The Full Story:
When I got the job offer, I was over the moon. It was a senior analyst position at a top-tier firm, a role I had worked five years to qualify for. Finally, a step up in my career!
But that excitement quickly shattered when I saw who my boss was.
I walked into the corner office for my orientation, and there, sitting behind the mahogany desk, was Jason. MY OLD NEMESIS! He wasn’t just a rival; he was the guy who had made my life miserable in college, stealing my ideas and humiliating me in study groups.
I hoped he wouldn’t remember, but the jerk made it obvious from day one.
During the team introduction, he went around the room shaking everyone’s hand. I was the only trainee who didn’t get a handshake. He just looked at me with a cold smirk and moved on. Later, when IT came around with equipment, everyone got brand new MacBooks. I got the crummiest laptop they could find—a brick from 2015 with a battery that lasted twenty minutes.
And let me tell you—he made work feel like PURE HELL!!
He started ignoring me in meetings, talking over me whenever I tried to speak. He was constantly setting me up to fail, giving me impossible deadlines for projects he hadn’t even briefed me on. He was making me feel like the laughing stock of the whole office…
The breaking point came three weeks in. The CEO was visiting, and Jason assigned me the quarterly review presentation.
“Don’t mess this up,” he sneered, handing me a flash drive. “All the raw data is on here. Present it exactly as is.”
I stayed up all night analyzing the files. That’s when I found it. The numbers didn’t add up. Jason had been skimming from the budget, and the “raw data” he gave me was doctored to hide it. He wanted me to present the false numbers so that when the audit happened later, my name would be on the report, not his. He was framing me.
The next morning, in the boardroom, Jason introduced me. “This is our new hire. I haven’t had a chance to review his work, so let’s hope he’s competent,” he joked, winking at the CEO.
I stood up, connected my old, battered laptop, and projected the screen.
“Actually,” I said, looking Jason dead in the eye. “I found some discrepancies in the files I was given. So, instead of the projection, I’d like to present a report on ‘Internal Budget Anomalies.'”
Jason’s face went white.
For the next twenty minutes, I walked the CEO through every dollar Jason had stolen, using the very files he had given me to trap me. By the end of the meeting, security was escorting Jason out of the building, and the CEO was shaking my hand—firmly.
