He Called Me a Fool for Working Hard, Then Cried When the Fool Left Chapter 02

He Called Me a Fool for Working Hard, Then Cried When the Fool Left Chapter 02

Two other engineers came over to look. They read it, and nobody said a word.

Craig looked up at me. His expression was hard to read.

That afternoon, I rebuilt the framework and got the code running.

Marcus was all smiles. “Elizabeth, that’s impressive. I knew I picked the right person.”

“Keep it up. When this project is done, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

He sounded so sincere that I didn’t doubt him for a second.

From that day on, I lived in Engineering.

I worked from eight in the morning until eleven or twelve at night, sometimes later, weekends included.

The project schedule was tight. The client kept pushing. The boss kept pushing.

Over that month, I wrote tens of thousands of lines of code. Revised the specs more times than I could count.

Every time the client wanted something changed, they came to me first.

Marcus didn’t even bother relaying messages anymore. He just gave them my number. “Work directly with her. It’s faster.”

At first, the engineers weren’t exactly friendly.

Partly because I was a woman. Partly because I didn’t have an engineering degree.

Craig was the worst. He barely responded when I spoke to him. When I asked for documents, he took his sweet time.

One time I asked him for the raw data. He didn’t even look up. “It’s somewhere on the desk. Find it yourself.”

The desk had about a foot and a half of stacked papers. I spent half an hour digging.

The others weren’t much better.

In meetings, when I made suggestions, they’d either ignore me or say, “You wouldn’t get it. This is how we’ve always done it.”

I didn’t have time to care about any of it.

The project wasn’t going to wait.

By the end of the first week, I got the first module running.

Craig saw the result and just stared. “How did you do that?”

I explained it.

He didn’t say anything after I finished. But the next day, his attitude shifted.

He started handing over documents without me asking. Came to me when he had questions.

Week three, another module broke. The engineers spent two days trying to fix it.

I spent one night tracking down the issue, changed maybe seven lines of code, and got it running the next morning.

After that, they were all perfectly polite.

Craig bought me lunch once. He looked embarrassed. “Elizabeth, I was a jerk before. I’m sorry.”

I told him not to worry about it.

But I knew the truth. They weren’t trying to be cruel.

They were just used to coasting.

The project was worth ten million. Company policy tied bonuses to project value.

For them, all that mattered was getting it done. Who did the actual work? That part didn’t matter.

For that month, Marcus was nicer to me than anyone had ever been.

Every morning he smiled and asked if I’d eaten breakfast.

When I worked late, he told Craig to order takeout.

One time I had a hundred-degree fever and was still fixing code. He found out and sent his assistant over with a box of ibuprofen.

“Take care of yourself, Elizabeth. The project’s important, but you’re more important.”

Back then, I thought he was a decent guy.

Now I know. He just didn’t want me to quit.

The day the project finished, the client signed off on everything without a single revision.

Marcus opened a bottle of whiskey in his office and poured everyone a glass.

He walked over to me, smiling wide. “Elizabeth, you’re the hero of this project. I won’t forget it.”

And I was naive enough to believe that if you did good work, people would treat you fairly.

Naive enough to believe those smiles and kind words were real.

Naive enough to believe the world ran on “you get what you give.”

Now I know: I was just a tool.

I didn’t cry or make a scene.

Didn’t go complaining to Richard. Didn’t file anything with HR.

Because none of that would have helped.

What was I going to do? File a complaint against a department manager?

I’d been here barely a month. What could I possibly do?

So I just made a promise to myself.

Never again.

Back in Finance, things were quiet.

No one bothered me. No one gave me work.

My desk was in the corner. Hardly anyone walked past.

Sometimes people came by to print. They grabbed their papers and left without even looking at me.

Richard didn’t call me in either.

I figured he already knew about what happened in Engineering. He just didn’t want to get involved.

I was just a low-level new hire, after all.