I Was Sitting There In That Stiff Government-Issued Swivel Chair, The One With A Squeaky Wheel And Worn Armrest I’d Dealt With For Seven Years When Mark…
After being passed over for regional director for the twelfth time, Noel finally realized that working harder wasn’t going to change a game that seemed determined to keep her exactly where she was.
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After being passed over for regional director yet again, Noel sat in the same stiff government-issued swivel chair she had dealt with for seven years and watched Mark slide a manila folder across his polished oak desk. His expression was painfully familiar: half shrug, half pity, as though they had performed this scene too many times before. Noel didn’t even need to open the folder. She already knew what it contained. Rejection number 12. Twelve times she had reached for the regional director position, and twelve times someone else had been selected. Worse, Noel already knew who had received it this time.
Her name was Alana, and she had been with the company less than a year—ten months at most. Mark leaned forward and delivered another carefully polished explanation. The end of the fiscal year supposedly wasn’t ideal for leadership changes, but he assured Noel that her name had been put forward for the summer cycle. She was “right there,” he told her. Noel nodded as though she believed him, even though she’d heard almost the same promise repeatedly for four years. She had also personally onboarded every person who had leapfrogged her since 2017.
Then something unexpected happened. Noel laughed. It wasn’t a polite workplace chuckle or an attempt to hide disappointment. It was the kind of laugh that escaped after someone had finally reached their limit. Mark blinked, his familiar expression of rehearsed empathy suddenly frozen. When he asked what was funny, Noel told him: herself—for believing the company would ever stop pretending. She was 36, working at a regional logistics hub in Raleigh, North Carolina, and after seven years of solving emergencies, saving accounts, and training people who eventually became her bosses, something inside her had finally shifted.
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For seven years, Noel had been described as essential.
Apparently, she was simply never considered eligible.
The regional director title was one she believed should have been hers nearly four years earlier. To understand how she reached rejection number 12, she had to remember how deeply she had invested herself in TriPoint Logistics.
The company had been founded by three former supply-chain executives who wanted to redefine logistics with heart. They promoted the familiar message that they were lean, they were a family, and everyone hustled together.
Mark had been employee number five.
Noel joined as employee number 22, back when TriPoint operated from a rented suite behind a strip mall in Garner.
She rebuilt half of the company’s tracking dashboards from scratch. When a team lead quit in the middle of a deployment, Noel stepped in and helped salvage the Portwell account. Sixty-hour workweeks became something she wore almost like a badge of honor.
She over-delivered again and again.
Yet the promotions remained just beyond her reach.
Management always had an explanation.
She needed stronger cross-team visibility, so Noel led joint projects. Then she was told she should mentor more junior employees, so she did that too. When another technical qualification became important, she got certified.
Every time Noel reached the target, the target seemed to move.
Meanwhile, promotions continued landing in other people’s laps.
There was Brian, who struggled with deadlines but played pickleball with Mark. Daniela relied on Noel for dashboards but socialized with senior leadership. And now there was Alana, arriving after less than a year while Noel was once again passed over for regional director.
For a long time, Noel had wondered whether she was the problem.
Maybe she wasn’t extroverted enough. Maybe she was too blunt. Maybe she had the wrong personality, history, or workplace image.
But as she watched Alana walk past carrying her newly engraved nameplate, Noel finally saw the situation differently.
Maybe she hadn’t repeatedly failed to win the game.
Maybe the game had never been designed for her to win in the first place.
That night, still wearing her coat, Noel collapsed in the hallway and called her sister—and one conversation was about to challenge everything Noel believed she owed the company.
