He withdrew from a contract role. He told the recruiter he would send it the following evening.
By 7:51 the next morning, the reply had arrived. He was a liar, the recruiter wrote. His résumé was “marginal”.
Somewhere between the promise of an evening and the start of the next working day, a courtesy had been reclassified as a broken commitment, and a withdrawal had become a character reference. The switch from “tomorrow evening” to “liar” took less than twelve hours.
He posted the exchange. The comments filled with people who recognised it — the recruiter clock that runs only in one direction, where a candidate’s delay is betrayal and a company’s delay is process. The role was a contract. The exit was a courtesy. Both were treated as evidence.