No friends at work

[KinCat]

I've had plenty of jobs over the years and always got on well with the people I worked with. Not super close friends but at every job there were people I'd chat to during the day, eat lunch with, maybe go out for the occasional post work drink with etc. Just normal stuff.

I moved overseas a couple of years ago and haven't found the same here at all. I work in a big office with maybe 100 people on my floor. I work in Team A but sit with Team B and one other person from Team A.

I used to eat lunch with the Team A woman I sit next to and three others but now two of the others have left, one has decided he doesn't want to eat with me and the woman I sit next to is slowly distancing herself from me.

I never get invited to Team A events. The other day I asked the woman next to me what she was doing for lunch and she quite happily said "oh, it's so and so's last day so we're all going out for lunch - see you later". Quite clear I wasn't welcome.

Team B invited me out once but it didn't go well because I sat down first and everyone pointedly left all the seats around me empty until the very last people arrived and they had no choice but to sit next to me. I was so embarrassed and upset. I later realised they'd only invited me because it was loads of people on Team B's birthday that month and the rest of the team (plus me) was subsidising their meal. It ended up costing me more than 4x what I'd normally pay for lunch out.

I've never had this problem before and it sucks. My husband doesn't understand and if I bring it up he starts complaining about how he has no friends at work either but that's not true! I've been out for lunch with his colleagues a few times and they all seem to get on great. Plus he regularly meets up with one of them to go to the gym so can't dislike him that much. Giving him the benefit of the doubt I'd say he's trying to empathise.

The whole thing is wearing me down so much and unless I'm manically busy with work I hate going in because I know it'll be a day of speaking to no one. So boring.

I don't really want to not have a job but this one is just so depressing.

Your colleagues don't sound like a very nice group of people. Some workplaces unfortunately are very exclusive and cliquey. If I were you, I would start job hunting.

Start looking for another job. It's really hard to believe it's not you it's them when it's so systematic, but they've obviously chosen you as the one to leave out of the pack (bet they had one before you and will have one after you leave.)
It sounds like a big company, so presumably there's an HR dept. Can you chat to them about systematic isolation? It's a form of bullying - really nasty, as everyone can innocently say, 'What? No, I was just going off to lunch/ a few of us tend to eat together," and make out you're being precious when actually that sort of isolation and exclusion is vicious.

There is HR but I'm not sure how it would help speaking to them. I don't think they can force them to include me and I'm not sure I'd want to go along if I knew that was the only reason they invited me.

I don't know why they do it because individually most of them (with a few exceptions) are courteous enough. They just don't see me as being part of their group so yeah, I guess it is cliquey and the people who would be my friend have all left or decided they don't like me so now I'm really noticing the cliquey-ness.

It feels so high school and I didn't even have to deal with this in high school! If that makes sense...

Do you think that culturally you may have possibly without knowledge done something that was really offensive when you arrrived without realising?

I don't like the way your being treated and I don't approve it's just that I noticed you have never had this problem before and now your overseas.

I think culture clash is probably part of it but I don't know what I could do to atone for a mistake I don't know I've made (or if I'd even want to).

I'm not totally ignorant of the culture here as it's my husband's home country so I don't know what I could have done. Back home I'm always the quieter more passive one in a group but here I do come across as more loud and extroverted because generally people are quite reserved so maybe it's that. Early on I did speak up in a team meeting about how we could improve a process which may have rubbed some people the wrong way but those are the only things I can think of. I don't know what I've done to offend Team B or the person whose decided he doesn't like me. He was fine with me for well over a year then suddenly refuses to eat with me. It's weird.

Are your colleagues all native of that country? Are you all fluent in the common language?

I'm just trying to find reasons why this might have started

On the process that could be improved I did think my comments were justified as the boss asked a question specifically about how we could manage new starters better and, as the newest person, I gave my input.

Is there a language barrier? I live in HK, working in a company that uses English as the business language. I find that Chinese colleagues are not super keen to socialise with westerners as they basically need to speak their second language to be inclusive which makes it less fun for them. It’s not personal and they are perfectly polite but I kind of understand it.

Everyone speaks English but my colleagues all speak it as a second language with other languages as their first language. They don't all speak the same first language though and English is the business language.

Problem is you aren't part of Team A because you sit with Team B. And you sit with Team B but officially you belong to Team A! So no one claims you as part of their team. Speak to HR, explain the problem and hopefully there's a simply solution!

I am not sure it is as simple as where you are sitting, some of the situations you have described, they have in a very pointed fashion been very rude to you.

I would try switching teams first whilst simultaneously looking for a new job, ultimately if you are unfriendly team and see you as an outsider it is going to be hard to reverse their position.

If indeed you are feeling unwelcome in the whole country I would look at relocating altogether.

if they are an unfriendly team

Agree with a pp over the team a/b situation.

If you're part of team a then why are you not sitting with them? Genuine question and not meant to sound nasty... your colleagues sound horrible.

When you're spending a large portion of your time at work it's nice to have someone to grab a coffee with/have a chat etc.

Your morale must be very low. Please speak to someone higher up in confidence.

Hope things improve for you op

Don't speak to HR. That's the fast track to being labelled a problem.
Despite what they say, HR don't exist to help you: they're there to protect the best interests of the company.

It's almost certainly an issue around culture and as such is not going to be easy to solve. Leave work for professional relationships and develop personal ones elsewhere.

There's no space near them and I sit outside the office of our boss's boss because I and the other Team A woman who sits next to me work separately with him on some projects.

They know that I'm on their team because I often speak to them about things and am included in group emails from the senior management.

I do feel like they've disliked me from the begining like when I'd ask for a sample of the letter we use for X assignment they'd give me the wrong one so I'd do the assignment wrong or they'd only give me one of the three forms I needed to fill in (because I asked for the FORM to complete Y task rather than the FORMS). At the time I thought they were just a bit disorganised but now I wonder if you're right and I really offended them all early on and had no idea.

Language barrier undoubtedly comes into it a bit for day to day lunches and chatting but doesn't explain why they exclude me from team lunches where the spoken language will be English or why the two I used to eat with who are fluent in English (but also other languages) have now dropped me.

Ergh, I need to step up the job hunting but I really worry that everywhere will be the same and I feel so low about it.

Offices are the hell version of school! Don't try so hard to be friendly. Maybe they get put off by your desperation to make friends?
Work is for work, not social events.

I'd say it's definitely where you're sitting. You don't fit in either team. If you're in team a then you should all be sitting together. I would definitely raise this and it is for management to find a solution.

I'm not desperate to make friends. I just want to not eat lunch alone every day and be excluded from team lunches. It would be nice to maybe have a five minute chat about the weekend every now and then as well.

Canwe it's not just that because the woman I sit next with who does basically the same work I do often eats with both Team A and Team B.

Maybe they dont like an 'outsider' in the team? Could there be some form of positive discrimination in your employment? Perhaps the query about new starters is because you are the first they have done this too

wizzy that's something I really worry about (the positive discrimination). I got my job partly through a family friend of my husband's but that's not uncommon here. My boss wants to put me forward for promotion but I've stalled for the last year because I'm so worried about this.

I'm not sure my stalling has worked the appraisal round just gone and I'm dreading the promotion announcement in case I've gone up a level.