Chapter 4 - MIA’S FIRST SCREENSHOT
Mia Caldwell came to Rachel’s desk at 7:46 one evening.
Almost everyone else had left.
Rachel was rebuilding a pipeline report for the third time that week because her totals still did not match the executive dashboard.
Mia stood beside her holding a laptop.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
Rachel didn’t look up.
“That makes two of us.”
“I saw Bianca change your forecast.”
Rachel stopped typing.
“What?”
Mia sat.
Earlier that afternoon, Bianca had asked Mia to update contact notes while Bianca went into a meeting.
Her dashboard remained open.
Mia saw Rachel’s account list.
One client—Sterling Foods—showed a closed expansion worth $310,000.
Bianca clicked the deal.
Changed the attribution code.
Moved 60% of credit to “department discretionary.”
Then assigned that discretionary credit to herself.
Mia thought she had misunderstood.
So she took a screenshot.
Rachel stared at the image.
Timestamp.
Account.
Original ownership.
Modified allocation.
Bianca’s user session visible in the corner.
“Why would she do that?”
Mia’s face tightened.
“She’s done it before.”
Rachel looked up.
“To me?”
“I don’t know.”
Mia swallowed.
“To other people.”
That was the first time the story became larger than Rachel.
Mia explained quietly.
Bianca controlled several manual allocation fields because enterprise deals often involved teams.
Most employees trusted her to split credit fairly.
Junior staff almost never challenged the totals because commissions were complicated.
But Mia had noticed strange patterns.
Deals involving people Bianca disliked lost credit.
Deals involving employees close to her gained it.
One rep, Jeremy Knox, had missed President’s Club by less than two percent the previous year.
Bianca’s favorite manager, Cole Ramsey, beat him by one point.
Mia once heard Bianca joke:
“Sometimes rankings need help.”
Rachel felt nauseous.
“Did you tell anyone?”
Mia laughed nervously.
“She’s my boss.”
“So?”
“She decides whether I get promoted.”
Rachel heard herself.
That same word.
Promotion.
The carrot.
The threat.
The thing Bianca controlled because Northstar had allowed too much managerial discretion to gather beneath one person.
“Send me the screenshot.”
Mia hesitated.
“Can she trace it?”
“Probably.”
Mia almost stood.
Rachel stopped her.
“You don’t have to.”
Mia looked toward Bianca’s dark office.
Then back.
“My dad keeps asking why I stay here when I come home crying.”
She emailed it.
That night Rachel created a private folder.
She named it simply:
NORTHSTAR.
May you like
The folder would eventually contain 312 screenshots.
At the time it held one.
