A job is primarily a place you go to make money, but most people also meet co-workers and become friends.

When one of the people in the friend group at work gets promoted, it can cause jealousy and other problems.

That is what happened to the manager in this story, but his former friend really took it too far before it backfired on him.

Read on for the details.

He spread false rumors about me that cost me a promotion and turned people against me so I destroyed his career within this place, eventually pushing him out.

Let’s call the person in question Tom and the supporting cast of jerks Mary and Tony.

I started working here in 2015.

It is a hard job and the camaraderie of the team made it easier to handle.

It is great when you have a good friend group at work.

Tom, Mary, Tony and I became fast friends as we worked so closely together doing this very emotionally and physically draining work.

We would celebrate birthdays together, plan trips together, help each other move, have dinner at each other’s home, confide in each other, etc.

After a year, we were all getting restless and were becoming a bit sour due to the lack of upward mobility.

A management position finally opened up and Tony and I applied to it.

In the application process, Tom kept trying to dissuade me from pursuing the position, saying I will be bored with it soon and it wouldn’t be a good fit for me.

I told him thanks for the advice but I am capable of making my own decisions for my career.

This was strange since he, himself was not applying for it but for some reason didn’t want me to have it.

I am a couple of years older than the others so I have more experience in the work, including a long history of managing staff and leading projects.

Something Tony did not have.

After 3 interviews, I beat out Tony and was the new manager.

I was also the first of my team to be promoted after months of all of us complaining.

That is weird.

Before I even began the new position, Tom told me that some of the people on the team that I will be supervising were mad that I was going to be their new supervisor.

He refused to give me any names.

“What the heck? I haven’t even started, and they barely even know me.” I thought to myself.

Regardless, I started the position, introduced myself to the team and did not let this impact my relationship with my staff.

I take being a good supervisor very seriously and I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

I promise this will be relevant later.

About a month goes by and my former supervisor, the head of my old team, resigns.

Senior leadership is scrambling for a replacement and doesn’t have much of a clue what to look for.

As my former supervisor left, he told everyone what a shame it was that I was given this other management position because I would have been the perfect replacement.

That would be quite the promotion.

Next thing you know, I get sat down by the Senior Director and our Chief of staff.

They essentially tell me that they want to take my current role and combine it with the role of my former supervisor, give me a Director title and a heck of a lot more money.

As flattered as I was, I felt a bit guilty as this management position can go to one of my colleagues who desperately wanted a promotion.

I also wasn’t sure I wanted to do that job as I’ve done it in the past and my current role was something new and challenging.

Finally, I know enough that doing both roles at the same time well would be impossible and I didn’t want to be hated and suck at my job.

I am very passionate about what I do and I couldn’t live with myself if I was bad at it.

For these reasons, I was gearing towards turning it down.

I made the terrible mistake in confiding in Tom and Mary about this, including the part where I was leaning towards not accepting it.

Mary became very upset, exclaimed that the position should go to Tony and it’s not fair because I already got a promotion.

I told her I didn’t want the position anyway but there were probably going to hire some outsider because, to be frank, Tony didn’t have any of the management or supervising experience they are looking for

Some of these people seem very immature.

She became irate saying how unfair that was and how he deserves the position because he was rejected for the other role I got.

That’s not exactly how promotions work, but okay.

It got personal when she said that she wouldn’t want to be managed by me anyway.

I asked her why and just gave me a word salad of an answer.

I asked again, adding that wouldn’t it be better to be managed by someone who knows this work inside and out, cares about this team, than some outsider who could be complete jerk and indifferent to our work?

Wow, that was mean.

She said no, anyone but me.

No reason, just not me. And That was the end of our friendship.

A few days later, the offer was rescinded with no explanation.

I found it rather strange and shady but whatever.

Then I started getting the cold shoulder from not just Tom but from Tony and Mary too.

I found my texts getting ignored, my calls screened and no longer getting invitations to hang out.

I started to suspect that Tom said something to poison these people against me but why would he do that?

That’s crazy, right?

