This happened when I was working in an airline. Basis promotion, I was transferred to department which handled payments and liaised with travel agents and online companies for enhancing sales. I was actually promoted thrice within 5 years. I felt good about working in different departments. General manager Joe introduced me to my new team consisting of four people and one asst manager Sulas. I was eager to start my work. He told me to file an agreement(Between Airline and Agency) per se my understanding on first day itself. I was more than glad to do, I was placed with another staff Sylia. She was working in said department for more than 2 years. Next day, he had a look and agreed it was correct, he asked Sylia to teach me filing, for that we had to download reports from two independent sources, liaise with Agents, take their data and match.
Sylia said, “Be careful, write down everything, I will tell you only once.”
I agreed, she was very fast on excel, I managed to still write down max I could. Next day, I had forgotten a step, I asked her again, she looked pissed but helped nevertheless. Same task which I did in full day, she had done in 2 hours flat, I was impressed and told her this. It might have been couple of weeks, when a new type of agreement arrived, she absolutely refused to help. When I went to Sulas, he said, “You should know all this, you were promoted, not demoted.” They both laughed. They humiliated me multiple times but I kept quiet, I knew my time would come.
I checked with few more people and filed it, I had to wait back almost 3 hours. There were few more instances like this, I used to watch Sylia hands movement to understand shortcuts she was using. Within a month, I understood the tricks.
Then came the best part, I was working when I could hear Sulas talking to her on phone, She was not coming to work and there was an urgent pay release which had to be done. I was given the task, I finished it in half an hour and sent it to Sulas. He yelled at me in front of everyone, “This report is incorrect, it takes 2 hours to create this payment report.”
“Are you saying this basis time taken or output arrived?” I asked back from my seat itself, my voice loud and clear.. He didn’t look pleased. To cut the matter short, he did not accept my report and delayed the payment for next day when Sylia would come to work. Sylia as usual took two hours and submitted the report, I was marked in CC and guess what, all the numbers matched.
Sulas said to Sylia, “Ramesh prepared and submitted the same report in half an hour yesterday.” She opened my report and did complete due diligence, all the numbers were correct, she was sure there would be something amiss(I sat next to her, I knew how she was) finally after not finding anything wrong and with the pain of having to sell kidney she asked, “How did you do it in half an hour?”
“No idea.” I said and went back to my work, she asked me again and again I reverted with same answer. She launched a complaint against me and Sulas went to Joe with her. They looked very happy when they both came from GM’s cabin. I got a call from GM, I told him all that had transpired, how they mistreated me in first place and asked him to validate the same with other two members (Who too were upset with Sulas over Sylia favoritism), Joe checked with them and they both concurred my version indeed.
He then called Sulas and asked him to come to his cabin. I met him on the way smiled at him and went home. I learnt the next day, he was issued first warning. Neither(Sulas and Sylia) spoke to me except last day of my work.