"If I were him, I'd take the hint and leave before they push me out."
Those vicious mouths, every last one of them, spitting out their petty satisfaction and their twisted lies one syllable at a time.
Not a single person remembered how I'd spent the last nine years pulling all-nighters over design plans, sleeping in construction trailers on-site to keep the schedules on track.
These people came from every department: interior finishing, marketing, engineering, materials.
Which one of them hadn't come to me begging for help at some point?
Last week, the finishing team botched their measurements. They dragged me out of bed at two in the morning to renegotiate the design specs with the client.
Yesterday, marketing had a difficult client they couldn't close. I pulled an all-nighter and put together eight separate proposals to land the deal for them.
All they saw was the $8 million commission on a $40 million design contract. None of them saw me crawling through construction sites every day, caked in mud like a stray dog.