Is this Professionalism?

It was a friday, returned back from work. My old schoolmate and a good friend had left me a voicemail. She sounded down. I quickly gave her a call to find out what was wrong.She was rejoiced when i called back. I guess she was pretty hurt and wanted to vent out her mind. She was saying that assume X and Y are 2 contractors working on the same project for almost a year. X goes on vacation for sometime and returns back to work. Within this span of time, the project shifts hands from one manager to the other. The new manager knows Y from the start and likes Y. X is on vacation and when he comes back has to prove himself to the new manager. X comes back and tries to make the manager feel high through his work. Manager sends X an email thinking he knows best about something. X forwards the email to Y just to make sure he understands right since he was on vacation for sometime and he might miss something. Y does not respond too well. So X instant messages the manager and clears out all the doubts. After making sure X comprises a detailed email response back to the manager. In the meantime, Y has compiled his email but not as detailed as X did. Before sending Y instant messages X asking whether he should email X and manager the reply. X replies that he already replied to the manager and that should be good. Inspite of this Y sends it to the manager and X. Now my friend's question is Should Y have done that? I was confused for a while, but i felt a little sympathy for my friend who was X. I told her this may not be professionalism but definitely cunning behaviour. Sometimes i feel, we do cheap things just to get a little name and fame. But all this does not last long as both were contractors and their project was getting over in a few days. Alas this is all in the game of work, where each person has to prove himself. So i could say both are not wrong, but it hurts a bit.