She spent three months inside the process. Interviews, enthusiasm, the full courtship. When the offer finally arrived it was not the offer she had been led to expect, and it kept shrinking: three separate times the package was cut, the base slashed and the bonus trimmed twice, until roughly $30,000 had been shaved off what she'd been promised. She had already turned down two other offers while waiting. She had also taken a year away from work to recover from cancer, and she suspected the company read that gap as leverage.
Still, she tried to be reasonable. When the offer letter landed she emailed HR one question: whether day-to-day management, PTO approvals, and performance reviews would sit with the Chief of Staff or with the Executive. A clarifying question, asked in writing, before she signed.
HR's answer was to withdraw the offer. Her question, they said, "gave them concern."
Colleagues later filled in the subtext: the Chief of Staff had spoken badly of the assistant the candidate would inherit, and the previous person in the role had not got on with that Chief of Staff. Three months of process ended because she asked who she would report to.