Chapter 1

My name was Rachel Summers.

The gaming company that I founded, Cosmo Network & Tech, was well-known amongst the people in the industry for being the "dream company" to work at, simply because of our generous employee benefits.

They were exceptionally envious of the free lunch buffet program that I had insisted on for every employee in the company, amounting to 100 dollars per head per day, in collaboration with a five-star hotel in the center of the city.

Every day at lunch time, the admin department would wheel in carts of the catered dishes through the office floor, smelling absolutely heavenly.

"Rachel! The menu today is a five-cheese lasagna!"

"Oh my god, is that tiramisu for dessert?"

"I'm so in love with this company!"

I loved listening to the happy cheers and quips from my employees at this time. It made me feel as though I was getting closer and closer to building the dream company that I had always wanted to join when I was younger.

However, things changed when the new cleaner, Lilian West, joined the company.

She was close to 50 years old and was pretty good at her job. She looked honest and straightforward too, but she always acted weirdly whenever lunchtime rolled around.

She would never take the more expensive dishes at the catered buffet. Instead, she would always make sure to take the other alternatives, like sandwiches and salads, and place them on her lunch plate.

Then, she would produce her own food containers and fill them to the brim with the more expensive food to bring home.

At first, I thought that she was just being savvy and bringing home the food that she couldn't finish for her dinner.

A while later, I learned from Mandy Tate, someone from the admin department, that Lilian was bringing home the food for her son, who was in college.

I didn't think much of it. After all, this was an employee benefit, and it didn't matter how they utilized it as long as they could enjoy it themselves.

However, the truth eventually became distorted.

I began hearing Lilian's loud grumbling in the staff pantry and the toilets.

"The food provided is just too oily and greasy! None of them is any healthier than the food you can prepare at home for yourself!

"Yeah, Ms. Summers probably doesn't know it because she's younger than us, but elderly people like us prefer food that's lighter on the stomach and palate.

"Did you know that a burrito from the shop downstairs only costs 15 dollars? It's delicious, and I bet that the extra money saved from the catering could be used for other purposes instead."

Lilian would always gossip only with the younger employees who had mostly just graduated from college and still hadn't been working at the company for a long time.

Soon, I realized that there was a new group chat amongst the employees, and it was named "The Lunch Inspectors". The admin of the group chat was none other than Lilian herself.

Every day, new chat messages would appear in the group, complaining about the food that had been served at lunch that day.

"Ugh, it's chicken parm again today. I'm so sick of it!"

"The stir-fried cauliflower has seen better days. It's so mushy and yucky."

"I bet Ms. Summers cut down on the lunch budget. How could all this food be worth 100 dollars per person?"

I chanced upon the conversation in the group from an employee's computer monitor while I was passing by. I felt a little frustrated when I read the messages, but I treated them as just employee gossip and didn't take them to heart.

Yet, it was my leniency that fueled Lilian's nerves after that.

This afternoon, Lilian came knocking at my door and walked in with a group of young employees behind her. They were some of the most active participants in the lunch group chat.

"Ms. Summers."

Lilian then put on the airs of someone advocating for justice and demanded, "We are here on behalf of the rest of the company employees to suggest a proposition to you."

"What is it?" I asked, setting down my documents.

"We think that it's better if you cancel the free lunch buffet program and change it to a meal allowance plan instead," she said. "We've done the calculations, and the most a meal outside would cost here is not more than 20 dollars.

"So, you can just give us a meal allowance of, say, 60 dollars per day. That'll save the company more money, and we'll also have the freedom to choose our meals and make them healthier as well."

I smiled.

"Lilian, I have a contract with the hotel to provide meals worth at least 100 dollars per head every day, and I believe that it provides more value than the 60-dollar allowance you are requesting.

"I'm only doing this because I don't wish for my employees to have to fuss about thinking about what to have for lunch every day on top of all the work they have to do. Besides, the food is also of higher quality."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Lilian's expression fell at once.

She suddenly raised her voice and yelled at the door, "Ms. Summers is treating us worse than slaves! We're all just office workers who want to save a few pennies on healthier lunches! And yet, she's forcing us to eat her greasy, disgusting pig feed every single day!

"She's only trying to keep up her reputation of being a 'good person'! She doesn't care about us at all!"

Lilian's shrill voice was loud, and it reverberated across the entire office floor.

Quite a number of employees stuck their heads out of their cubicles and looked in my direction.