Annoying coworker continually pushes colleague to strive for higher position, it backfires: 'This place will fall apart without me'

Every superhero needs a supervillain counterpoint. Without them, their work wouldn't exist in opposition to anything. All of their efforts might fizzle out without something to keep them going. Sure, maybe you'd want to be motivated by yourself and your goals alone, but humans are simple people. We're a little bit competitive at our cores, and it sometimes helps to lean into that. Good managers know this and encourage a little healthy competition. But there are good ways to do this and bad ways to do this. Bad competition inspires negative feelings between people who should be working together. Good competition makes things interesting enough to keep everyone invested and helps everyone rise a little bit higher. This can come up when a promotion arises in the workplace, and it forces coworkers to compete for the same resources. This might help raise the bar of everyone's work, or it might drive a wedge between all parties involved and leave everyone feeling a little icky. 

The main character of this story didn't want to play into office politics but found themselves in it anyway. They were happy with their station and didn't feel the need to chase anything else. But when their annoying coworker got in their ear, their whole attitude started to change. Out of spite, they wanted to keep their coworker on their toes and go for a promotion anyway. Some saw this as the result of healthy competition, while others didn't envy having that kind of coworker. Either way, it makes for a pretty interesting story to read. Keep scrolling to get the full picture of it, and then let us know what you would have done in the comments.