I have a question about baby showers at work. We are a small company. When a baby is due, one of my female colleagues (always the same person) sends an Outlook meeting invitation to a handful of women to help plan and decorate. The party takes place after lunch and includes the whole office playing a few games and having cake. Call me petty, but I am annoyed by the presumption that just women must plan this party. All employees attend, but why do just the women organize? I don’t like decorating all that much. I don’t like harassing people for baby photos and trying to figure out how to print them legibly for a game. I have work to do. So far all of the babies have been born to female employees, though we have one upcoming that is for a couple.
I know it’s not frequent and I am not anti baby, but I feel it is sexist to assume only women want to decorate and come up with games for the event that everyone attends. My husband says he thinks many of the men probably don’t want to even be at the party and find it awkward and that the expecting parent should just be given a nice gift (from the company). Do I just ignore the Outlook invite? Call myself Tentative? Do I say something? My gut tells me to shut up and put up. This is not worth hurting anyone’s feelings over. But is there a way to gently make my opinion known to the always-organizer?
(Btw, the company does get a gift and no one is asked to pitch in. The organizer asks the women helpers for cake money. I don’t mind about that since she does go out of her way to go get the cake and decorations. For me it’s more about the time imposition and presumption this is something I enjoy doing.)
The lead seems to be taken by Mrs. X. We had office showers, but just with a cake and inexpensive gifts. Is there anyone to talk to Mrs. X to curb her enthusiasm for games and decorations?
Sounds backwards and sexist to me. Either others enjoy it or they are stuck in some traditional rut.
I guess it depends on whether you want to ruffle feathers or not. Maybe a talk with HR?
Those games sound horrid in an office setting IMO. To me, a quick meeting presenting a gift and a card signed by the office and sharing of cake is sufficient. A collection for cake $ can be raised when passing along the card to be signed or company should just spring for a cake along with the gift.
I am not one for shower games and even less so in the workplace. Perhaps you could suggest changing it up.
I will be attending a baby shower this week at work. There are about 100 people in my office, but only about 25 of us are invited. Guests are both men and women and we are having a potluck lunch. A cake is ordered and someone collected money for gifts. I much prefer this to silly games.
“I will be attending a baby shower this week at work. There are about 100 people in my office, but only about 25 of us are invited.” How does that work, @FallGirl when only part of an office is invited?
How does your office staff have that amount of time to have a shower and still be productive? At my job sites, it is always rushed and busy.
We just had a shower at one of my work sites during the lunch hour: ½ hour=cake and card, done. Anyone who couldn’t make it at that time (me included), was invited to the staff lounge to pick up a slice of cake, and drop off any presents there. Cake was ordered, paid for by the company, and delivered by local baker.
The place I worked when my first 3 were born had a tradition. One woman loved planning parties. She would collect money and there would be a cake and a gift. For Jewish women, like me, the party was held on our return from maternity leave and for others, before they went out. When the wife of an employee gave birth, we would still have the party and the wife would be invited. There were no decorations and no games and the whole thing took about 20 minutes. My children are in their 20’s now and those parties are still among my fondest memories of the old job.
You don't want to help.
Either say so ( this just isn't my thing) or state your workload is too much at this time to help.
You feel the men in the office are being discriminated against.
The men in the office are very capable of going to HR if they feel discriminated against.
The men in your office can ask to be put on the list to help.
You need to ask yourself why this is so important to you. Why do you feel a need to stick up for the very capable men in your office?
Thanks everyone. I guess I don’t feel totally off-base. And just to be clear @sax, I feel discriminated against as a woman being assumed to be into this party planning and for the assumption that I must make it a priority over work that needs to be done and I’d frankly rather do . (I think your post must be tongue in cheek, no?) YES I think the planner (Mrs. X as someone dubbed her) should send out the “help decorate” invitation to everyone. There may be people who are more into it than me. I am not super close with Mrs. X but am fond of her and would never want to hurt her feelings. (BTW we have about 20-25 people all together. These parties are longer than 20 minutes, maybe 40 minutes. By the time it is all said and done I might have sunk an hour and a half of time on the clock into this, including the party itself.)
@LBowie I think it’s nice that your company allows these events on company time. When we had showers or parties of any kind, they had to be held either before or after working hours.
Eh, just discover the power of the “decline” button on your calendar app for invites. If Mrs. X asks why, either tell her you’re busy or that decorating for events is just not your thing. I would go with honesty personally because with excuses/white lies you have to constantly repeat them.