They Fired Their Best, So She Buried Them

1: 1

The intern I'd trained hands-on for six months, holding nothing back, finally passed his review and was made permanent.

I paid out of my own pocket for flowers, booked a nice restaurant, and got ready to celebrate for him, genuinely happy.

What I got instead was a formal complaint filed against me, with my name on it.

"Marketing Department employee Edwina Chavez has, over an extended period, privately leaked internal company resources."

"She has bullied an intern, disrupted company policy, and undermined fair order in the workplace."

As the disciplinary committee walked me out, I ran into the intern, Humphrey Harding.

He wore a look of perfect innocence, righteous and unbothered.

"Edwina, I'm grateful for the help you gave me."

"But gratitude is gratitude, and rules are rules. Passing company resources privately was against the rules to begin with."

"As part of this company, I had a duty to step forward and put a stop to it."

In the end, the penalty came down.

A company-wide reprimand.

All my eligibility for the year's honors, promotion, and raise, revoked.

Ten years of careful, faithful work, and one act of goodwill wiped it all to zero.

Later, when he was blacklisted from the industry, he came begging to me.

"Anything that oversteps authority or breaks the rules, I can't do it. I'm afraid of being reported."

1

When the disciplinary committee came for me, I was at my computer, carefully drafting a transfer request.

I was planning to move Humphrey, newly made permanent, onto my team.

Six months of his internship, I'd trained him hands-on, from zero experience to carrying his own numbers.

Now that he'd made permanent, all I wanted was to hand him more resources, pull him onto more projects, set him up to lock down the Outstanding Newcomer award at year-end.

"What did you say?"

"Humphrey filed a formal complaint against me?"

I couldn't believe it. Humphrey was someone I'd trained from the ground up.

Back then everyone else wrote him off as slow and short on talent, and nobody wanted to take him on.

I'd seen him in the break room with his eyes red from crying, and I'd gone soft.

The reports he couldn't do, I stayed up teaching him line by line.

The clients he couldn't close, I stepped in myself to cover for him.

The messes he made, I cleaned up for him, again and again.

Without me, he'd have washed out of this company six months ago.

I shared everything I knew, built up his skills, helped him post real numbers.

I never took a cent from him for it. I paid for his meals myself, bought him study materials out of my own pocket.

From start to finish I was helping the company develop a new hire and lift the team's performance.

I didn't know what I could possibly have done wrong.

Not until I ran into Humphrey in the corridor, riding high.

On the surface he was still deferential and humble with me, every other word "Edwina," just like before.

"Edwina, don't look at me like that."

"I'm a full member of this company now. I have a responsibility, an obligation, to clean up its problems."

I stared him down. "You're calling me a problem?"

"By company policy, I was never your direct report, and yet for six months you ordered me around like I was. That's against the rules."

"You're the one who taught me to follow the rules and respect the line you don't cross. All I'm doing now is exactly what you taught me."

It almost made me laugh.

And it finally showed me that the person I'd given my whole heart to was a self-serving hypocrite through and through.

Director Finch, who'd never liked me, gave me a smile that never reached his eyes.

"Edwina, I hate to say it, but you've been here ten years. How do you keep going backward?"

"Humphrey here is a fresh graduate, a new kid who keeps his head down and does the work, and you go and lean on your seniority to push a junior around."

"If he weren't afraid you'd quietly sabotage his shot at going permanent, he wouldn't have put up with you for a whole six months, and he wouldn't have been forced into filing that complaint."

So in his eyes, six months of training him for free, covering for him more times than I could count, was workplace bullying.

Genuine help had become throwing my weight around. Teaching him everything I knew had become overstepping authority and breaking the rules.

With Humphrey playing along, the company's penalty against me came down fast.

A company-wide warning and reprimand, a demotion and a pay cut, dropped from supervisor straight down to ordinary staff.

And Humphrey, for his rapid progress and standout numbers over the past six months, plus the credit of blowing the whistle, was fast-tracked straight to supervisor.

Coming out of the president's office with my penalty in hand, I found Humphrey with his hands on his hips, directing people to throw my things out.

He saw me and put on his fake concern.

"Edwina, sorry about this. I've been promoted to supervisor now, and by company policy I get my own office."

"I've spent the whole six months learning in this office of yours. I'm used to the place, so I just applied to move in directly."

He tipped his chin up, charity handed down from above.

"You did help me before, and I'm not one to forget it. I've already had your things moved to the desk by the door, my old spot."

"The air by the door's fresher, better circulation, good for someone your age. After all, nobody can stand that old-person smell on you."

Blood roared in me. I nearly reached out and tore that hypocrite's face apart.