alia, canary wharf, banking

I was passed over for a promotion and given no explanation. When I asked my manager directly, he told me I'd "misunderstood the scope of the role" and implied I hadn't really been in the running. But six months earlier he had sat across from me and said I was my preferred candidate. I had written it in my notebook. I showed him. He glanced at it, shrugged, and said I'd probably noted it down wrong. The casual certainty with which he dismissed my written evidence, not even bothering to get angry, just mildly suggesting I'd made an error was more destabilising than any argument would have been. I left that meeting convinced, briefly, that I had somehow misremembered my own handwriting.

#rewriteshistory #deniesagreement #twistswords #shiftexpectations #selfdoubt #confidenceeroded