Willow raised a hand, silencing the pack. She looked at me with the same contempt she'd held for seven years.
I remembered our first meeting. She had held my resume like a dirty tissue, manicured nail tapping the paper.
"Alex Dickerson. Second-tier university. Not impressive." She'd tossed it onto the table. "Our standards are high. Since your education is lacking, you'll start at the bottom. Support work. Learn your place before you try to lead."
In the beginning, I really was just the office errand boy.
I fetched coffee, delivered documents, organized mountains of archived files, and even descaled the breakroom espresso machine.
But I refused to accept that as my ceiling.
While everyone else clocked out and headed to happy hour, I stayed behind. I dug through the company's internal server, studying successful project cases until my eyes burned. I memorized every process, dissected every analysis method, and internalized the phrasing of every winning report.
Whenever I caught a rare opening, I'd swallow my pride and approach a busy colleague.
"William, how do we usually export this data?"
"Madison, what's the standard protocol for handling this type of customer feedback?"