It’s not really “bullying” more like purposely leaving them out. When I got to my shift I liked my leadership because my direct lead was a cool dude. A really cool dude who shielded us from a lot of the rest of leadership’s BS. We didn’t know how much until he stepped down. RIP Dave (he moved to days)
At first I was cool with all of leadership since I thought they were cool. I would bring cakes and cookies (overflow from my hobby) i’d give them out to my coworkers and leadership. Everyone was pretty happy with that deal. A small group of us would go out some days, this did include Dave who was leadership at the time and John who wasn’t leadership yet.
Now that Dave is gone and we feel like John is a bootlicking traitor, we don’t invite John to coworker meetups anymore. We never invited high leadership. I’ve stopped giving them cookies and cakes. (Which they’ve noticed) I’ve been mostly giving them to coworkers and friends from other departments. Last weekend I invited all my friends from work to a cook out at my house and everyone showed up and had a good time!
The problem was when we got back to work everyone complimented me on my party/house/food. Leadership found out about the party and pulled me aside and said they don’t appreciate how I’ve been treating them lately.
I played dumb and asked what they were talking about. They said that they noticed that they were upset that I didn’t invite them to my cook out, that they didn’t get a glitter pen, and that I haven’t been including them in anything.
I told them it’s not my job to include them in anything, and that if I want to do things with my friends in and out of work I can and will. They were surprised then asked why they weren’t included, AND I HAD TO TELL THEM THAT WE ARENT FRIENDS. They told me that to expect a meeting with HR about this later in the work week.
What can they do? Can I really get in trouble for this?