Who's that *one* kid, adult, boss... person who ruined life's glossy innocence for you - and what did he do?

Honestly, for me, it was this one supervisor I had at my first real gig a few years back. Up until then, I had this naive idea that if you just worked hard and stayed out of trouble, people would treat you fairly. He was the classic type who’d take credit for every bit of progress I made but then conveniently vanish whenever something went sideways. Watching him manipulate the whole office dynamic just to climb a tiny bit higher really stripped away that "the good guys win" mindset I carried around.

It sounds dramatic, but seeing him sabotage colleagues just to look good in front of the higher-ups was a total wake-up call. I remember spending weeks on a project only for him to present it as his own in a meeting, and when I tried to speak up, he just shut me down with some corporate jargon. That was the moment I realized that professional life isn't always about merit. It definitely made me a lot more cynical and protective of my own work, which is probably for the best, but I still hate that I had to learn that lesson the hard way.