She's trying to join our lunch group...

amother

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 3:11 pm

I realise I'm going to sound horribly mean, but please hear me out.

Where I work, there is a group of us that eats lunch together every day. We've been doing this for a few years, and we've all grown quite close. We all look forward to lunchtime everyday because it's a time when we can talk and share confidences and personal situations- and we know it will go no further than those 4 walls.

Last week, a girl from another department that some of us occasionally work with has been coming to eat with us. Out of the blue, she just showed up and started eating with us. It's happened 3 times so far and we are going crazy trying to think of a way to stop it.

It's not that we're the "mean girls" and simply don't like her. We do like her- OK, she can be a bit annoying, she's not really our style (she's much younger than the rest of us who are older and married with children and grandchildren), she's rather immature and likes to talk- a lot. We're really not interested in spending time with her. That's all true, I admit, but again, it's not why we don't want her to eat with us. If this were just a casual bunch of people eating lunch together, we'd have no problem with her joining us.

BUT, as I said, we share a lot of private things in that room. Every time she's come in, we've all sort of shut up and had to censor ourselves and talk about silly nonsense with her. We really hate this. We look forward to having real conversations during lunch- why should we have to give that up?

No, we have no interest in taking her into our confidences. We don't want her to be privy to our personal matters.

The problem is that none of us can bring ourselves to tell her not to eat with us anymore. We truly don't want to hurt her feelings- but why should we have to sacrifice the short time each day that we all so look forward to? She does have other people to eat with, but for some reason has decided that she likes us.

Any suggestions?

shlomitsmum

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 3:27 pm

no way getting around not hurting her . I would be honest ,but feel bad for her . And yes it does sound mean but what can you do ...it is what it is . we are all left out at some point Sad

In your shoes I might say dear plonette it has ben nice having you join us for lunch and you are welcome to do this ocationally but I thought I would let you know that Me and plonette1,2,3 &4 have been friends for a loong time and we view our lunches as our VERY personal catch up time not open to recent friendships . Having a new person "join" takes away from our privacy .

I Just thought it would be fair to be honest with you about this and avoid feeling uncomfortable or for you to think its personal it is not ,but we feel uncomfortable having a new person sudenly there all the time ,I hope you understand.

I think she might get the point .....

amother

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 3:28 pm

OP here
We did change rooms but she found us! We ate earlier today, but for whatever reason she didn't come by today. We really didn't like eating earlier (no one really felt ready yet but we did it anyway), and we don't want to eat later either, our usual time is very comfortable for us and we'd rather not change.

We all realise how ridiculous this situation is, we don't like behaving like a bunch of 10-year-old girls. We just want our lunch group to stay the same!

Della

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 3:33 pm

OK, I'm going to disagree here, sorry.

I understand and appreciate your small warm group. I love those, too. But this is in a public workplace. If you need to do this, do it on your "off time". If it means so much to you all, then get together after hours.

I know it's much easier to grab this lunchtime opportunity. But it's not right to exclude another person.

I don't think hurting another's feelings is worth the pleasure of your group.

justcallmeima

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 3:39 pm

I have to agree with the previous poster. It is not your private room, it belongs to the company you work for. It is open to all employees. If you want to have private time to share and connect, go to a restaurant for lunch and get a quiet table or get together after hours. As a manager if I found out that you told another employee she couldn't sit with you at lunch, I would have to have a little chat with you. That is not acceptable behaviour in a workplace. We wouldn't accept it from children in school, why would it be acceptable in an adult workplace?

Hodu Lashem

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 4:12 pm

There is no "nice" way to ask her not to join you. No matter how politely or delicately you put it, it still looks and sounds bad.

So you have to make a decision: Is it worth it to hurt this person's feelings?

I don't think so.

I would just continue to include her whenever she shows up and try to connect with your friends in another time or another way. Eventually, she will get bored hanging out with people older than she and she'll drop you guys.

Just my opinion.

shlomitsmum

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 4:29 pm

justcallmeima wrote:

I have to agree with the previous poster. It is not your private room, it belongs to the company you work for. It is open to all employees. If you want to have private time to share and connect, go to a restaurant for lunch and get a quiet table or get together after hours. As a manager if I found out that you told another employee she couldn't sit with you at lunch, I would have to have a little chat with you. [b]That is not acceptable behaviour in a workplace. We wouldn't accept it from children in school, why would it be acceptable in an adult workplace?

[/b]

I somehow missed the fact they were meeting up at the workplace conference room (too many things goin on today) ....OK. that changes it for me . Sorry OP you guys will have to have your clique bonding outside work hours , DH (a manager )says she could accuse you of workplace bullying! shock

. so keep mum ,grin and bear .

ora_43

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 4:37 pm

Maybe you could just make less effort. Like, instead of talking silly nonsense with her, just be boring for a while. Or talk about things that interest you (that aren't too personal) without worrying about whether they interest her as well.

If she's as different from the rest of the group as it seems from your post, she might drop your group if there's no effort to cater to her anymore.

I'm not saying to blatantly exclude her, that would be mean.

imaima

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 4:37 pm

amother wrote:

Go to eat somewhere else. You are married and have grandchildren but belong into high school.

Tova

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 5:15 pm

Monsey Mom wrote:

Yup! I was shocked that it took a few responses for someone to say this. Monsey Mom is 100% correct.

naomi2

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 5:47 pm

wow. there's no getting out of this. you know why? because 'getting rid of her' is downright rude and mean! I agree with above poster. this is childish behavior. if you read the dear libby column in the mishpacha junior mag you will find similar 'problems' every other week. it sounds something like this ' we are three best friends and another girl is always trying to be friends with us but we don't want her to join us. what should we do?'

marshmellow

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 5:51 pm

I agree with those who say that you cannot tell her to stop eating with you. however you put that, it would sound mean and bitchy. it's not nice. for all you know, maybe she is very unhappy by the people she used to eat with, and maybe she thinks you are nice people and likes your company more, or wants to get to know a few other people from the office. so what if you have to talk with her about different things? there are many times we have to talk about trivial things just in order to be friendly. maybe she is more interesting than you think.
if you work in an place where the departments are not rigidly separated from one another, you can't expect to have one exclusive eating group. as others said it's not school where sadly cliquey groups form. if someone comes to eat with you, say "hi!"
I do understand that you like this time to talk about your personal matters - we all definitely need an outlet! - but why can't you find a time outside work to get together and chat? like make a weekly sunday tea meeting or something. there must be some way you can arrange something like this. you should really try to!

celestial

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 6:59 pm

I like ShlomitsMum's way of putting it. You can be straightforward. If I heard this from a group of women, I would be embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as if I found out on my own from someone else or over time.

The other option is the be boring, keep changing rooms, don't do lunch for a while so she gives up, passive aggressive stuff like that. Honestly, that possibly may be your best option.

Or, you can stop talking about personal stuff at work. But I get you why that would be an enriching part of your life you would not want to give up.

amother

Thu, Jan 26 2012, 7:41 pm

To be honest, whenever I see threads here encouraging lonely women to ~just go out and meet people~ or ~just introduce yourself and start chatting~, the scenario depicted by OP is the first thing that comes to my mind. People may be polite on the outside, but inside they are just trying to think of ways to get rid of you. And this is why, 6 months into living in a new city, I am extremely wary of putting myself out there and trying to connect with people. And, yes, I am lonely, and it hurts a lot, but I have to say that this post just reinforced every single insecurity I have about trying to make friends.