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

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Forum -> Relationships -> Manners & Etiquette

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amother

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 4:55 am

I'm starting to wish I'd never started this thread. I'd feel terrible if it somehow got back to the girl. Would it be possible for a mod to delete this whole thread?

Isramom8

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 5:42 am

I'm not a mod in this section so I can't.

Merrymom

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 9:26 am

OP, I don't understand why everyone seems to be attacking you. The only thing I disagree with is outright telling the girl that you want privacy. Your feelings otoh, I understand completely. I have several sisters that I'm extremely close to and we have a great time together. If a sil or one of our children tags along the atmosphere completely changes. Now we love our sils and children so it has nothing to do with being snobby, I don't understand why people don't get that.

As I suggested previously, your only hope is to make your conversations so boring that she wants to avoid you.

imaima

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 9:30 am

Now that you have explained it, and specifically mentioned that people from her previous group retired, I would come up to someone from ther ex-group and ask them whether they know what happened and why she might start having lunch with you. Then, I would ask them (if they still want it) to explicitly invite her back because she feels awkward in your group.

Tova

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 9:44 am

Merrymom wrote:

Have you ever worked in a professional office environment?
This is not a matter of getting together with family. It's a workplace morale, and acceptable work behavior issue. OP - honestly, if you would exhibit this exclusionary behavior in my professional firm you would likely be fired. I know that sounds harsh and I don't think you mean to be mean.

NewYorkgal31

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 9:56 am

I really don't want to sound harsh or mean but after reading your last post OP I would never ever want to work at this place. What happens to someone new who comes into the company....do they have to sit by themselves? or hope that someone "opens" one of these closed office doors for her? Are you forever chained to this "group" that you are "in" and unable to socialize with other staff members during lunch? I have worked in many different places and have never heard of such work/lunch arrangement. Rolling Eyes

Simple1

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 10:05 am

Merrymom wrote:

This post made me feel sad. I have no sisters so if I want family togetherness it would have to be with brothers (just not the same as female interaction) or with SILs. But I have learned the hard way that SILs are not the same as sisters. And it's a shame that my kids are not growing up with that special closeness that cousins have, and they've noticed it too.

Raisin

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 10:24 am

Simple1 wrote:

Merrymom wrote:

I think me and my sisters are pretty inclusive towards our sisters in law. (in fact, we helped choose them. Smile

) I love getting together with my sisters, and I also love getting together with my sils. Of course, I know some of them better then others since they have been in the family longer/or they live closer. But we would never exhibit exclusionary behaviour towards any of them.

(My mother is so bad at excluding people, that at one or two weddings there were mechutanim of one or the other married kids attending. My mother didn't have the heart to tell some of the mechutanims kids that they should leave the big family picture, even though they were not related to the chassan or kallah.)

saw50st8

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 10:36 am

Simple1 wrote:

Merrymom wrote:

I love my SILs, but I have a different relationship with them than my sisters. Doesn't mean better or worse, just different. Different dynamics.

As to lunch in the workplace - is there an offsite location you can go to? A local park or something? You can't exclude her presence in the office (although, if you reserve the conference for a private meeting I don't know why that is not ok?), but you are entitled to your own lunch time.

Simple1

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 10:39 am

Raisin wrote:

Simple1 wrote:

Merrymom wrote:

I think me and my sisters are pretty inclusive towards our sisters in law. (in fact, we helped choose them. Smile

Sounds like you have a sweet family.

Mine is OK - they don't specifically exclude me. but I think that without an extra effort there is less closeness with SILs.

gp2.0

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 10:39 am

This is lacking in middos. If you want a private conversation, don't have it in public. Whether she likes your company or is socially inept, it's wrong to exclude her. You don't have to become her new best friend. Just be decent.

ElTam

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 12:11 pm

Quote:

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.

Last time I checked, embarassing a fellow Jew is ossur.

MrsDash

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 2:11 pm

amother wrote:

celestial wrote:

I think the situation is a little more complex than that. Unless this younger woman is socially inept, I don't think she would particularly want to join these women if she only knew the nature of their lunches and what she was disrupting. Imagine two women having a private conversation near the water cooler, and some random person they work with comes up and makes small talk. Do they have a right to shoo him away? Absolutely not, that would be unkind. If the man were more aware, or if the women gave nonverbal clues they were enjoying some socializing among close friends, the man may feel he prefers to give them their privacy, even if they don't have an intrinsic right to it in the workplace.

Celestial, thank you for trying to understand. This is exactly the situation. This girl, who might not be socially inept, but is a bit thick, does not realise when she is intruding. She's rather notorious for going into various offices to chat, and will stand there and listen even when it's obvious she's come upon a private conversation. She'll join in and comment, and no one "kicks her out" even though we think she's out of line, because we don't want to hurt her feelings. We just try to change the subject. But do we have to do this at lunch as well? Can't we have our small pocket of private time once a day?

Here's how it works at our company- there are different groups that eat together- each group uses an empty office and closes the door. I would never dream of just opening another group's door and sitting down at the table- even a group made up of people I'm friendly with- for the same reason it bothers us that this girl is doing that to us. Because I know that this group has been sitting together for years and during lunch they like to kick back and talk about personal things. In fact, I can't think of anyone in the whole company who would do such a thing, but as I said, this girl is a bit thick.

