There was a ladies night planned and I was really, really sure that I wanted to go. I craved the social bit of it: the laughing and the chatting and the eating and the break from real life...
BUT, it was being held where I work. And I just don't want to hang out where I work. I spend all day there. I get paid to hang out in my pretty little office and create pretty things with my laptop and my over-achieving need to make everything just right. And when the day ends, I pack everything up and say goodbye to whoever is left and make the freedom run...
Listen, I can love the snot out of my job but that doesn't mean I'm not happy to go home. It feels good to stick a pin in a day, know it's a job well done, and leave knowing I don't have to come back through those doors for a good pile of hours.
Unless there's an event.
The stupid thing is that they could have planned the very same thing and held it in a coffee shop or a bingo hall or a garage (for goodness sake) and I probably wouldn't have thought twice about going.
I know I would have had fun. I know it would have been time well spent with people I really enjoy and I would have come away glad that I had gone. I know I'm being stupid. But think about it...do you want to hang out where you work?