The coffee hit my laptop like a wave.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Derek’s voice dripped with fake concern.
My screen went black. The boardroom fell silent.
I had three minutes until my presentation. Three minutes to pitch the campaign I’d spent two months developing.
Derek stood there, paper towels in hand, trying to look helpful. His smirk was barely hidden.
“Guess you’ll have to reschedule,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
I looked at my dead laptop. Then at him.
Then I reached into my bag and pulled out a flash drive.
“I have a backup.”
His face went white.
Two months earlier, I’d joined Mitchell & Associates as a junior copywriter. Derek had been there six months longer—just enough time to think he owned the place.
“You’ll learn,” he told me on my first day, leaning against my cubicle. “Good ideas don’t matter. Presentation does.”
I smiled politely. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He’d undermined three of my pitches in my first month. Small things. “Forgot” to include me in emails. Scheduled meetings during my lunch breaks. Took credit for research I’d done.
“Derek’s ambitious,” my cubicle neighbor, Rachel, warned me. “Watch your back.”
I started documenting everything. Every email. Every meeting. Every idea I shared.
When the Horizon Tech account landed on our desk—the biggest client of the year—I knew Derek would make his move.
The brief was clear: rebrand their product line for millennials. Make tech feel human.
I spent two weeks researching. Demographics. Competitor analysis. Focus groups.
My idea came together at midnight on a Tuesday: “Disconnect to Reconnect.” A campaign showing people putting down devices to connect with real moments. Ironic. Authentic. Perfect for their target audience.
I documented everything. Sketches. Strategy decks. Timeline.
Then I did something Derek wouldn’t expect.
I sent the full proposal to our boss, Janet, with a timestamp. Subject line: “Horizon Tech Preliminary Concept – Confidential.”
“Just getting your early thoughts,” I wrote. “Full presentation in two weeks.”
Janet replied within an hour: “Strong start. Let’s discuss next week.”
I saved that email. Printed it. Backed it up three times.
Then I made a mistake on purpose.
I left my notebook open on my desk. The one with all my campaign sketches. Right where Derek always snooped when I was at lunch.
Rachel caught me. “You sure about this?”
“He’s going to steal it anyway. Might as well control when.”
The next morning, Derek was suddenly very interested in the Horizon account.
“I’ve been thinking about the rebrand,” he announced in our team meeting. “I’ve got some ideas.”
Janet nodded. “Great. Present next Friday. Both of you.”
Derek’s smile was predatory. “Looking forward to it.”
I watched him over the next week. He stayed late. Took my notebook twice—I had a decoy camera that confirmed it. He even scheduled a “pre-meeting” with Janet to “align on direction.”
The Thursday before our presentation, he made his real move.
“Coffee?” he offered, appearing at my desk with two cups.
“No thanks.”
“Come on. Peace offering. We should collaborate, not compete.”
I took the coffee. Dumped it in the plant behind my desk the moment he left.
That night, I stayed late. Derek’s computer was still on—he always forgot to lock it.
I didn’t touch anything. Just took photos of his screen. My exact campaign. My exact words. My sketches, traced poorly.
He’d even kept the same tagline: “Disconnect to Reconnect.”
Amateur.
Friday morning. The boardroom filled up. Janet. Three VPs. The Horizon Tech CEO via video call.
Derek went first.
He was smooth. Confident. The presentation flowed like he’d been working on it for months.
Because I had been.
“Disconnect to Reconnect,” he said, clicking through slides that mirrored my notebook. “We show real human moments. Parents with kids. Friends at dinner. Couples on dates. All without devices.”
The room nodded. Impressed.
“The insight here,” Derek continued, “is that our target audience is exhausted by constant connectivity. They’re craving authenticity.”
Those were my exact words from my email to Janet.
He finished to light applause.
“Strong work,” Janet said. “Very strong.”
Derek sat down, shooting me a quick glance. Victorious.
My turn.
I stood up. Opened my laptop.
Derek leaned over. “Good luck following that.”
That’s when he “accidentally” knocked his coffee over.
It cascaded across the table, straight onto my laptop.
“Oh my God!” he jumped up, grabbing napkins. “I’m so sorry!”
My screen flickered. Died.
The room erupted in concerned murmurs.
“Can we reschedule?” Derek asked Janet, his face a mask of concern. “This is terrible timing.”
I stared at my dead laptop.
Then at Derek.
Then I reached into my bag.
“I have a backup,” I said, holding up the flash drive.
Derek’s fake sympathy cracked.
I plugged it into the boardroom computer. My presentation loaded.
But I didn’t start with slides.
I started with an email.
“Before I begin,” I said, “I want to show you something I sent to Janet two weeks ago.”
The email appeared on screen. Date stamped. Time stamped.
Subject: “Horizon Tech Preliminary Concept – Confidential.”
I scrolled down. My full campaign strategy. Every element Derek had just presented.
The room went very quiet.
“As you can see,” I continued calmly, “I submitted this concept on October 3rd at 11:47 PM.”
Janet’s face was stone.
“Derek’s presentation,” I clicked to the next slide, “is remarkably similar.”
I showed them side by side. His slides. My email. Identical.
“Now, that could be coincidence,” I said. “Great minds think alike, right?”
Derek shifted in his seat.
“Except,” I pulled up another image, “this is my notebook. The one I keep at my desk.”
My sketches filled the screen. Rough but clear.
“And this,” another click, “is from the security footage from our office. October 8th. 1:37 PM.”
The video played. Derek at my desk. Looking around. Opening my notebook. Taking photos with his phone.
