I’m M., and for months, I’ve been pulling 60-hour weeks. We’re understaffed, so I’ve been covering two entire departments, answering emails at midnight, and being the ultimate “team player.” Meanwhile, my coworker Dan spends most of his day “vibing” by the coffee machine.
When a senior manager position opened up, I applied immediately, thinking this was finally my moment. But my boss called me in and said, “We’ve decided to go with Dan. He’s just a better cultural fit.” I was crushed. No feedback, no “you were close”—just a rejection. To make it worse, Dan actually had the nerve to tell me, “Better luck next time, maybe try working harder.”
A week later, HR made a massive mistake: they accidentally CC’d me on an internal email chain. My blood went cold. The emails were a highlight reel of Dan taking full credit for projects I led—tasks I stayed up late to finish while he was chatting. Management was praising him for my hard work. I didn’t go nuclear; I calmly replied to the chain with documentation and “corrections” to clarify who actually did the work. Now I’m just sitting in limbo, waiting to see if they’ll fix this mess or if I’m just an idiot for not speaking up sooner.
