I am one of about a dozen hourly employees. The majority of the people I work with are salaried workers under contract. Staff meetings are generally held after the hourly workers clock out. Hourly employees can stay if we want, but then we have to adjust our hours to compensate for the overage. I am not really able to adjust my hours because I have an assigned duty both in the morning and in the afternoon, so I can neither come in late, nor can I leave early. That being the case, I am not aware of any existing seating arrangements at the staff meetings. Humans are creatures of habit and although I am sure people may have laid claim to a favorite chair. I am from the school of whoever gets there first.
Two years ago, one of the staff meetings was held earlier in the day as we were celebrating an accomplishment and there was food. Teams generally sit together at one table. Our team is the largest, but it is subdivided into smaller groups, so some of the smaller groups sit together instead of at the main table. I noticed a teammate, one of the two salaried employees with whom I work closely, sitting at a large table with a few cell phones scattered around the table where others had laid claim to certain seats. Finding an unoccupied spot, I sat down. The teammate turned to me and said, "If you want to sit here, you'll need to pull up your own chair." I looked around at all the empty seats crowded around the table, and realized that pulling up a chair meant I would not have a spot at the table. I thought, "Well, screw this, I'll just sit somewhere else." I walked across the room and sat down next to another hourly employee who worked on a different team. I watched as other members of my team asked the table queen if a seat was taken, the teammate shook her head and allowed them to sit. Eventually, another hourly employee on my team came over and asked me to join her at our team table. We of course were not allowed to sit at the table proper, but adjacent to the table with our food on our laps.
A year ago, the same thing happened with the self appointed table queen. She actually had stretched her legs out under the table and rested her Birkenstock clad feet on the chair opposite her while having the audacity to tell me there was not room for me and again I would have to pull up a chair. That time I managed to get a tiny corner of the table on which to perch my plate as I leaned forward on a much too low chair.
This year, the table queen was not on her own. She was flanked by two other salaried team members who are somewhat inclusive and treat their hourly employees as equals. The queen was no longer feeling emboldened to treat me like a lowly peasant not worthy of a place at the table now that there were witnesses to her behavior. I sat right down at the main table. She shot me looks, but she did not say a word. The above mentioned two salaried teammates saved the seats next to them for their hourly employees who were warmly welcomed when they sat down. Another teammate sat next to me, and another across. The rest of our team was left to share a table with another team. This meant there was no room for my office mate, a salaried worker who is used to sitting at the main table. She has not spoken to me since.
I sent her a text message after saying how I was sorry we didn't get a chance to visit at the breakfast, but her table seemed nice and the conversation was likely better. It was my way of apologizing for her not sitting at the main table. Maybe I made things worse. I sent her another text the next day after bumping into someone we both know. She didn't respond to that either. So now that's going to be awkward.
In my defense, I just wanted to be included for once and not be treated like I do not matter. If it makes any difference, this is not a seniority thing, as I have worked there about 5 years longer than TQ and longer than any of the other hourly employees on my team.
I would like to say that this is the only instance of the Table Queen, or TQ, as I have now come to refer to her, treating me poorly, but it is not. Three years ago, we shared a workspace with another hourly employee. TQ was new then and she absolutely did not want anything to do with us. She would neither say hello in the morning, nor goodbye in the afternoon. She would only speak to us if she had to. We would make a point to make eye contact and say hello to her. The most we could get was a mumbled grunt in our general direction. Shared office equipment was no longer so; it all belonged to her and heaven forbid one picked up the three hole punch, as it would be quickly snatched from your hand and put back where she liked to keep it.
At first, I thought she was merely shy and perhaps a bit socially awkward. I am too,
so I thought she just needed time to warm up to us. I thought this for weeks until we had an assignment to help another subdivision of our team on a project for a few days. She swept into the room, friendly as she could be with everyone, she made snarky comments that had everyone in stitches and left soon after. My other co-worker and I who shared a room with her at the time were dumbfounded. Where had this person been? I still wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt though. I couldn't believe that she had anything against us. She barely knew us, and both of us were experienced, good at our jobs, and offered to help her settle in on her first day. Why would she treat us with such disdain?
Some time later, the second salaried employee with whom we worked closely came into our room. (She is my current office mate, and the one who is not speaking to me for sitting at the main table.) TQ switched on the personality yet again. When current office mate included me and my friend in on the conversation, TQ came over to our desks like this was something that she does every day and joked and made eye contact with us. Again, we were shocked at how personable she was when other people were around. Even after working with her for nearly 9 months in the same room, she never warmed to us or even once asked us, "How are you?" or "How was your weekend?"
I hear from my supervisors during my performance reviews about how TQ has nothing but wonderful things to say about me and my work. I have heard from my office mate that TQ has a lot of respect for me, yet she refuses to treat me with any kind of common decency to my face. When she does have to speak to me, she is often abrupt bordering on rude. I have done nothing to this woman, and honestly, I don't think it's me. I think she sees herself as having a position above me which somehow makes her superior and I am not worthy of common courtesy. I have never before worked with anyone like that.
All of this would be manageable, the haughty Table Queen, the co-worker who is not speaking to me for sitting at the main table, if I had a co-worker who was a close friend and who was in the trenches with me. My friend who shared a room with TQ and me a few years ago has gone on to other things and was not replaced. It is me and the two salaried workers on our subdivision of the larger team. There is no one I can confide in about it, I just have to do what I always do, put a smile on my face and pretend it does not bother me at all while I do the best that I can at my job. I have learned though, I am not going to another staff meeting if I can help it, and if it is mandatory, I am sitting somewhere else. The drama isn't worth it.
