At Work The In-Crowd Ostracized Me

I was just starting one of my first real jobs. I interviewed well, I was highly qualified, albeit lacking experience, and I had high hopes that I would be the one selected to fill the position. And I was.

So, all dewy eyed and eager, I headed off for my first day. I had the highly coveted label of "manager" in my new position, although the reality was that the only people I managed were myself and one part-timer who ostensibly worked under me, although she had twenty years of experience and I was really the apprentice to her. I should mention that this particular job entailed working in an almost exclusively female environment, and there were definitely a couple of queens in the hive. I will call them the noon queen bee and the one o'clock queen bee, for reasons that will become apparent

Because this department was primarily customer service related, lunches were staggered; half the department took lunch at noon and half took lunch at one o'clock. Lunchtime rolled around on the first day and half the women picked up their purses and began a ritual discussion of where they wanted to go for lunch. This was the twelve o'clock group, which the part-timer who worked with me was a part of. She asked if I had a problem with taking lunch at one on a regular basis when she worked, which I had no issue with. After the twelve o'clock group came back, the one o'clock group assembled and began their discussion of where they wanted to eat lunch. No one made any effort to include me in the group or the discussion and I had no desire to intrude myself into a pre-existent clique without an invite, so they left and I was off to my own devices.

My entire life I have been an introvert and I'm okay with it. My definition would be that I'm able to entertain myself and don't panic when I'm not surrounded by others. What it doesn't mean is that I'm anti-social or don't like people, which is one interpretation others sometime assign to introverts. But, I was secretly relieved and happy that I had not been asked to join the group lunch. I really didn't like those "tell us about yourself" type of discussions that every newbie everywhere has to endure.

I was in a downtown location with lots to explore and I did. I found the closest newsstand and got my paper and then I discovered which places within walking distance served the type of food I liked. Sometimes I ate in the park, sometimes in a restaurant and sometimes I came back to the employee cafeteria with my food and newspaper. Occasionally I ate at noon when the part-time person came in late and sometimes I ate at one. On the days when the part-timer didn't come in at all I might daringly eat at 12:30 or 12:45!

Many times when I came back to the employee cafeteria I would see the conglomerate group all sitting together at a large table. Definitely room for more people (like the new girl, me) but an offer was never extended. But, to re-iterate, I really didn't care. They had their routine and I had mine. I loved my alone time in the afternoon with my croissant or pita and the newspaper and some coffee. I had lots of time to do the crossword and the jumble and I didn't have to listen to the company gossip and husband/boyfriend/children issues and the merits of different lasagna recipes. (The lunchroom was smallish and most conversations were audible to everyone else in the room).

Life continued like this for months. Fortunately, I got along fabulously with my immediate co-worker, the woman I supposedly "managed". It was slowly revealed to me that a several people in the department had applied for my position and there was collective outrage when an outsider (me) was hired. It seemed to be a consensus that any outsider would be speedily dispatched and die of loneliness and the side effects of ostracism if ignored by the group. They failed to account for what would happen if a cactus fell into the fern garden. Ironically, if they had embraced me initially and suffocated me with cute offspring stories and recipes, I might very well have fled the premises in my probation period.

This story has a happy ending, I guess. On different days in the same week, I was invited to join both the twelve o'clock group and the one o'clock group for lunch. I had been accepted into the hive!

It was so long into my tenure, that it would have been too ridiculous and embarrassing for all involved to ask me the "tell us about yourself" monologue, so I was spared that, plus they would have already gotten all pertinent details from my co-worker anyway.

They pretty much all turned out to be lovely, interesting and even funny women when you got to know them or were allowed to get to know them. But I always found it very odd how a group of adult women had turned a professional workplace into a fourth grade cafeteria with a "kool kids" table. I made sure to reserve some solo lunchtime for myself which I always called "errands" in order to spare any hurt feelings that occasionally I might enjoy my own solitary company to that of the group.