Imagine working at a company with a coworker who doesn’t have quite as much experience as you do, but you’re both technically at the same level in the company. If a new project came up that you both wanted to work on, would you make sure the boss knew you were the best person for the job, or would you back off and let your coworker have the project?

In this story, one employee is in this situation, and she is very determined to let the boss know that she wants to work on the project even if that means criticizing her coworker’s work on the project to make herself look better. Now, she’s wondering if she really did mess up. She didn’t intend for her coworker to be mad at her.

Let’s read the whole story to see exactly what happened.

AITA for accidentally becoming my colleagues supervisor?

So due to the pandemic a new ‘project’ for lack of a better word was started.

The person (T) who is leading this project kind of got it by accident, she was leading a smaller project and then the new one got tagged on and has since expanded to become the largest in our workplace.

My colleague has about 5 years less experience than me in our industry but we are about the same level and are potentially both going for the same promotion soon.

She was proactive about working on the project.

My usual project has taken a backseat recently so I’m not as busy as usual and asked our boss if I could help.

I also send him some documents I found that might be helpful and he was pretty pleased.

In order to help out I created some minor tasks for the team that would help track the progress of our project and started writing another document laying out the plan.

T isn’t too happy with OP’s initiative.

When I sent these out to our colleagues, T was a little annoyed and said that I should have gone to her 1st.

Fair enough.

When I noticed a couple of things for the project hadn’t been completed by T yet I mentioned this to our boss and offered to do this.

Almost immediately afterwards I also messaged T with my offer.

It seems that OP overstepped and got it wrong.

T got mad and said that she had already done those things but either hadn’t got round to sending them to our boss as she wanted to discuss them with him or just hadn’t sent them to me.

She then sent them to me and fair enough she had done them.

She was also mad at the fact that I had gone to our boss about it rather than her but I just want to make sure the project gets done properly.

I don’t think T is doing a terrible job, she communicates well with the rest of our staff and has led meetings and training.I just think she could be more efficient about the way she does things and because I have more experience thought I could help her.

OP seems to turn every conversation back to herself and to her benefit.

Here’s where I could be the jerk.

I was in a meeting with my boss about something unrelated and he asked me how I thought T was getting on.

I was honest and said that she was doing a good job for someone who had never lead a big project before but that I had some ideas to make it even better.

My boss said that I should liaise with T and oversee what she is doing and let her know I’ve become the point of call for advice.

T is pretty upset.

T is now going round saying that I’ve become her supervisor and that she clearly wasn’t trusted with this project.

She has become quite passive aggressive and when I asked her to update me she sent about 30 documents and actions to look through.

AITA? I was genuinely only trying to help.

Some of my colleagues are saying it’s only natural that I would have this role but most are saying that I stole the project from T and that I’ve done similar things before. I’m pretty upset by what has happened as T and I used to get on well.

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It sounds like OP took initiative to proactively let the boss know her thoughts and that she wants to help on the project. I can see why T is annoyed though. She could’ve backed off since she knew T wanted to work on the project. Was she wrong for taking over?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who rejects a low contract offer and leaves the company instead.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say.

Let’s call it what it was. Sabotage.

I think she already has a reputation.

No, it definitely didn’t seem like an accident.

She needs to be honest with herself. She meant for this to happen.

She feels bad that her coworker feels bad, but this wasn’t an accident. She wanted the promotion. She wanted to be in charge, and if that meant making her coworker look bad to make herself look good, she was up for it. She can’t play the victim now. It’s understandable why her coworker is upset. That’s the consequence of getting what she wanted.

You don’t win friends at work by stealing their promotion.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person whose colleague expected them to help pay for 11 elaborate birthday cakes they never agreed to buy.