I've been working in a company now for almost 4 years. I work in insurance managing claims and take up to 50 calls per day. I will be honest. The professionalism of our management has been hideous. Half of the managers are very chummy with all of us , the other half backstabbing, phoney and fake (our department is made up of around 50 employees but we all have separate teams. Ours is extremely close-knit and made up of ten people). Staff turnover is as high as a skyscraper but the money is decent.
As far as im aware, I've always been liked. I find it hard to make friends normally in work places as I'm socially awkward drenched in anxiety however, I hit it off with so many people here. Me & my team go out drinking every few weeks and confide in eachother. My main manager for the last 3 years has been warm, having banter, professional and even sometimes showed a sprinkle of favouritism towards me. We have never felt too comfortable enough to be "friends" but she frequently let's me go early on a weekend, gives me tasks to do which give me a better rep and is constantly calling me my name by short or "hun". I am 33, she 53.
The last two weeks I noticed a few in my team are off with me. No inside jokes nor friendliness, just putting on a smile and seemingly saying what they think they should say.
The only thing I can think which ive done wrong is requesting that I work up until 730pm as opposed to 9pm due to it damaging my mental health (our hours suck - i live in the city and walking home around 930 in the winter was terribly anxiety inducing). I requested this with the scheduling team one yr ago and they surprisingly offered me a renewed contract to finish latest at 730. My manager warned me never to mention this to my other colleagues as the entitlement would be removed.
We have a lovely but non-filtered team member who is hard working but has no filter and I've noticed she caught on that my shift pattern was earlier than anyone else's. She told me "I know its not your fault but its a bit unfair babe". Ive been friends with this colleague for 3 years. I haven't been able to confirm this in fear of it being removed but understand the others are probably finding this very entitled behaviour.
My manager however always seemed to have my back when this colleague would jokingly bring it up and I felt protected. I understand everyone has a knife in their back pocket in a corporate environment but I genuinely feel I can trust my manager.
Last week my manager was happy, kind, warm and even opening up to me as I helped her with a few extra tasks whilst our deputy was away. I felt proud and recognised and even came out of my introverted shell with other managers.
However, Monday I noticed she was slightly off; she appeared stressed and I thought it was due to another manager getting sacked on Friday after a good 15 years there. He was extremely flirty with women and friendly with his male team mates. I believe it had something to do with this. But yesterday was next-level. She clocked me and kept looking over at me observing, no talking. There was no name shortening nor friendly banter. I asked for help on multiple things and she was buried in her screen avoiding eye contact and acted very irritated with me.
I decided to ignore this and keep my head down but what hurt was that she was lovely with everybody else, joking, talking about non work things. Every attempt I made to join in was dismissed and she was hot & cold.
Lastly, I'll say that today there's a colleague who has a birthday. She invited a few of us out after work, she asked our manager who she gets on with really well as theyre the same age. My manager turned to me at the end of the horror shift yesterday and said
"Are you going to the drinks tomorrow?". I immediately felt this was a very weird dynamic ; my manager clearly feels uncomfortable as we both would never go out drinking. I didnt know the right thing to say but mumbled something about not going and she said "well yeah..its a Wednesday isnt it, i don't think many will show up to be honest. I might swerve it".. her last words were "Ok lovely. I'll speak to you tomorrow".
I feel nauseated, headachy, confused, scared at this entire behaviour. Im scared my career is in jeopardy as I've had a manager behave similarly only to dismiss me (this was due to illness however as I was in hospital).
Is it a shift in dynamic ? Is it my colleagues?
How do I go about this?