By this time, a new colleague had joined their team who I got on with.

Let’s call him Andy. Andy was also becoming close to the dastardly trio, in particular, Mary.

All of my suspicions were finally realized this one evening Andy and I were drinking at a bar late one Friday night.

We were laughing having a good time when he changed his mood suddenly to tell me he has something very difficult to say.

He unloads everything.

Good thing this guy had some integrity.

That Tom had been telling everyone on my former team that I was going to be their new supervisor, that I purposely screwed Tony over twice, and told them all that my current staff hates me because I am a terrible boss, and fearmongered everyone.

Hence the rescinded offer.

Mary, who Andy had a crush on, knew how he felt about her and tried to use that to turn him against me which failed and he told me as much.

Andy said that he felt like the way Tom, Mary, and Tony were portraying me to others and the person he himself knew me to be was so mismatched that he decided to investigate these claims for himself.

He found out that my staff really respected me and enjoyed working for me.

Everything Tom was espousing couldn’t be further away from the truth.

Tom, from the moment I was offered my initial promotion, circulated this entire rumor from the beginning to undermine me.

He added fuel to it when I was offered the second promotion, successfully turning Tony and Mary against me, successfully costing me a promotion (I was going to turn down anyway), all out of sheer spite and jealousy.

I was heartbroken not so much about the promotion but more so that it was so easy to turn these people I once called friends against me and for what?

Absolutely nothing aside from nonsense espoused by some jealous jerk.

From this moment, I vowed to make sure that he will never get the promotion he so desperately wants.

Two can play at this game, except what I had against him, was very much true.

I made Andy promise not to tell anyone we had this conversation and he obliged.

Tom was completely unaware that I knew what he had done and still thought we were friends.

So anytime we would speak, I would indulge his indignation and egg on his frustration.

It was a lot of “Really man? They have you doing what? I would be insulted if I were you. You need to push back man! not cool!”

Fed his ego constantly…

“Dude, you are so much better than this…” “Why are you letting them do this to you?” “You’re too smart for this”

And boy did he.

He soon started becoming that annoying dude who complains all the time, soon people were getting sick of his whining and advised him to just quit already.

By this point, I had several loyal allies that were close to him and would unknowingly report back to me any terrible stuff he would say about senior management.

I gathered all of this intel and sat patiently on it and waited for the right moment.

I’m not a fan of this type of backhanded games at work, even if it is deserved.

Finally, another management position that I knew he would want became available.

I took this as an opportunity to speak to our senior Director about the concerns I was having regarding staff morale.

She agreed with the concern and we spoke on the phone on a Saturday I remember.

I told her that I am concerned that these negative attitudes will impact my team and wanted to brainstorm some ways we can address these problems.

She asked me to describe to her what were these negative attitudes per se.

Bingo.

I told her that there is a lack of trust in senior leadership and resentment due to the lack upward mobility, I told her that this negativity is coming from a particular person and infecting the other junior staff members.

Without having to say much more, she knew I was talking about Tom given the attitude I’ve egged out of him in the last year.

I then proceeded to tell her in detail, all the trash he says about her and the other senior staff members when he gets drunk.

We spoke a bit more about how we can isolate his attitude and think of ways to highlight people with positive attitudes.

He didn’t get the promotion.

A few months later, another position opened up and I did the same song and dance.

This time I learned that he had been bad-mouthing our work to outside partners.

I sat on that loaded weapon until the time was right and “let it slip” in a meeting.

He was scolded and again passed over for this promotion.

At least he was smart enough to quit eventually.

I kept doing this until he eventually quit.

I still see him everywhere, and he even tried apologizing to me at one point but it was too late.

Damage had been done from both ends.

I have no regrets and if that makes me a vindictive person, so be it.

It sounds like this guy dug his own grave.

Take a look at what some of the people in the comments had to say.

Yeah, he saved some people for sure.

This person wants more information.

Yup, keep your friends outside of your work.

This guy had a similar story.

This is generally good advice.

If you give a guy enough rope, he will hang himself.

It’s a tale as old as time.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.