blindside

During a 90-minute call on Wednesday with executive members of PhRMA, the trade group representing the pharmaceutical industry, some other CEOs were angry and felt blindsided, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Employees at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, which conducts research on autism, were “blindsided” by the administration’s announcement, according to some CDC employees, who said they weren’t consulted.

KION-TV’s news anchors, producers and other employees said they were confused and blindsided by the decision to immediately lay off the more than a dozen employees involved in news operations.

A number of SNP insiders I've spoken to seem a bit blindsided by this development.

Sarover says she was "blindsided" by the breakup, which happened "so abruptly".