During my job interview, I was told we were going to be equals. Like, explicitly. He was older, and came to the project earlier, so I still deferred to him. N

During my job interview, I was told we were going to be equals. Like, explicitly. He was older, and came to the project earlier, so I still deferred to him. Nevertheless, I treated him like a peer. Turned out he wanted to be the boss —that was made official 2 months after my arrival. On my very first week, he started to make disparaging comments under the guise of joke (or were those real jokes?). Those soon occurred daily. Sometimes in front of the client, who (surprise!) eventually lost trust in me. If this was my only experience, I would have thought it was me. But I have since received enough external validation about my skills (people looking up to me, actual results…) to know better. For some reason, the guy could not stand me, so he got rid of me. Another small detail: he never smiled at me in the morning when we shook hands to say hello. He did smile at everyone else.