Social anxiety and work colleagues

[CoraC]

Does anyone else face this? I work within a team. The team is largely made up of a core group of people who knew each other before working together and are very close friends. They are all very young and outgoing. I am neighter young nir outgoing so I think they don't like me. I have tried making many efforts but they are not interested in talking with me.They make private jokes all day and take very long coffee breaks and lunches within their own friendship group. Now, I don't think teams have to live out of each others pockets but I do think there should be some consideration to include other, new team members who aren't part of the eatblshied clique. The most frustrating aspect is they're work shorter hours than I do. They tegulaly take very long lunch breaks which means I deal with customers for them during this time. This seems pretty unfair. Then they leave about an hour early. The senior supervisor is part of their group so it's basically impossible to challenge this without it coming back to bite me.

[white knight]

Hi, CC

Welcome to the modern day workplace but sadly it has always been the same.

When smoking cigarettes were banned indoors smokers were made to smoke outdoors while the non smoker toiled with making up the workload.

Then in a warehouse you'd be the main forklift driver. Someone would borrow it for 30 minutes but as soon as the machine spluttered (indicating it was running out of gas) the driver would abandon it. This meant I had to carry a gas bottle 300 metres from another area.

At a telco we used to pull large cables out of the ground through pipes. One guy never pull the cable- he acted like he did. The same guy stole garden hoses from a aged care facility and threw them onto my truck. I told him to return them, he wouldn't, told our boss....he then talked to the guy unbeknown to me my boss was supporting the thief!!

Then there are the times you take things further in the common workplace- unions, your boss etc and either way you'd be ostracized forever, never trusted again.

So, I'm afraid I don't like your chances of changing that workplace to your advantage unless you be just as cunning with your time and make up for these shortfalls in another subtle manner.

TonyWK