We don't want to be mean to her. We are not "mean girls" even though everyone who's responded so far thinks we are nasty pieces of work (easy to say, but I'll bet if any of you had this same situation, you'd be writing to Imamother looking for advice). I get that we have no intrinsic right to privacy at work- but do we have no other choice than to sit with this girl forever? We don't want to get together after work- most of us don't live near eachother and we're all busy with our own families. We cherish lunchtime as a time to talk about personal matters. Do we have to give that up and talk about shallow things forever, just so we won't hurt this girl's feelings? Must we pity her until we retire?

We've been thinking that one of us will take her aside and very kindly and compassionately explain to her that it's nothing personal, but we want to be able to discuss personal things and someone (anyone, not just her) else sitting with us makes that impossible. I think you're right, Celestial, that she wouldn't want to join us if she realised that this were the case. I'm not even sure she'd be offended, because it's a perfectly reasonable explanation, especially if the person explaining this did it as kindly as possible.

She does have a group of her own to eat with, so there's no chance she'll be at loose ends. I think she's been coming to us because some of the people in her group have retired or left the company and she wants to try something new.

If that's the case then she sounds like a perfect addition to your work lunch clique.

Lady Godiva

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 2:16 pm

NewYorkgal31 wrote:

What she said.

cookie1

Fri, Jan 27 2012, 3:23 pm

You know, I must tell you how infantile I think this is. I too experienced being the 'odd man out' in my new neighborhood-so I went and found myself my own friends who include everyone, and have nothing to do with people like you, who are exclusionary and dont understand how hurtful you are being. I think its time you all left high school and thought about others..why this girl stll wants to hang out with you is beyond me-but if she does, as ADULTS, you should make every effort to include her! I would not allow this kind of behavior in my classroom and I'm surprised that you allow yourselves to behave this way. For shame!!

Culturedpearls

Sat, Jan 28 2012, 10:21 am

I actually feel sick. I've been transported back to my public school. I can picture myself hanging out in the library at lunchtime because I didn't feel welcome in a clique. I found my own clique eventually but I did not forget the hurt.
I survived but I have a fear of social changes. I will not relocate even if it makes sense for fear of being socially isolated. This has been confirmed by several posters.
OP, maybe you've never been in new situations where you were the odd man out, maybe you were never a new immigrant kid in a public school. Perhaps you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth & you don't like your boat rocked. Maybe you never went to a simcha & knew no one at the table & felt what it's like to be excluded.
Whatever your history, your middos need more than a bit of work.
Sure you don't want to hurt her feeling, only because that would make you feel uncomfortable & you'd like to think that you're really a nice person (we all do).
Perhaps this is your true test.

ora_43

Sat, Jan 28 2012, 12:31 pm

OP,
I really don't think you should say anything to her. She's almost certain to be embarrassed and hurt.

Are your usual conversations really so deeply personal that you can't speak even somewhat normally in front of her? I think that's the part I find most odd. There are people I'm close to and people I'm not close to, but having the latter in the room wouldn't prevent me from enjoying the company of the former.

Yes, you can't share your deepest secrets, but there should be plenty of other things to talk about, no?

Another thing I find confusing - you say she's socially dense, but you also say you've been going out of your way to talk "silly nonsense" with her. It seems to me that if you're going out of your way to make sure she can follow and even enjoy the conversation, you're not giving her any room to pick up signals that she might be intruding, even if she's reasonably socially bright.

People bashing OP-
I don't get all the comparisons to middle school/high school. It's not like in high school people form groups of friends, while in adulthood everybody is friends with everybody and we all love every single person's company.

The difference is supposed to be in manners, not in whether or not we have groups of friends. "Middle school" behavior is insulting someone you want to exclude and/or saying mean things behind their back, but simply not wanting someone around isn't "middle school" as long as the situation is handled with tact.

People new to their communities who are now afraid nobody will really like them -
There are a lot of ways to befriend people that don't involve joining them uninvited almost daily. You can invite them to get together. You can join some kind of community volunteer project. You can strike up conversations at shul or the park or any other public place.

You can even join a group of friends in conversation, just not the same people every day.

Yes, if you're joining an established group without being asked, every day, they might sometimes wish you weren't there. But that's really not something you have to do in order to make friends.

celestial

Sat, Jan 28 2012, 6:24 pm

ora_43 wrote:

There are a lot of ways to befriend people that don't involve joining them uninvited almost daily. You can invite them to get together. You can join some kind of community volunteer project. You can strike up conversations at shul or the park or any other public place.

You can even join a group of friends in conversation, just not the same people every day.

Yes, if you're joining an established group without being asked, every day, they might sometimes wish you weren't there. But that's really not something you have to do in order to make friends.

Yep - exactly! People who exclude in order to feel good about themselves are acting juvenile. People who exclude for privacy or comfort are just ....looking for comfort. If you are encouraging the OP to go out of her comfort zone that's one thing, but to want some friends-time without having to acclimate to a new person is understandable and not necessarily mean.

I think the idea of going to a park or something during lunch break is a really great suggestion. Then you don't get into messy workplace politics or have to make anyone uncomfortable.

celestial

Sat, Jan 28 2012, 6:27 pm

ElTam wrote:

Quote:

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.

Last time I checked, embarassing a fellow Jew is ossur.

Good point. But I think the train of thought I was on was that this woman will probably somehow, some way find out the nature of the meetings (personal talks between old friends) and will feel somewhat embarrassed. It's better she is told sweetly and in an understanding way (with plans to include her in something different and less personal, preferably) than in public or among lots of people.

But you're right, I think something should be worked out so that she is the least embarrassed.

eatingbagels

Mon, Jan 30 2012, 1:42 am

Maybe your lunch clique can become a study group in which you all learn chovot halevavot.

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