I had my final interview with a software company for a senior developer role. Everything went well, it screamed “dream job”, until the HR lady smiled and said, “Just one last question.” Imagine my shock when she hit me with, “What would your worst enemy say about you?”
For a moment, I just stared at her. I wasn’t sure if it was a trick or one of those personality curveballs.
I laughed awkwardly, hoping she’d move on, but she kept her gaze steady, like she really wanted an answer. I cleared my throat. “Probably that I don’t let things go.
That I hold grudges.”
She nodded, jotting something down. “Interesting.”
And that was it. She thanked me, shook my hand, and said they’d be in touch.
I left the building with my brain still spinning from the question. The rest of the interview had gone smoothly—technical tests, architecture questions, cultural fit. Then that.
I tried to brush it off, but it gnawed at me all the way home. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest. Maybe I should’ve given a fluff answer like, “I’m a perfectionist!” or “I care too much!” But that wasn’t me.
Two days passed. Then five. Nothing.
I sent a polite follow-up email, just in case. The reply came on day seven: “Thank you for your time. While we were impressed, we’ve decided to move forward with another candidate.”
I stared at the screen for a long time.
I hadn’t wanted a job that badly in years. I’d left my last role after my old team lead—Evan—basically took credit for months of work I’d done and made it look like I was the one holding the team back. It had been a bitter ending.
But this job? This one had felt like a clean slate. I went back to freelancing.
Nothing wrong with that—it paid the bills. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d blown my one shot. Weeks passed.
I got an email from a client, Sara, asking if I could help with a legacy system overhaul. It was messy backend work, nothing glamorous, but she was always respectful, paid on time, and let me work on my own terms. “Sure,” I replied.
“Send over the repo.”
The project started quietly. Old code, ancient dependencies, spaghetti logic—my kind of party. But then something weird popped up.
There was a private repo linked inside a config file, named E.Freeman_ProjectVault. I opened it. My jaw dropped.
It was a snapshot of code I’d written a year ago—specifically, part of the work that Evan had claimed as his own. Even the commit messages had my nicknames embedded in them—stuff like “timbo-tweak-db”—a little running joke I used for years. Apparently, Evan hadn’t just claimed my work—he’d packaged it, repurposed it, and used it across multiple contracts.
Including this one. I called Sara. “Hey,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
“This backend—did someone else set this up before?”
She hesitated. “Yeah. Some guy named Evan.
Why?”
I explained. As gently as I could, I laid out the plagiarism, the reuse of proprietary code, even the commit trail. She went quiet.
“Are you sure about this?”
“I have receipts,” I said. Within two hours, I was on a call with Sara, her CTO, and legal. I shared everything.
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