both thinking you were being polite but not enjoying it (babysitting a step too far though!). And I don’t think it’s that odd that she’s doing the same thing again - it’s always nice when you know where you’re going and the set up etc.
I was really scared the first time we went away just the two of us, especially camping, and equally could have potentially been very grateful for a bit of help but hopefully she’ll be much more confident this time and will feel so proud of herself when she does it single handedly - it’s okay for you to want the week you normally do and I’d probably be relieved rather than offended at you gently putting that boundary in! Even if she feels differently when she gets to the end of the week and has cooked pasta on a gas stove in the rain she’ll feel like she can do anything 😂❤️

OP. I worry that this thread is so specific, it will be outing and your colleague might hear of it - which would undermine your efforts to find a nice way to tell her.
In your shoes, now that you've had the advice etc... I would ask MN to take it down,.

It’s on Facebook now

@DearDenimEagle I thought that would happen.

I think it’s happening ever more often that stuff gets reposted ..Reddit too

I agree. You were extremely gracious in your apology @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius. I think the OP kicked the cat (or Wolef!) there because of other posters!

Enjoy the festival OP.

@DearDenimEagle puts you off posting anything too outing tbh

You need to tell her "Forgive me if this sounds rude, it is not my intention to insult, merely to inform, this vacation is my me time. If I wanted camping buddies I would already have them. I don't want them. Additionally, I will neither babysit nor entertain this year. Please respect this." If you are not completely straight-forward and crystal clear then you will enjoy the babysitting and the constant company. Either fix it or suffer.

I think the opposite. If the woman actually reads it, she can see what the world view is, so to speak.

It's very hard to be a victim and get shitty with OP when there are about 400 unbiased people saying she's a CF. Whereas if OP spoke to her without this, CF's first reaction will potentially to double down against OP being unreasonable here.

Hopefully she's read this and realises if she does start acting a div around the workplace because OP won't work around her expectations, that a lot of people will have read this thread and hugely disagree with her behaviour, so she won't get away with the stropping at work now either.

Given that she's a colleague and talks to people who OP works closely with, I don't think it will go down well being outed on MN. Many opinions on the thread are quite strident about the colleague and it could absolutely blow up in the OP's face at work if the colleague complained to HR about being on MN without the OP speaking to her about the issue and saying she needed time to herself.
There are much better ways for OP to manage this than making people read threads about themselves.