AITA “purposefully excluding” a coworker?

A Redditor shares his experience working with a new coworker, Jess, whom he finds pretentious and does not connect with. When the team planned a celebratory dinner for a coworker’s wedding, Jess insisted on carpooling with him. However, he chose to ride with another coworker, Chris, with whom he is closer.

Jess ended up having a panic attack during the ride and decided to Uber home instead of continuing to the restaurant. The next day, she confronted him, claiming he purposefully excluded her. Now, he’s questioning whether he was in the wrong for his actions. Read the full story below.

‘ AITA “purposefully excluding” a coworker?’

I (28M) work in a team of 7 people. A new girl Jess (26F) joined a couple months ago who I don’t really care for. I am polite to her while we work but we don’t share any hobbies or overlap in any way. I think she’s a bit pretentious to be honest. She’s always talking about her living in London in her early twenties.

It’s her whole personality, talking about all the expensive things she used to do and how she’s “sooooo broke” as a result. We are all paid very well for what we do and the area we live in. Last night, we had all planned to go for dinner after work to celebrate Chris (28M) getting married.

I knew Jess would be going but it wasn’t my plan to dictate who went and it’s a nice thing to celebrate so I decided to go anyway. Everyone at work drives apart from me so Chris offered to drive us both. I will say I am the closest with him, we started around the same time.

I was all set to go until Jess said she finds driving on her own nerve-wracking (I have no idea how she manages to commute in every day) and asked if I’d ride with her. I declined and said I wanted to travel with Chris. She insisted so I told her I want to ride with Chris so we can talk about some wedding things and got into the car.

Chris did offer to also drive her but she declined. We all got to the restaurant. Jess did not. She had a panic attack mid journey and decided to UBER home, leaving her car on a random street somewhere. Today at work, she had a go at me and accused me of purposefully excluding her from the group plan.

Apparently me not riding with her was a scheme on my end to make her not go because I don’t like her. I told her that she excluded herself. Chris offered her a lift and she didn’t take it. She also didn’t have to abandon her car and ditch, she could have called an UBER for herself to the restaurant.

Then I walked off. While I don’t like her, I never make that known at work or to any of my coworkers. I ask about her weekend, I offer her a hot drink if I make one, I help her whenever she has questions.

I just don’t talk to her like I do with everyone else and I don’t have her on my social media – I’ve know everyone else for 3 years+ now, of course I’m close to them. I was talking to Chris about this post-shift and he told me that it wouldn’t have hurt for me to ride with her instead of him when she insisted. AITA?

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

Gigi-lily −  NTA. You mentioned everyone else drives so she had multiple people she could have asked to go with after you said no. She could have gone with Chris. She could have taken an Uber to the restaurant then had someone drop her back to the car if she didn’t want to pay to uber twice.

Her being mad at you because she has a vehicle she is afraid to drive is ridiculous. You are not excluding her at work, you are not being disrespectful or outwardly rude, and that is all that is asked. Edit: changed and to an cause it was bothering me and more people are seeing this then I expected

mizfit416 −  NTA – How do you exclude someone who was invited? She imposed herself on you and you politely declined, TWICE. She’s a nit wit.

Artistic_Musician_78 −  NTA, and how did she manage to drive her car there herself? Or anywhere? This is so strange.

Angelblade92 −  NTA – The people saying it wouldn’t have hurt are completely missing the point. You aren’t an NPC there simply to make other people happy. You didn’t want to travel with her and you don’t have to. It’s weird that because she threw a hissy fit you are supposed to get in line and do what she wants.

Vote_for_Knife_Party −  Chris did offer to also drive her but she declined. That seems to sum it up pretty succinctly; even if we give a good faith acceptance of the driving problem (perhaps the problem is driving to unfamiliar places alone?), you weren’t her one and only option. NTA.

tuxedovic −  I think you need to go to HR. Her demanding to be alone with you and causing trouble because you weren’t raises all sorts of red flags. You must stop this drama now.

Urbanyeti0 −  NTA if she can’t drive without having a panic attack, she shouldn’t have a license let alone a car. It’s also not your responsibility to get into a car with someone least of all when the driver advises they’re a nervous driver.

Spiritual-Bobcat7461 −  I promise you if the genders were reversed people would not be like “it wouldn’t hurt to ride with ___”. NTA she is not your responsibility and she had multiple opportunities to get to the restaurant and chose not to.

77Megg77 −  NTA. If Jess knew she might have a panic attack driving to the restaurant by herself, she should have invited someone else to go with her immediately and in front of the whole group as soon as this outing was planned.

Has she mentioned this fear before? Or was this her first invite to a group activity? Why wait until the last minute when you were getting into Chris’s car? Second point, if she knew she might have a problem, she should have arranged an Uber from your place of employment.

When you know you have a disorder of any kind, you learn how to deal with it or prevent it if possible. You don’t make it someone else’s problem. And her commenting to you at work was incredibly immature.

T00narmy1 −  NTA. You offered her a reasonable alternative and she declined. It sounds to me like she wanted to ride with you, tried to manipulate everything so that you would ride with her, and when the plan didn’t go as she wanted she likely just bailed. I don’t believe that she had a full panic attack mid ride, left her car, and ubered home.

I might be wrong, but I have severe anxiety and panic attacks and it just doesn’t ring as true to me. If she truly has anxiety about driving alone, she should have jumped at the chance to get a ride with two other people. How does she drive herself to work every day?

THere are way too many holes in her story and as someone with severe anxiety I just don’t believe her. She had alternatives she choose not to take, so she can’t accuse ANYONE of causing this. She’s creating drama. Ignore her completely. If she continues, I would go to HR and explain that you’re being made to feel uncomfortable.

Was the user wrong for choosing to ride with a closer friend instead of accommodating Jess’s request, or did Jess take the situation too personally? How would you handle a similar situation at work? Share your thoughts below!