Gen Xer quits because of Gen Z firing.

I bet Joana was pretty and that all of the managers here were women. I’ve seen this happen before at a previous place I worked with an intern I mentored. While being beautiful is usually an advantage in life, it is not if you are young and attractive in a team with older women who feel threatened by it. I was shocked by how vicious this coven of older women project managers were to her. Meanwhile, they treated a not-that-pretty intern much better (who was not nearly as good at the job).

It got so bad that the intern in question sought me out, even though I was not on that team, to have my help because she heard me talking in meetings and thought I sounded “smart and nice” (awwwwww). So I stole her, making a team of two, and we did our own thing while the PM harridans seethed. Luckily, I was a favorite of the CEO so I told him what I was doing, and an abridged outline of why. So she was protected until her internship was over.

Then the team of PMs began all sorts or rumors about me and my junior protégée. They never went anywhere, though, because everyone knew they were absurd lies.

All’s better that ends well, though. The intern in question got a fancy job at Google after I harangued her into applying (her confidence was low after how she’d been treated) and I still text with her from time to time.

And those older women PMs are still terrible people.