He's actually kinda cute in a really intense way... kinda like Perry Farrell

[venta]

In a moment of unguided bargain-buying, I purchased a 50p drink from the Post Office bargain bin today. It is called Kitsch and comes in a leopard-print bottle.

It's perry and it's actually reasonably drinkable.

Pintwatch is not speaking to me.

Today, I received an email from one of our admin staff at work inviting me to join "the girls" for their Christmas meal this year."The girls" (not my label) constitutes the female "upstairs" staff - in our building there is a fairly strict divide between upstairs (management, legal, admin, accounting, people of uncertain function) and downstairs (programmers). I've occasionally heard remarks like "oh, all the girls went out last Friday" but never before been invited to join them.

I am, for people who don't know me, a girl but a downstairs one. When I joined I was the only female programmer, we briefly rose to three, then back to one, and are now two. I replied that I'd like to join them for lunch - many of the upstairs people I barely know to speak to, and feel I ought to make more effort - and would play along with the Secret Santa which appears to be involved. I fear smarter clothes and chardonnay may be the order of the day.

Rather belatedly, it occurred to me that if, for example, the engineers organised a Blokes' Night Out to which I wasn't invited I'd feel somewhat put out. Is it, therefore, hypocritical of me to join in with a Girls' Christmas Lunch to which I've been invited for my chromosomes rather than my charming and witty banter ? Why, in the workplace, are girly lunches considered acceptable while an outing from which women are excluded thought to be all kinds of bad ?

I suspect that, in a lot of cases, outings like this are organised and none of the excluded people are actually bothered. Few people will protest inequality if they don't actually want the thing they didn't get. The test would come if one of my company's male employees asked (for some reason) to be included. I remember a male friend of mine objecting bitterly that he wasn't invited to a hen night, even though he was close to most of the people involved and expressed interest. I, by contrast, thoroughly enjoyed undyingking's stag night.

I must admit, I'm looking forward with curiosity to a girly lunch. I've no idea what goes on at such things.

Comments

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I think that it's brilliant that a) they like you enough to invite you b) they bothered to invite you at all as [waits for summons to stocks] rather often the laydeez can be rather thoughtlessly exclusive and cliquey. I can recall someone in my former place of work [the Hellmouth] having a girly leaving-lunch to which she invited about half of the office after having talked about it lengthily and openly (rather rude and thoughtless IMHO if not everybody's coming). I had no pretensions to going, but an older female member of staff spent most of lunchtime fulminating and virtually in tears as she had thought that the two of them were friends. That was a really fun 2 hours spent trying not to say anything bitchy about girl #1 while calming down a woman in her 40's who maybe ought to be over girlie thoughtlessness by now (I did work too). The same group of people made certain that there was no space for the blokes on the department Xmas table, which led to a small but critical quiet exodus to the table of purdah among those of us who had worked out what was going on. [pauses to wipe away foam]

Yes, girlies get away with lots more. I still think it's good they've invited you. No, I refuse to choose my friends according to chromosome too.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

rather often the laydeez can be rather thoughtlessly exclusive and cliquey

That's not really a risk here since they're a very diverse bunch. Sufficiently so, in fact, that I'm struggling to imagine what the event in question will be like. Hopefully venta will write some of it up in due course !

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not a risk in this case! And a diverse bunch of cow-orkers is to be envied.