So I have a gaggle of cats, (4). They are clean.
My house is clean. We are very fastidious with cleaning up after them.
This woman knows I love animals and especially cats. She often makes fun of me (joking) about my love of cats but says things like she hates cats and they are disgusting, and their use of litter and crawling all over the house is disgusting. And they are evil and gross.
So, with her in mind, I did not invite her to my party because of this. It is because I love my cats, whom I bottle fed, or found in dumpsters (literally), and they are my family members even though I have human family members.
She is upset at me. Won’t talk to me. Is now passive aggressive and otherwise unhelpful. I did bring up the reason but she shakes her head and walks off and is no longer professional. I wouldn’t say she was my good friend before this, just a work friend.
I’ve never been invited to her house, nor she to mine before this. Perhaps I messed up here? I don’t feel like I did. Every time she would talk badly about my cats or animals in general I would get a sick feeling. I am guarded with her because honestly I don’t really trust people who don’t like animals. She’s mostly obessed with TikTok and is on her phone most of the day…but always found time to joke-make fun of me if someone brought up my cats and I talked about them in a loving way.
I don’t really care that she’s upset with me, but I also would like to go back to a cordial working relationship. I would rather chalk this up as differences in personalities and continue to be polite.
Also, our work is very interdependent on a working and civilized relationship. There is no doing our jobs independently. So this has to get fixed and I don’t know how. :/ Advice? Was I in the wrong? I didn’t want her in my house being rude to my animals or talking badly about me or them at work. Basically I was protecting my space from someone who speaks so poorly of my beloved animals.
Comments
I think out of politeness you could’ve invited her and let her decline? Did you invite everyone else from the office? I can see why she was annoyed and I doubt your relationship will return to how it was lol
I’d send this question into the Ask a Manager blog too. I think it is more a work question than a friendship question.
This sounds like Her Problem and not yours.
If she can’t put aside her grumpiness to cordially work towards solutions together with you, that’s something you need to bring up… either to her, or to a manager.
We don’t have to like our coworkers, but we do have to be professional and work with them to get shit done because that is what we are getting paid to do. If she can’t do that, she needs to figure out how or find a new job.
how did she find out about your party?
“Janice, I didn’t invite you because you hate cats, and my house has cats. You wouldn’t invite me to a location with four free roaming tarantulas knowing I hate spiders. Next time we do a get together let’s make it at Neutral Outside Location.”
If you didn’t invite her because you didn’t want her at your house, or maybe she had offended you by calling your cats evil, fine. But if you didn’t invite her because you assumed she wouldn’t want to go anyway, you made her decision for her. And that’s not really fair.
All you can do is apologize for making her decision for her (if you care to). If she acts like a dick even after that, you’ve done your part, and the rest is her choice.
Was everyone else from work invited to the party?
Her feelings are hurt. Maybe just invite her out for lunch or bring her a treat/plant/knickknack. She probably would have even rejected your invite, but it still sucks to be in her position too. I think the little gift /lunch invite could be an olive branch to at least get you talking again.
People who think cats are “evil” are red flags and I wouldn’t want them around my pets unless I could keep an eye on them the entire time.
She sounds like an ass hole, similar to a former friend that used to make fun of me to my face in a “joking” manner, and I finally had enough and told her I didn’t want to be friends because she was always being mean. Well she got pissy that I couldn’t “take a joke” (repeatedly for years..) and we never spoke again. Which was fine.
This woman at work has been acting in a way that is socially abusive, and now she’s mad that she’s not invited places? To hell with her. No time in life for that nonsense.
Maybe just tell her “i know you don’t like cats and assumed you didn’t want to be around mine at my house.” If it continues to effect your work, that’s on her and you can bring it up the ladder
People like this will go out of their way to “accidentally” let your cats out. Please don’t allow her near your cats.
Can you talk to HR about how someone who hates cats is offended that they weren’t invited to your home?
Girl, no. I wouldn’t open myself up to that kind of negativity either.
Imagine if she did come she’d be talking shit the entire time.
No thank you.
You did nothing wrong here. The office isn’t school, and you’re under no obligation to invite the whole class. I absolutely would not encourage her nonsense with any kind of gift or apology.
As someone who also does not like cats nor wants to be in a house with cats, I would never go around my office talking about how horrible they are! Especially when someone brings up how much they like their cats. This lady is something. Definitely not your fault but I don’t know how to repair this other than time.
