Enter Carmen Quinn Rewrite

I was walking toward my office when I overheard someone mentioning my name in a hushed conversation. I didn't usually eavesdrop, but if it was about me...   “—working on this project for more than seven years, I was expecting you to get moved up. Then this upstart from some fancy school just shows up and takes it?” The voice sounded like Angeline’s.   “Quinn only got promoted because Connor likes her.” Boisselot for sure. I could’ve guessed who the second speaker was by the words alone, but I’d heard more than enough of his voice lately.   "She didn't even meet him until after the promotion—"   "As far as you and I know," Boisselot cut in, interrupting her as per usual.   I'm of the opinion that interrupting people is incredibly rude. It communicates that whatever you want to say is incomparably more important than what the other person is already saying. From what I could tell, Boisselot was of the sort that could hardly be expected to deprive the world of his wisdom for more than two seconds.   After some three or four days of working with the poor fools, I determined that this dynamic was the cause of Angeline's uncanny hyper-speed speech. Much as I disliked her, I resolved then to never be the cause of such behavior.   "Are you certain it has more to do with Connor then with her?" Angeline asked, somewhat hesitantly.   That took me by surprise. I hadn't expected her to challenge him, but I suppose we all have our moments.   Boisselot waved a hand dismissively. "Of course. Why would she deserve that promotion?"   "I'm not saying she does," she began, turning her head to the side and putting her hands up.   “If things fall through with them and she loses the position, you’ll know I was right.”   “It really doesn’t matter. She didn’t deserve the promotion—however she came by it.”   I waited until I was sure that they'd finished speaking, then turned the corner, passing them as if I hadn't heard anything. Angeline looked away as soon as she saw me, visibly uncomfortable. Boisselot, on the other hand, didn't even avert his gaze. He made eye contact and tracked my every move with piercing envy. Weirdo.   I sat at my desk and held my clipboard to my chest for a moment. It made sense that people were jealous; being the Floor Manager meant that the majority of the credit for new discoveries would go to me. It also meant that I would be held responsible for any failures or accidents, but nobody plans for that to happen.   It did hurt that my peers deemed me unworthy of collaborating with, but what really stung was that it seemed more likely to them that I'd received "benefits" because of a relationship with a man than that I'd earned something for myself. Was it even worth my time to defend myself against such ridiculous accusations?   "...and I'm not exactly new." I'd muttered to myself as I'd set the clipboard down and opened the desk's middle drawer. I had interned for two years under Boisselot before landing a real position on the sixth floor team. Two years of listening to him condescend about information which I would obviously have known beforehand. Two years of listening to him talk about how great he was, and how he would soon be in charge of everyone on the floor.   Afterward I had worked on the research team for another three years, during which time I'd apparently made an impression on the Merrick Innovative Labs’ founder. Of course Angeline and Boisselot were jealous. I knew then that reaching my goals would likely require stepping on more toes, but I had set my sights even higher.