i am so extremely annoyed right now. wednesday is my last day at this job; i'm leaving to get my masters, and really happy about it. one of the things i really hated about this job is the corporate culture -- people here are just so petty and bitchy with each other. two girls who i'm friends with (L and D) offered to take me to lunch on wednesday. i used to work in their department and we've kept in touch, so i was happy to get the invitation. but after i said yes, L told me that my old boss, K, had heard and said she wanted to come. now i don't even want to go anymore. when i switched to my current department K freaked out and wouldn't speak to me for a few days, and it became very ugly. she said some catty things about my new boss, told me that my interest in switching departments was just like cheating on your husband, etc. after a week of this she suddenly switched gears, told me how much she'd miss me if i left, and then gave me all these presents on my last day. it was such a weird turnaround.
edit: one other thing about my former boss, K. she deliberately tried to make us all hate each other in her department. she would individually tell us all private things about each other, like who was seeing a therapist or who was on medication -- so inappropriate -- and say mean things about my co-workers. i am sure she said mean things about me to them too. needless to say, i don't trust her.
making this lunch even more annoying is they're deliberately not asking the only other person in that department to come. they talked about it in front of him and didn't even ask him if he was interested. i just think that is so petty and mean and am sure it hurt his feelings. almost no one likes him, and he's really angered me in the past too, but he's not a mean person at heart and has told me he hates how people always exclude him.
have any of you been in situations like this? if so, how have you handled them? do you think i should still even go? thanks for reading my "i'm so annoyed" post.
oh dear, this so sucks! i'm not sure if this is possible but could you just say something came up that you have to take care of that day but you'll make sure to come say bye before you leave? since it's your last day, would there be any real consequences to flaking?
Ugh, what a terrible situation! I think just trying to cancel the lunch seems like the best option. Perhaps you can explain the situation to your friends and ask if they want to go out for dinner or drinks after work instead. There's no point in having lunch with someone you dislike and don't respect, especially if you are leaving your job. But by just flaking you won't be insulting anyone and won't leave on a sour note.
Also, I understand how you feel about that one guy being excluded. One year my coworkers (including my 2 bosses) took me out to lunch to celebrate the fact that I finished my master's and didn't tell one of the other librarians. He works in the afternoons so we had already left for the restaurant before he even came in but they could have told him to come in early that day. Then the following year they decided to go out to lunch during Restaurant Week and again excluded him. I don't like him very much but he's been working here for 15 years and I thought it was so mean and unprofessional that I told them I wasn't going to lunch either. A few coworkers were miffed but they got over it.
scarlett wrote: thanks, cc. i'd thought people would get over this kind of thing (excluding others) after middle or high school but apparently not! how ironic -- you work as a librarian? i'm getting my master's in information and library science from pratt!
OMG that's where I got my MLS! How funny!! Hey, PM me if you want to chat about library stuff.
I think that since you will never see these people again, you should go to their lunch, but invite the guy that is always excluded. At the very least you'll know that you made their lunch miserable too. And, you will leave knowing that you were the better person. And, by not excluding bitchy inappropriate 'K', you could use her for a ref. letter should you ever need to.,
thanks for the advice, girls. all my worrying about this came to naught because it ended up being cancelled anyway. everyone had meetings -- in fact, they all met with my current boss over problems between our department (and some others as well). very glad to be leaving this place!