Someone gasped.
Derek stood up. “This is—I was just—”
“Stealing my work?” I finished. “Yes. I know.”
“You set me up!” he shouted.
“I documented my work,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Janet held up her hand. “Derek. Sit down.”
He sat.
“Continue,” Janet said to me.
I walked them through the real presentation. The research Derek hadn’t done. The strategy he didn’t understand. The execution he couldn’t explain.
When I finished, the Horizon CEO unmuted his video.
“I have one question,” he said.
My heart pounded.
“When can you start as lead on this campaign?”
Derek stood up again. “You can’t be serious. She orchestrated this whole—”
“You stole her work,” Janet cut him off. “On camera. With timestamps. In front of our biggest client.”
“I was going to give her credit!”
“When?” I asked quietly. “Before or after your promotion?”
His mouth opened. Closed.
Janet stood. “Derek, my office. Now.”
He looked around the room. No one met his eyes.
“This is bullshit,” he muttered, grabbing his things.
“This is consequences,” Janet said coldly.
Derek left. The door slammed.
The room exhaled collectively.
“I apologize for the drama,” I said to the Horizon CEO.
He laughed. “Are you kidding? Anyone who plans that well is exactly who I want running my campaign.”
We spent the next hour on strategy. Real strategy. The kind Derek never could have delivered.
After the meeting, Rachel found me at my desk.
“Holy shit,” she whispered. “You actually did it.”
“Did what?”
“Let him hang himself.”
I shrugged. “I just protected my work.”
“You’re terrifying. I love it.”
Derek’s office was empty by end of day. Security walked him out at 4:47 PM.
He didn’t look at me as he passed.
Janet called me in at five.
“That was risky,” she said.
“I know.”
“You could have just come to me when you saw him steal your notebook.”
“Would you have believed me? A junior copywriter accusing a senior team member?”
She was quiet. We both knew the answer.
“So you built an airtight case instead.”
“I documented the truth. That’s all.”
Janet smiled. “You’re getting lead on Horizon. And a raise.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You earned it. Just…” she paused. “Maybe warn me next time before you set up a sting operation in my boardroom?”
“I’ll consider it.”
The Horizon campaign launched three months later. It went viral in forty-eight hours.
“Disconnect to Reconnect” became the most-shared tech campaign of the year. Ad Week featured it. We won two industry awards.
Derek tried to claim partial credit on LinkedIn. His post was deleted within an hour after several people—including Rachel—posted the security footage in the comments.
He found a new job eventually. Smaller agency. No one checked his references too carefully.
I saw him once at an industry conference. He saw me too.
He walked the other way.
Janet promoted me to Senior Copywriter eight months after Horizon.
“You’ve earned it five times over,” she said.
My new office had a window. And a lock on the door.
I kept that flash drive. Framed it, actually. It sits on my desk next to my awards.
“What’s that?” new hires ask sometimes.
“A reminder,” I tell them. “Always back up your work.”
Rachel got promoted too. We still grab coffee every morning.
“Remember when Derek spilled coffee on your laptop?” she said one day, laughing.
“Best mistake he ever made.”
“You think he planned it?”
“Oh, definitely. He just didn’t plan for me to be three steps ahead.”
She raised her cup. “To backup plans.”
I clinked mine against hers. “And backbones.”
The industry’s small. Word gets around.
Derek’s reputation preceded him now. “The guy who stole the Horizon pitch.”
He tried to reinvent himself. New city. New agency. New look.
But the internet never forgets.
Neither do I.
Last month, I got an email from a young copywriter at another firm.
“Someone here is taking credit for my work. I don’t know what to do.”
I wrote back immediately.
“Document everything. Timestamps. Emails. Save it all. Then let them make their move.”
“Won’t that backfire?”
“Only if you don’t have proof. Do you have proof?”
“I’m building it.”
“Then you already know what to do.”
Three weeks later, she sent another email.
“It worked. He got fired. I got his job.”
I smiled.
“Good,” I wrote back. “Now pay it forward.”
The cycle continues. People like Derek will always exist.
But so will people like us.
The ones who document. Who prepare. Who refuse to be victims.
Janet retired last year. She recommended me for Creative Director.
I got it.
My first official act? Updated the company policy on intellectual property and plagiarism.
Clear guidelines. Clear consequences.
“This is because of Derek, isn’t it?” the HR director asked.
“This is because of everyone who comes after him.”
I still keep my notebooks locked. Still timestamp my emails. Still back up everything.
Not because I’m paranoid.
Because I’m prepared.
Derek sent me a LinkedIn request last week.
I declined it.
Some bridges don’t need rebuilding.
Some people just need to stay in the past, where they belong.
My latest campaign launches next month. Biggest budget I’ve ever had.
I built the pitch myself. Documented every step. Sent timestamped updates to the team.
No one questioned it.
Because I’d already proven what happens when someone tries.
That flash drive still sits on my desk.
And sometimes, when new hires come to my office nervous about protecting their ideas, I tell them the whole story.
They always ask the same question: “Weren’t you scared?”
“Terrified,” I admit.
“Then how did you do it?”
“Because being scared of confrontation is nothing compared to watching someone steal your future.”
They nod. They understand.
Then I hand them a flash drive.
“Back up your work,” I tell them. “Every single time.”
They take it. They always do.
And I know that somewhere, Derek’s probably still cutting corners.
Still stealing.
Still thinking he’s the smartest person in the room.
But he learned one thing from me, whether he admits it or not:
Always check if someone’s recording.
Because karma doesn’t need a push.
It just needs evidence.
