Being ignored in the workplace

[oceanus]

BarensMom wrote:

"Friend's co-workers were apparently flouting company policy by not informing her of the tickets.  Friend was trying to do her job and being stonewalled."

Neither of these sentences has any backing in the OP and they're both pretty strong assumptions about what happened.  See Marbles's response above for at least one possibility that would fit the OP but would contradict both of your assumptions here, and remember that we're only getting a secondhand retelling of events, and getting it from someone who (on the surface of the story) acted pretty rudely to begin with.  The fact that the Friend's supervisor told her to drop the matter is telling here.

Virg

This. (bolded)

Just because she interacts with clients does not mean that her duties are to keep track of client gifts.  Most, if not all, of those employees “interact with clients” on some level.

And “policy”?  What policy?   

I think friend picked up on the fact that others were talking about something they didn’t want her to hear, and they didn’t want to include her.  We don’t know the reasons, but it was said “this type of thing has happened before” or something to that effect.  She got angry, demanded to know what was going on, was blown off, and went whining to the supervisor who told her to let it go.  The fact that supervisor told her to let it go tells me that friend was not just trying to do her job”.

[BarensMom]

BarensMom wrote:

"Friend's co-workers were apparently flouting company policy by not informing her of the tickets.  Friend was trying to do her job and being stonewalled."

Neither of these sentences has any backing in the OP and they're both pretty strong assumptions about what happened.  See Marbles's response above for at least one possibility that would fit the OP but would contradict both of your assumptions here, and remember that we're only getting a secondhand retelling of events, and getting it from someone who (on the surface of the story) acted pretty rudely to begin with.  The fact that the Friend's supervisor told her to drop the matter is telling here.

Virg

This. (bolded)

Just because she interacts with clients does not mean that her duties are to keep track of client gifts.  Most, if not all, of those employees “interact with clients” on some level.

And “policy”?  What policy?   

I think friend picked up on the fact that others were talking about something they didn’t want her to hear, and they didn’t want to include her.  We don’t know the reasons, but it was said “this type of thing has happened before” or something to that effect.  She got angry, demanded to know what was going on, was blown off, and went whining to the supervisor who told her to let it go.  The fact that supervisor told her to let it go tells me that friend was not just trying to do her job”.

"One of duties is interacting with the clients, so she needs to know if things like this occur."

I picked up on the last part of the above sentence.  My thinking was that the co-workers were going to use the movie tickets w/o informing the Friend that it had been a client gift.  They may have not informed her before of client gifts, which puts her in a bit of a pickle.  So she heard "movie tickets" and realized they were doing an end-run around her again.  I was using my work experience to explain why Friend might have pricked up her ears and started interrogating the co-workers as to the provence of the tickets.  In one of my experiences, I overheard someone mentioning a gift of antique Asian temple art they were planning on taking home.  I was obligated by my company's policy to report this to his supervisor, who investigated and the art removed and placed on display at Corporate HQ.

I don't know if Friend's employer had the same gift policy as Evil Oil Company, but based on the OP's sentence I quoted, they very well might.   OP, could you clarify?

Friend also just might be a nosy-parker, which would explain why the co-workers try to leave her out of their activities.  In which case, the co-workers were rude to discuss their event where she could overhear, and Friend was rude for making an issue of it with supervisor.

[LazyDaisy]

I'm afraid I disagree that the coworkers were rude to discuss the movie tickets in the open. I don't believe people need to go into seclusion in order to have a private conversation. If they were speaking to her about the awesome movie they all get to go see, that she isn't invited to, that would be rude. Like many people, I work in a cube farm, so it's impossible not to overhear almost every conversation that goes on around me -- coworkers going to lunch, making appointments, making after-work plans, ...many, many things I'm not invited to. They're not rude for discussing those things where "I can overhear." Thanks to the acoustics on my floor, they'd need to have all conversations in their car in order to be away from where someone can overhear and it'd be weird if all talking ceased and discussions were done only via email or text lest someone overhear.

[fluffy]

Your friend may have had a valid point that she should have known about the tickets, but it also sounds like she over-reacted. Which pretty much undermined any chance she had of her coworkers and supervisor seeing things from her point of view.  I would let it drop.

Sadly, if she keeps overreacting to things, it's likely that she'll continue to be left out of things. Which tends to be a self-perpetuating cycle. 

If a situation like this happens again, she should plan out in her head what she's going to say and practice being calm about it. Only then should she approach her coworkers.

And I would work on rebuilding some of the relationships in the office. It sounds like she's at odds with her coworkers *and* her boss. And that can be extremely career limiting.

I had a job where I hated my boss, and I pretty much made it known how I felt.  Technically, I was in the "right." He was a terrible boss and everyone knew it. But I had such a bad attitude, it ended up hurting *me* in the end. I got a reputation around the office as someone who could be difficult and unpleasant. With time and distance, I realize that I should have handled it better. The next time I had a bad boss, I worked on my attitude about it. And it made interacting with my coworkers easier, and I was just happier in general.

When you think like a duck and let things roll off of your back, you end up benefiting yourself in the end.

[TurtleDove]

When you think like a duck and let things roll off of your back, you end up benefiting yourself in the end.

This.  Constantly being offended is not a good look.  It comes across as looking for offense, and leads people to feel they need to walk on eggshells around you, which in turn pushes people away big time. In my experience, most people are not out to get me so taking offense will backfire and I won't get what I want.  Letting ambiguous things roll off my back generally results in a happier me.  Some people do have malicious intentions and there is no better way to "win" than to let all their effort roll off your back and not affect you.  Letting malicious things roll off my back generally results in a happier me.

