What would you think or do in this situation?

One member of your office is celebrating a special event. As a result, several coworkers want to take them out to dinner. You receive an e-mail that requests when you are available and to help choose the location - a choice between two relatively expensive restaurants that require reservations.

At the bottom of the e-mail, the sender has asked that you take note of the recipients of the e-mail since only select members of your workplace have been invited to participate. Notably, one individual directly managed by the honoree as well as people you are relatively close with were not invited.

It sounds like a fun event and you recognize that these restaurants couldn't really accomodate a large party anyway. But it was a very specific and random selection of individuals selected to go. If those who didn't get invited were to find out that they were deliberately left out, they would be extremely upset, even if they wouldn't have attended anyway.

I'd politely decline, make something up so I would already have plans. I don't like being a part of those kinds of things. They make me feel icky. When the others do find out, I would feel even better about my decision not to go. If you do decide to decline be sure not to do anything that would make the sender of the email think you are the one who told, because those people WILL find out most likely.

I'd politely decline, make something up so I would already have plans. I don't like being a part of those kinds of things. They make me feel icky. When the others do find out, I would feel even better about my decision not to go. If you do decide to decline be sure not to do anything that would make the sender of the email think you are the one who told, because those people WILL find out most likely.

That is exactly what I was thinking. If you are close or even semi-close with someone who was not invited, I would decline as well and just say you already had other plans for that evening. I would feel guilty going and hiding it from the person I was good friends with.