Have your colleagues started to exclude you purposefully from work meetings or social events you used to be invited to?
Your initial reaction might be confusion or rationalization. Maybe they just forgot to invite me? Or there must be some other explanation that has nothing to do with me.
Don’t ignore your gut–ask yourself these questions:
Am I Really Being Excluded?
You know something is wrong, but you might be tempted to tell yourself that you’re paranoid.
Tell a trusted friend or loved one (not a colleague) what’s happening and get their take. Explain how your colleagues’ treatment of you changed over time. Consider gently confronting one of the people excluding you–their non-response may be all the confirmation you need.
Don’t let anyone inside or outside the office gaslight you into wondering whether you’re imagining it all.
Is There a Pattern to the Exclusion?
Write out a timeline of events starting before the exclusion began.
Who are the relevant players? Have any work friends mentioned anything to you? Did you report something to management or HR, and are now being frozen out for doing so?
Writing these events down in chronological order can help you spot cause-and-effect.
Do I Have Any Remedies?
Workplace exclusion is incredibly destructive to the morale of the person being excluded.
But that’s often the point. You may be targeted with exclusion to make your life so miserable that you will quit your job. You can report it to HR, but they may accuse you of having thin skin, or tell you that exclusion is not illegal (which is usually true), so there’s nothing they can do (which is false).
But workplace exclusion can be the basis of a retaliation claim if your coworkers are doing to it you in retaliation for your protected conduct, such as for reporting sexual harassment.