[Virg]

BarensMom wrote:

"I picked up on the last part of the above sentence.  My thinking was that the co-workers were going to use the movie tickets w/o informing the Friend that it had been a client gift.  They may have not informed her before of client gifts, which puts her in a bit of a pickle.  So she heard "movie tickets" and realized they were doing an end-run around her again.  I was using my work experience to explain why Friend might have pricked up her ears and started interrogating the co-workers as to the provence of the tickets.  In one of my experiences, I overheard someone mentioning a gift of antique Asian temple art they were planning on taking home.  I was obligated by my company's policy to report this to his supervisor, who investigated and the art removed and placed on display at Corporate HQ."

The reaction of her supervisor is what turns the corner for me.  Her boss told her to drop the matter.  If tracking client gifts was part of her official job duties or policy obligated her to dig this information out in some way, that reaction would be very peculiar so I'm more inclined to think that she doesn't have any offcial reason to be concerned about client gifts and spun that into the story as a justification.

Virg

[Lynda_34]

Honestly I think there is a lot more to this than we know.

[Shoo]

Honestly I think there is a lot more to this than we know.

Definitely.  Like, if she really is a part of the team, why is she being left out of the team gifts?

[Lynn2000]

Friend's co-workers were apparently flouting company policy by not informing her of the tickets.  Friend was trying to do her job and being stonewalled.  If this had happened at EOC, co-workers would have been run up the flagpole by the new orifice supervisor would have torn open.

But she was not trying to do her job and was being stonewalled. She was asking someone why they were talking about movie tickets. They kept telling her it was not her concern. It was only after she pressed them about if for a few minutes that they told her that the tickets were gifts. I don't know if her job really involves dealing with client gifts, but for this discussion I will say it was. It was only after grilling her co-workers about something that seemed innocent and not a part of the job that she discovered that it might be job related after all. If the tickets were gotten from another source (say someone won them on the radio) then the friend's actions would be 100% rude. It was after she acted rudely that she discovered that she might have a way to justify her behavior. In the beginning she had no reason to think that her continued pressure would make a work related reason pop up.

I agree with wolfie. My interpretation of the story, as presented, is that Friend barged in on a private conversation and demanded to know what people were talking about, several times. Only after people finally answered did she discover the conversation actually was work-related and something she ought to know about. It does seem like something shady is going on if people on her team are getting gifts from the clients and not informing her; but Friend will not make any progress correcting this if she gets so furious at her co-workers. It almost seems like she's so paranoid about missing client gifts (that she needs to know about) that she eavesdrops on, and barges into, any private conversation that might be work-gift-related; in this case she happened to be correct, but that's not a professional way to handle an ongoing problem.

As others have said, approaching the supervisor again with a cool head and a list of missed gifts, and the consequences of her not knowing about them (client not getting thanked, for example), and perhaps some ideas for how to fix this (all gifts go to one person for distribution, for example) might salvage the situation.

[Eeep!]

Friend's co-workers were apparently flouting company policy by not informing her of the tickets.  Friend was trying to do her job and being stonewalled.  If this had happened at EOC, co-workers would have been run up the flagpole by the new orifice supervisor would have torn open.

But she was not trying to do her job and was being stonewalled. She was asking someone why they were talking about movie tickets. They kept telling her it was not her concern. It was only after she pressed them about if for a few minutes that they told her that the tickets were gifts. I don't know if her job really involves dealing with client gifts, but for this discussion I will say it was. It was only after grilling her co-workers about something that seemed innocent and not a part of the job that she discovered that it might be job related after all. If the tickets were gotten from another source (say someone won them on the radio) then the friend's actions would be 100% rude. It was after she acted rudely that she discovered that she might have a way to justify her behavior. In the beginning she had no reason to think that her continued pressure would make a work related reason pop up.

I agree with wolfie. My interpretation of the story, as presented, is that Friend barged in on a private conversation and demanded to know what people were talking about, several times. Only after people finally answered did she discover the conversation actually was work-related and something she ought to know about. It does seem like something shady is going on if people on her team are getting gifts from the clients and not informing her; but Friend will not make any progress correcting this if she gets so furious at her co-workers. It almost seems like she's so paranoid about missing client gifts (that she needs to know about) that she eavesdrops on, and barges into, any private conversation that might be work-gift-related; in this case she happened to be correct, but that's not a professional way to handle an ongoing problem.

As others have said, approaching the supervisor again with a cool head and a list of missed gifts, and the consequences of her not knowing about them (client not getting thanked, for example), and perhaps some ideas for how to fix this (all gifts go to one person for distribution, for example) might salvage the situation.

Chiming in to agree with this.  I am trying to imagine how the situation went down and there is really no way that the friend doesn't come out seeming incredibly obnoxious.  Several minutes of badgering people to tell you what is going on? Without any overt indication (she may have had valid suspicions, I understand) that it was even work-related? That is a lot of "no really guys, what are you talking about? I know you are talking about something? Tell me what you are discussing".
If she really did suspect that it was related to a gift given to the team and she felt she HAD to say something, then it might have been best to just say "Oh, I was thinking you were discussing a team gift. My apologies." They could then either deny that fact or maybe someone would have admitted the truth. Either way, she wouldn't have come across so annoying. And if they did deny it, and it really is a part of her job to know these things, she could calmly bring her suspicions to her supervisor in a "how do we address this communication problem" way, not a "people are ignoring me" way. If that makes sense.