Hey Brooke,

I’m looking for some perspective on interactions and relationships with my coworkers. One of them manages our schedule and attends our manager meetings. She is good friends with 3 of my other coworkers and after she has gone to a meeting they will all get up from their desk together saying they need a coffee break. Because I have my back to them they think I can’t see them making hand signals that its time to leave and these “breaks” tend to happen every time there is a meeting, otherwise on other days they don’t seem to need breaks.

My thought is she is sharing and gossiping about everything that happened in the meeting that she likely is not suppose to share otherwise the meeting would have included all of us. They also team up and decide on changes that affect us all without our input and whether we agree or not on the change. The facts are they all go on a break together and I’m choosing to think that they are talking about things they aren’t suppose to/gossiping.

The main thought causing my discomfort is I think they are talking about things they shouldn’t and making decisions they shouldn’t. It wouldn’t bother me if they still did their break but I thought it was only gossip that didn’t affect me, even if it was about me as long as it doesn’t affect how I do my job I don’t care.

Here’s the thought that I’m having
C: coworkers take break together
T: They’re making decisions w/o my consent about how we work and that impacts my life and that’s not fair
F: defensive, angry
A: closed off around them, critical of their ideas
R: they continue to keep me out of discussions
Intentional:
C: coworkers take a break together
T:
F: secure
A:
R:

I’m having trouble filling this model because I bumping up against thoughts of I can’t trust them, they can make my job worse/more work. I’m having a hard time letting go of defending and standing up for myself but at the same time intellectually I know it won’t serve me and you’ve talked about this lot but struggling with putting it into action. I want to keep this current job for now so it’s important to me to feel good and especially not delegate my emotional life to my coworkers.

Thanks Brooke!

Suz S.