One Joke Too Many

The room went dead quiet when I said I would take the prize, but that quiet did not last.

A second later, laughter thundered through the air. Lily Smith was the loudest, doubling over with tears streaming from her eyes.

"How else could she be the top seller?" she cackled. "A woman like her has to have skin as thick as a rhino."

I ignored her snide comments and kept my cool.

"Just to be clear," I said, "since the company so generously 'rewarded' me with bathroom duty, that's all I'll be doing for the next three days. Everything else is off my plate."

Lily paused, her smile faltering. She had not seen that coming.

Well, it was year-end, and I had already smashed our sales goals. The only thing left was for our clients to finish up their payments, and we would be golden.

By stepping back from sales, I was practically gifting Lily millions in deals!

She must have thought I had gone bonkers with rage because she agreed without a second thought.

"Alright, you're off the hook," she said. "The sales team isn't a one-person show. You think we can't spin without you?

"Just stick to scrubbing toilets for the next few days. Spot a single hair, and you're out!"

I did not bother with a comeback. I just walked away, pulled out my phone, and shot a message to my client list.

[Big news, I'm being shuffled around. Hold off on those bank payments and stay tuned for my next move.]

Before I could pocket my phone, Seth Hoffman's text popped up.

[Drop by my office. We need to talk.]

I tossed my phone aside like it was nothing. I had bigger fish to fry.

We fell for each other back in our college days, and after we tossed our caps, Seth convinced me to ditch a job that would have made me a millionaire, so we could build something from the ground up together.

He promised me that once our little startup hit the jackpot of 150 million, we would tie the knot for real.

I bought into his tall tales, pouring my heart and soul into the company, only to be sidelined and squashed down time and time again.

Lily was a newbie, barely three months in, and her numbers were peanuts compared to mine.

However, Seth was all starry-eyed over her fancy international background and her time abroad, so he skipped right over me and handed her the sales director crown.

Me? I was the sales champ three years running, and what did I get? The 'glorious' job of scrubbing toilets for three days.