It sounds to me like shes sort of embarrassed at being left out. If based on the social dynamics of the group it sort of stood out that she was excluded, then you should have invited her and let her decline. If it didn’t stand out (it’s hard to say without knowing you all), then just drop it. She might be acting weird more because you brought it up and explained why you left her out. To you it’s all about the cats. To her, it’s about being publicly snubbed. You didn’t do her a favor. You couldn’t have known she’d be a jerk at your house – that’s a bit presumptuous.
The mistake was you made the choice for her. There is an established understanding about the cats from both sides and if you invite her over she will be around them, but she should be able to make that decision. If that’s the only reason you didn’t invite her. Ultimately though it’s your house so you can pick in choose who you allow, but you just need to know that there could be fall out from it. Especially if she thinks y’all are friends and then she’s not invited, but others from work are.
It’s your house and your babies. I would have not bothered whatsoever inviting a person like that either. Your home is your sanctuary and your decision who you allow into it; why would you even extend an invitation out of politeness as others have suggested under the assumption she’d say no? That’s just a weird dance and not keeping integrity with what is important to you. What if she said yes? I wouldn’t want a person who was even having ill THOUGHTS about animals in my home, let alone anything beyond that. Fuck that shit. I’d treat her cordially at work – if she wants to continue to have a chip on her shoulder about it and not respect your decision made out of love for your cats, well then that’s her decision, as immature as it may be.
She doesn’t sound like a friend at all. It makes me wonder how much of it is her joking vs. actually mean to you. And there’s nothing you can say or do to make her stop being mean if you’ve already tried. I would just ignore the hostility and only respond when necessary for work or when she decides to be nice again. And if she attempts to sabotage you by not doing her job, then you need to tell her to either get it together or you’ll take it up with her supervisor.
Is the cat thing the actual reason you didn’t invite her, or is it in fact that you do not wish to see this coworker outside the office yet alone in your home?
If it’s the latter, own it. Drop the cat reason – she would only argue it’s a joke etc etc, and now you need to find a new reason.
If you are, in fact, friendly with her outside a coworker dynamic , then you should have communicated upfront with her, and therefore, you own her an apology.
This is dumb, but there is a possibility that she is one of those people with the awful quirk of being over the top insulting about things they feel neutral about, or may actually like.
That trait often goes hand in hand with the idea that others KNOW their mean put downs are “in jest”.
This type drives me crazy and unfortunately they don’t seem terribly rare. I am not making excuses or saying you owe her anything, she definitely made this bed, just could be a possibility.
So, Im celiac. I cant have gluten. Everything at McDonalds has gluten. When my coworkers order McDonald’s, THEY DO NOT ask me what I want from McDonald’s, because I cant have it. Everyone is happy. They dont have to special order food for me, and I dont have to remember a Sausage, Egg and Cheese biscuit and hashbrowns.
OP, your coworker is being a megabitch.
I just want you to know…a group of cats is called a clowder
I wouldn’t have associated all that close from the beginning. I’d toss a, “based on your comments, I felt you wouldn’t be comfortable. And based on your comments, I KNEW I wouldn’t be comfortable with you in my place with my evil, grimy, disgusting pets. I spared you and you’re mad? Pick a struggle.” And be done. I don’t have patience for people like that. They can catch what the dish at high velocity or cry about it. 🤷♀️
Wow, an adult who’s obsessed with tik tok behaves immaturely?? We’ve never seen that one before!
You did nothing wrong. If she ever decided to be an adult then you can talk and let them know what the reason was.
Don’t invite her to your house and just say the truth. She’s being a child about not being invited.
Don’t feel guilted into inviting her in the future either because she might let your cats out.
Tell her it’s a cat cafe house party and that’s why you didn’t invite her.
If it continues to affect her ability to work with you, I would take it to HR. This is weird, unprofessional behavior.
Everything aside, I find it in very poor taste when people loudly declare their hatred of cats when you mention your pet cats. For some reason this seems to be socially acceptable when it really shouldn’t be.
If your work is that interdependent and you feel capable of it, this might just be one that you take on the chin. Go to her and say that you assumed that she wouldn’t want to go since she doesn’t like cats and she knows that you have four of them, but you shouldn’t have tried to make that decision for her and invited her so that she could also enjoy this time that I’m assuming you were also spending with mutual co-workers.
That might be an unpopular opinion, but if you have to work with this person and she’s making it impossible, some of this decision might have to be made the hard way. I also agree with other people, in that how you did not invite her, how she found out about it, and whether a lot of your co-workers were invited plays a big factor here. I’m not big on deciding things for people for this very reason, because it tends to start unnecessary arguments by taking the choice out of people’s hands instead of letting them decide for themselves and then live at those consequences, whichever way they choose.
