Chapter 4

Dustin hadn't expected me to completely step back and not care at all.

He and Sandy exchanged uneasy glances, clearly at a loss.

The client's representatives looked at each other before one spoke up.

"In that case, let's have Ms. Richmond go over the project progress."

Sandy hesitated and stumbled over her words, too afraid to admit she didn't yet have a full grasp of the project.

As she passed by me, I couldn't resist giving her a cheeky, insincere cheer.

Sandy forced her way through the presentation, stumbling and fumbling from start to finish.

Then came the Q&A session.

"Ms. Richmond, we'd like to understand more about the bugs you mentioned earlier—specifically, which ones are currently unresolved?"

"Uh, it has to do with incomplete scenario restoration in some areas," Sandy stammered.

"A friendly reminder, Ms. Richmond—we'd like to know about all of them."

Sandy stood stiffly in place, silently pleading with me to step in and save the situation. Sitting nearby, Dustin also shot me a meaningful glance.

Oh, God. This was so boring. I might as well stare at the ceiling to pass the time.

As the client's representatives continued to ask questions, Sandy kept dodging and downplaying the issues, which only made them grow even more dissatisfied.

Their questions grew sharper and more pointed.

By the time the meeting ended and the client's representatives left, they had made it clear—both directly and indirectly—that Sandy was clearly inadequate. This earned me a fierce glare from Dustin.

After the meeting ended, Dustin hastily called for another one.

"Lately, some of you have been not only slacking off at work but also clocking in and out right on the minute. That's downright unacceptable. You young people should work hard. This company hired you to work, and that paycheck is what lets you establish yourselves in society!"

"Yeah, we should totally do that since we get paid extra for coming early and staying late," I muttered sarcastically under my breath.

…

The entire meeting was filled with nothing but empty motivational talk and lofty ideals. The whole tone of the discussion was dripping with passive-aggressiveness, clearly aimed at getting under my skin.

At 5:00 pm, Sandy called me into her office and reluctantly asked for my help.

"Brooke, what does this line of code mean?"

When I saw the code snippet, I almost laughed out loud.

Her fake smile was barely holding up. "It's just been so long, so I can't remember the details clearly anymore."

Sure, sure. It had been "so long" since she graduated that she couldn't even understand the most basic C programming language.

Sandy spent the whole time asking questions but never got to the point.

At 5:59 pm, I dragged Candice into the office.

"Ms. Richmond, it's almost time for me to clock out. But Candice here would be more than happy to stay and work overtime with you, so I'll be heading out now."

Before either of them could say anything, I rushed downstairs as fast as I could.

Just as I reached the entrance of the company, Dustin's call came through.

I held the phone away from my ear as he shouted, "Brooke, how can you just leave when everyone else is busy fixing bugs? Get back here right now! The launch is only a few days away! Do you even care about getting ahead?

"I want all the bugs fixed in three days! You are to come back now and work overtime!"

"Mr. Kline, isn't Ms. Richmond still there? And there's still a week left. You should trust in her ability. I'm sure she can pull it off."

Dustin was briefly stunned into silence, only to erupt into shouting again moments later.

"I'm ordering you—get back here and work overtime now! Otherwise, you can forget about getting paid!"

For someone in charge, he was surprisingly out of the loop. Had he really not realized my contract was about to expire?

Moreover, what kind of boss tried to squeeze an employee dry right before their term ended instead of talking things over properly to keep them around?