You swallow your frustration. You did everything right - proper escalation, data-driven case, professional approach. And it meant nothing.
Fine. You'll make it work. Somehow.
You throw yourself into the impossible. Seventy-hour weeks become eighty. You negotiate with vendors at midnight. You beg developers to work weekends. You promise bonuses you're not authorized to give.
Month 2: The CTO asks how it's going. "Great!" you lie. They nod, satisfied, and leave.
Month 3: You realize the CTO hasn't checked in on the project once since that initial meeting. They're focused on other initiatives. You're alone.
Month 4: A critical integration fails. You work 96 hours straight to find a workaround. Your hands shake when you type.
Month 5: You've stopped sleeping properly. Coffee for breakfast, anxiety for lunch, regret for dinner.
Month 6: You deliver... something. It's 50% of scope. It's buggy. It barely functions. But it technically exists.
The CEO is disappointed. The CTO says "we gave you everything you asked for" (they didn't). The post-mortem cites "execution challenges."
You take two weeks off. You sleep fourteen hours a day. You wonder if this is what the rest of your career looks like.
When you return, there's already another "critical" project waiting. The CTO says they're confident in you because "you delivered Phoenix."
You laugh. It sounds hollow.