Woman protects her career by getting coworker fired for deliberately sabotaging her promotion, office split because the coworker’s a single mom of 3: 'Being a single mother does not give you a free pass'

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Apr 15, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

All's fair in love and war… does that saying apply to office politics? Anyway, this woman recently got a well-deserved promotion for silently working hard and staying late to get things done. What should've been a happy moment of accomplishment quickly turned sour when her coworker (who also wanted the promotion) came up with a sneaky plan to take her down from the inside.

Getting turned down for a job stinks big time. Believe me, before I scored my current job, I was interviewing for eight months straight. It's rough out there. It's easy to feel envious of the people who got the role over you, but trying to sabotage them once they do get the job just sends karma straight for ya.

And that's exactly what happened to this coworker. She got caught red-handed, with receipts and all. But things got messy when she got fired and people found out she was a single mom of three. Still, does that give you a free pass to mess with someone else's livelihood?

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  • 30 3
    via Resume Genius For Unsplash+

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • "Getting my coworker fired after she tried to sabotage me — even though she has three kids?"

    I (29F) work in a fast- paced marketing agency. I've been there for about four years, recently promoted to a project lead position. I'm not the kind of person to brag, but I work hard, stay late, and honestly deserve the
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  • role I got. Not everyone agreed, apparently. There's a coworker, "Rachel" (33F), who I used to be friendly with. She was also gunning for the promotion and didn't get it. After I got the role,
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  • she got... weird. Passive- aggressive comments, icy attitude, and borderline insubordination when I was assigned to lead a team she was on. Still, I tried to keep things professional.
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  • Then, things started going missing from our shared drive-files | KNOW I uploaded, slides with last-minute changes disappearing before client meetings. She'd point it out in front of everyone like, "Oh, weird, I guess [my name] forgot
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  • again." I started second- guessing myself. So I got smart. I set up a private backup system and started keeping logs of everything-timestamps, emails, Slack messages.
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  • Eventually, I caught her red-handed. She had been deleting or reverting my changes late at night after everyone else logged off. I even got her on video (our remote desktop software logs user sessions).
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  • I took it to HR. She denied everything... until she saw the receipts. Her face went pale. She admitted it but said it was because she was "frustrated" and "felt
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  • Cheezburger Image 10493888000
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • undervalued" and was "just trying to make me look bad, not ruin anything." She cried. HR fired her on the spot. Now here's where things get messy.
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    Let this be your lesson - feeling undervalued at work does not equate to attacking other coworkers. As much as we may want it to. 

  • She's a single mom of three. I didn't know that until after the fact. People in the office are split. Some say she deserved it. Others say I should've just confronted her instead of going to HR
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  • and "destroying her life." I've been getting cold shoulders from a few people, and even a friend. of mine at work asked, "Was it really worth it?" I feel awful... but also, she tried to torpedo my career. So... AITA?
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  • Moist-Departure2649 The fact that she has kids is tragic, yes, but it doesn't make her immune to the consequences of her actions.
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  • Being a parent doesn't give anyone a free pass to sabotage a colleague. She wasn't protecting her kids she was attacking your livelihood. You didn't ruin her life. She made choices. You protected yourself.Stay professional. You did the right thing.
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  • Efficient_Most439 C'mon now, you're clearly not the AH. Play stupid. games, win stupid prizes. Would she have felt bad if
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  • you were fired because of her actions? Of course not. Move on. If your co workers say something again, you should just say "you're
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  • right, I should have let her get me fired from poor performance." This also sounds like people who were your peers don't respect you in your new position. Watch out for similar things.
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  • Princess_2212 NTA She got exactly what she deserved
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  • redelectro7 She wasn't thinking about her kids when she did it and she knew about them. You didn't.
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  • Neuropathic 1980 If she's a single mother of three she should have known better then to f around with her job and most importantly someone else's. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. NTA.
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  • stupit_crap NTA. She did that all on her own.
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  • The people saying you should have just confronted her. RIIIIIIGHT. Like that would have worked. Do the people who say this know she manipulated files to this extent?
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  • TaffetaSkye I feel bad for her kids but like, she literally tried to mess with ur career. It's not ur fault, she could've
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  • handled it way better and instead she chose to play dirty. Maybe confronting her could've worked, but honestly, the way she was acting was kinda unforgivable.
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  • She crossed a line and now she has to face the consequences.
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  • Smileeycake NTA, she literally was trying to end ur career! Congratulations for being smart and handling things professionally
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  • Rddtmcrddtface Well... she was trying to destroy your life, right? She fully did this to herself.
    via Rddtmcrddtface
  • Hlsalzer Being a single mother does not give you a free pass. It's just unfortunate that her children have her as their mother. NTA.
    via Hlsalzer

Tags

promotion boss employee fired drama job kids work coworkers files parenting human resources workplace sabotage mom entitled people
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