My coworker “accidentally” CC’d me on an email trashing my work to our boss. She didn’t know I’d screenshot it before she tried to delete it thirty seconds later. I’d been working on a client proposal for two weeks, the kind of project that decides who gets considered for a promotion opening up next quarter. I sent a draft to my manager for feedback, standard process, nothing unusual. Ten minutes later, an email landed in my inbox. Subject line: “Re: Proposal Draft - Thoughts?” Sent to our manager. I was CC’d. The body was brutal. My coworker calling the work “sloppy,” saying she “didn’t know how I even got considered for this project,” suggesting maybe someone more “detail oriented” should take it over before it went to the client. Four paragraphs of it. I sat there stunned for about ten seconds before I screenshotted the whole thing, timestamp and all. Thirty seconds after that, a new email appeared. “Please disregard previous email, sent to wrong thread.” No apology. No acknowledgment that I’d obviously read every word before she caught her mistake. I didn’t respond right away. I let it sit for two days, kept working on the proposal like nothing happened, polished every section she’d criticized until it was airtight. Then I submitted the final version directly to our manager, copying her exactly the way she’d copied me. In the email body, I wrote one line: “Made some final adjustments based on feedback I received. Let me know your thoughts.” I attached nothing else. No explanation. No mention of the screenshot. She messaged me an hour later asking what I meant by “feedback I received.” I never answered directly. Just let her sit with the question the same way I’d sat with her email. The proposal went out clean, got approved without a single revision request. She’s been noticeably quieter around me since. Would you have confronted her outright, or let the ambiguity do the work like I did?