Rebecca Meyer
This 30-year-old and her friend, Emily, 28, have been close for almost their entire lives.
Emily is her dearest friend, and they have a foundation of trust and comfort with each other. They both are able to open up and share secrets and other personal details that they don’t talk about with anyone else.
“However, lately, I’ve noticed something strange about her that has been bothering me. Recently, Emily told me that she landed a big promotion at work. She said she was now the senior manager of her team, with a massive pay raise to boot. I was thrilled for her and congratulated her on her success,” she said.
After Emily gave her this news, though, her comments about her job in the following days didn’t seem to add up.
Emily said she felt like she was burnt out from her job and that she wasn’t paid enough. She also vented about how she was stressed out and felt rushed by management to make crucial deadlines. Because Emily was so swamped with work, she had to cancel their plans to hang out.
“If she was truly the senior manager, she shouldn’t be doing the grunt work, right? I decided to confront her about it. I gently pointed out the inconsistencies in her story and asked her to explain. Emily immediately became defensive and accused me of not believing in her accomplishments. She said I was being jealous and that I was trying to take away from her success,” she explained.
At this, she was understandably stunned. She responded to Emily by saying that she was just worried about her since she’s mentioned so often how overwhelmed she is with work.
She then suggested to Emily that maybe speaking with HR could help because, hopefully, management could find a solution to take some of the work off of her plate to help her better manage her stress.
“A few hours later, Emily called, crying, and told me that she had been lying about her promotion. Apparently, her boss had heavily implied that she was going to be promoted soon, and Emily told her family and boyfriend that she was already a senior manager. She was never given the promotion and was too embarrassed to tell them,” she shared.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox.
