*As told to Kally by someone who wishes to remain anonymous
At 29 years old, I was at the peak of my career. I’m a top marketing manager and I ran a team of 150 people under me. I had social media, advertising, branding, PR and internal communications team. I was working at one of the Fortune 500 companies. I am young, ambitious and… not happy.
My twin sister is also in the same industry and in a similar role except that she wasn’t managing anyone because the startup could only afford her. We like bouncing ideas off each other and sometimes critic each other’s work.
Then suddenly, her company became famous overnight and thrown into limelight. Everyone wants to be an investor. The startup became bigger and bigger. The founder offered my twin a seat right at the top management next to him with substantial raise in money and shares. Of course, I was unhappy. More like, I was jealous.
It is so unfair!
To get to where I was I had to complete a double degree in marketing and communications. I had spent a lot of sleepless nights, poring over marketing strategies and competition research. I had bend my back backwards and sometimes on my knees to network and kiss arses to people in media and entertainment.
I have zero social life. I have no friends. And now, my sister suddenly was too busy to have dinners with me. She wasn’t even a marketing student. She didn’t even have a degree. She was just lucky that she landed her job in a small startup.
Long story short, I did a lot of despicable things to sabotage her career. Little things like badmouthing her in our tight circle to major stuff like leaking confidential stuff I know of her company that she used to confine in me. Deleting important messages from clients from her phones and her emails. Changing her password on her email inbox so she cannot lock into her account for a day.
The one thing I did that broke the camel’s back and made her turned her back on me is that I sabotage her biggest deal. Usually, my company takes in a lot of huge corporations, big international brand names like those in the Top Fortune 100 companies while my sister’s start up works with any other companies that are not up to my league.
Two years ago, a famous international brand chose to go with her company instead of mine. It’s a few million dollars deal and this commission would allow me put down the deposit of a dream house I’ve been eyeing for sometime.
Not letting it go, I found out on the sly within our industry that the chief marketing manager has a thing for my sweet next-door girl, my sister. Did I forgot to mention that we were identical twin sisters? I did a really nasty thing. I pretended to be my sister and I slept with the chief marketing manager. My plan was to sleep and dump so he will forget about working with my sister and I will swop in to grab the deal.
It didn’t work. The chief marketing manager still went ahead and signed the contract with her. So my next step, out of pure revenge, I let out a rumour that my sister slept with him to get the deal.
The chief marketing manager had to resign over the rumour. A few months later, somehow the rumour was traced back to me as the originator.
Karma, I know. I never get to know how people found out or who leaked it.
I got fired from my position as well. My boss couldn’t believe that I had played such stinky hand. The industry players love the stink and couldn’t stop talking about it. My reputation went tumbling downwards. Nobody wants to work with me. No brands wants to be associate with my name. The last media company I interviewed with, their HR told me that they wouldn’t want to work with someone so untrustworthy and unreliable.
The best part? My sister survived the whole scandal unscathed. Her boss asked her to go on a sabbatical leave for 6 months for this incident to blow over. She traveled to the other side of the world with her newly minted fiancé and came back, glowing and happy, with a job she loves, waiting for her.
We stopped talking to each other when the scandal blew up. I moved out of the house when she was away on vacation last year. Now I freelance for marketing gigs to pay my bills, while watching my sister climb to where I was before, making a name for herself in the industry circle.
I grew up a lot during this time. I am alone most of the time, by choice. I have acknowledged that I was selfish and blinded by greed. I have moved past that. I won’t pursue to gain her forgiveness either because I don’t think that is what I want right now. Maybe in a few years time, then we’ll see.
Right now, I’m saving up money to move to my next destination to start afresh and hopefully, nobody remembers my name there.
If you enjoyed reading this Whisper, check out our other Whispers stories: Whisper: I have a Crazy Boss Whisper: I’m 38 And I Still Live With My Parents Whisper: The Thing that Destroy My Social Life and Almost Kill my Career
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