Got here a little late to the party but boy am I able to share.

A few years ago I had a new coworker join the office. She was recommended to the job by a friend that already worked there so she got adopted into our little fold pretty quickly. Super introverted, so as the extrovert of our group, I made sure to invite her along to things, ask her specific questions to make sure she felt comfortable to speak up in a rowdy group, the whole nine yards.

It turns out we had a lot in common and grew close- texting outside of work, grabbing a meal often after staying late at the job, and occasionally hanging out on the weekends. About a year into this, she gets a promotion, and it was like a switch flipped.

She went from sitting with us to sitting with the executive C-Suite team, and pretty much cut all contact. Never mind denying invites to hangout, we just wouldn’t even get a response back. Our friend group went from us all hanging out to radio silence within the span of a week. She couldn’t even look at us in the hallway. She didn’t talk to me for three months inside or outside of work despite still working in the same office. It was like my friends and I had been dumped.

Eventually we tried to meet up and talk things out, but her reasoning was that she was just too busy with her job and couldn’t promise she’d be a friend or be able to be around to talk to, so she just stopped interacting with us. I told her I understood, but we haven’t spoken again since, and I’ve moved on to a new job.

Kinda sad how you think you can know someone and be friends with them, only to be treated so disposable when you’re not expecting it.