“Stuck in the middle . . .”

This is the way it happens: after the job change, almost no one that you have worked with for the past eight years will have anything to do with you. It’s not just that you are no longer working in close proximity; there is a noticeable avoidance of contact – going out of one’s way to keep from having to communicate, from having to interact.

This is hard to understand. It is difficult to figure out why.

But it is not difficult to notice.