Chapter 4
On the tenth day of my vacation, I did something important.
I turned on my computer and backed up all my work emails, client chats, and project files from the past five years.
Not to snitch.
But for the evidence.
Chris's words from last week kept replaying in my head. Director had listed himself as the lead on all my projects in the annual report.
I logged into the company's internal document system and found last year's annual report. I still had access, no one had bothered to revoke my account.
I opened it, and just as expected, there it was.
Sunrise Holdings Annual Brand Plan. Lead: Victor Shaw. Assistants: Ryan Forrest, Joey.
PrimeLand Realty Full-Service Project. Lead: Victor. Core Execution: Ryan.
SwiftMove Logistics New Media Project. Project Manager: Victor.
Three major clients, and his name was always listed first.
But what was the real story?
For the Sunrise Project, from start to finish, Director only showed up for one meeting, and he was half an hour late and left early.
For the PrimeLand Project, Mr. Mason was a real handful. I was the only one who could even talk to him. Director had never even met the guy.
As for the SwiftMove Logistics Project, I was the one who brought in the new client and built it up from scratch. Director never even looked at the proposal.
I kept scrolling back.
The year before that, and the year before that, same old story.
For five years, he was just a guy who signed off on things. Everyone else did the work, but he claimed all the glory.
To the higher-ups, Victor looked like a star director who landed all the big clients and delivered outstanding results every year.
No wonder he was pulling in 650,000 dollars.
To the company, those projects were really his, no questions asked.
I saved screenshots of all the evidence and pulled up every email I'd exchanged with clients.
Each email clearly showed my name: Ryan.
The edit history on every project file had my name all over it.
Every time a client had feedback, it was always me, Ryan, who was in charge of following up.
I put everything together in a folder and saved it to my own hard drive.
I wasn't in a hurry to use it.
But when the time comes, not a single one of them is getting away scot-free.
When Susan got home from work and saw me at the computer, she asked, "What are you doing?"
"Just organizing some stuff," I replied.
"What kind of stuff?" she asked.
"Stuff that could save my ass," I said.
On the twelfth day of my vacation, things got even worse than I'd expected.
Joey sent me a long message:
Joey: [Ryan, I seriously can't take it anymore. Mr. Parker from Sunrise called the front desk today, asking to speak to the big boss. Director tried to step in, but Mr. Parker straight up said he'd never worked with him before and questioned why Shaw.
Ryan: [And then?]
Joey: [Mr. Parker told them to put the contract renewal on hold until you come back. After that, Director stormed back, smashed a cup, and yelled at everyone for half an hour.]
Ryan: [Who was he yelling at?]
Joey: [Everyone. He said we were useless, that we always mess up when it matters. He also said some people act like big shots just because they've been around a while, thinking the company can't survive without them.]
Still putting up a front.
Later that afternoon, Chris called me.
"Ryan, another disaster just hit us. Mr. Mason from PrimeLand just dropped an email, he's pulling the plug on our contract," Chris said.
My heart sank.
The PrimeLand Realty deal was worth over 1 million dollars a year. With Sunrise putting its renewal on hold, that left us staring at a gap of over 2.3 million dollars.
"What's the reason?" I asked.
"He said our service quality has tanked, the people handling the account now are totally unprofessional, and communication is just a nightmare," Chris replied.
"Does Director know?" I asked.
"Yeah, he knows. He's in the general manager's office right now, getting called in for a meeting," Chris said.
I hung up and stared out the window.
Who am I kidding? I was worried sick. These clients took me years to win over, and losing them in a blink hurt like hell.
But honestly, if I hadn't let things blow up like this, nobody would ever see what was really wrong.
At nine that night, Joey messaged me again.
Joey: [Ryan, the general manager and Director were in a meeting for over an hour today. When Director came out, he looked like he'd just been chewed out.]
Ryan: [What did the general manager say?]
Joey: [No idea, the door was closed. But Linda from admin said the general manager had HR pull up our department's client communication records from the past three years.]
Client communication records.
If they really dig into those, they'll see something pretty telling: it was always me dealing with the clients.
Joey added: [Oh, and, even Chairman Fenton is looking into it now.]
Even the chairman's getting involved now?
Things were unfolding just like I'd hoped.