"I sidelined my incompetent boss and she ruined my banking career"

I am unemployed. I lost my last permanent job in banking over a year ago. I've applied for hundreds of others and have got nowhere.

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Unfortunately, I only have myself to blame. I upset my previous boss and she made sure that I was let go in a round of cuts. 

My layoff was related to performance, but only to the fact that I was performing too well relative to the woman managing me. 

The problem from the outset was that the job was really too junior for my profile. I got it through a friend who was helping me when I was previously out of the market. He shoehorned me into a role several levels below the jobs I'm used to. The woman running the team felt threatened by me from the outset, but my friend is senior and there was nothing she could do. 

Once I was in the role, though, it became clear that I was far more competent than my boss. I was a star performer, and senior people in the bank would praise me and would come directly to me instead of to her with their queries. My friend would also email me directly. So would my boss's boss. She would be left out of email chains. I knew it was happening, and I was never entirely sure what to do about it.

My boss realized she was being sidelined, though. And the moment she got a chance to put the knife in, she did. Last year, I was let go during a cost-cutting exercise. It took me completely by surprise. My friend said there was nothing he could do about it: my boss was a woman, and the bank is always wary of discrimination claims. They let go of me instead, as I was the most recent joiner on the desk. 

Since that time, I've found it impossible to get another job. Failing to notice my ex-boss's resentment has effectively ended my career. It's unfair. It's frustrating. I wish, though, that I'd done more to keep her happy.

Dominik Shields is a pseudonym 

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