If you invited everyone else, it would have been appropriate to invite her and let her decide if her dislike for cats would keep her from attending.
If you didn’t invite her because she’s mean to you about your cats, tell her that instead.
She sounds insufferable and like she has some petty mean girl energy. Could you imagine if you did invite her she would have been complaining about your cats the whole time and probably would have complained at work about it too, to you and to other coworkers. It’s rude. It seems like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. She is salty bc she didn’t get an invite but she would have been salty about the cats if she did get invited. She needs to get over it and put that aside and be professional. Some people just love to drink that haterade.
Here’s the thing… She was joking with you. And as you expressed, you understood the comments as jokes.
So, from her viewpoint, you were a person she had a friendly joking/teasing relationship with at work. And she just has now discovered in a somewhat passive aggressive way (my work friends are invited to a party but you arent! SURPRISE!) that you actually DONT like her when she thought you did.
So yeah, she’s offended/hurt. She also may feel that you did not include her for other reasons beyond the cats. Considering you mentioned her comments about the cats were jokes/teasing – I could see someone making that case. Perhaps because she is older or of a different ethnic background. In which case – you can take her to HR but it may open a can of worms.
You’d have been better off not inviting any coworkers to a party than to deal with things like this and people feeling excluded and alienated. If you invite coworkers, you should be inclusive or way more discreet.
If you invited other work friends, you fucked up.
My boss hates cats and will jokingly make fun of me and other coworkers because we love cats. That doesn’t mean he’s going to mistreat my cat if I invited him over. Or say rude things about my home.
You basically assumed she’d be a terrible guest which fine, that’s your prerogative. But that’s why she’s hurt.
If you invited everyone but her, that’s why she’s hurt. Some people like being invited with the option to decline.
The social problem is that if she really hates cats that much, she would likely have declined your invite (and stating that as reason), but she is still a person, someone you have to work somewhat closely with, and it is simply nice to be asked. You could have asked her knowing she’d likely decline, she could have declined knowing you probably didn’t expect her to accept. But the message you sent to her has nothing to do with cats, the message you sent is that you don’t like her as a person and you wouldn’t want her to come to your house.
Yes, it is annoying to jump through these social hoops. But that’s just how people work.
I’m a firm believer of direct communication especially when it comes to conflict management. People normally appreciate when someone else puts their feelings into words so that they have an opening to share theirs or to just apologize back and the air can be cleared.
I suggest you kindly ask her if you can talk to her about something that’s not work related. Then say something like “I just want to really say I’m sorry for not inviting you to my party. I was trying to be respectful of your feelings by not putting you in a position where you’d have to be around my cats, but I can see now how instead it came out hurtful and as if I wanted to freeze you out. I wouldn’t want you to think I think badly of you in any way, and I’m really sorry about this.”
Forget about her cat teasing and somewhat rude cat comments for the time being. Realize that everyone does not have to love your cats and that it does not necessarily make them evil. If you can smooth things over for now, then when some time has passed and her comments are getting to you, then you can tell her “Hey, I know it’s easy to make fun of me because of my cats, but they’re actually a really important part of my life and give me a lot of joy, so I would appreciate it if you could tone down this kind of joke.”
Act like nothing happened. Continue doing your work. She’ll either get over it or she won’t. In my experience, she won’t.
I don’t think you messed up at all. Nothing is worth risking your cats’ safety by inviting someone who hates cats this much around them. As over the top as that might sound, there are a LOT of people who really fucking hate cats and would go out of their way to harm them, or at the very least would let them out of your house during your party. I don’t think trying to appease a hateful coworker would be worth putting your cats in danger. You made the right choice here, so don’t feel bad abt it!!
I wouldn’t invite a subset of coworkers to a personal thing but not others unless it was just my small department for this reason. But since you did, I’m glad you didn’t invite the mean joker. I don’t care for pets so you would likely distrust me too but I wouldn’t be a giant baby at work about it.
She seems like a petty b*tch. Next time she starts saying how cats are evil and disgusting etc., remind her how ancient Egyptians considered them goddesses and protected them. And they did build the pyramids, after all…
(P.S. As a cat lover and also a cat owner, I wouldn’t have invited her to my house either. I wouldn’t want some harm to my beloved fur babies. She seems unhinged enough in her behaviour that it warrants extra protection for my pets. And if she was a professional and not a petty b*tch, she would understand, after the stupid comments she made, why you decided to not invite her).