All Chapters of One Joke Too Many: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

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 s

Hearing my words, Seth looked like he could not believe his ears, his eyes boring into me."Janice, are you out of your mind? Do you even hear yourself?"We're so close to the hundred fifty-million goal I set before I'd propose. Just three hundred more orders to go, and once they're in the bank, we'll have made it."If you screw this up now, don't expect me to give you another chance!"I was done talking. I walked out of the company and did not look back.I had barely slipped off my shoes at home when my phone erupted with the shrill sound of a call. It was my mom, and she was laying into me the second I picked up."Janice, what's gotten into you? Did you fight with Seth? Listen to me, go apologize to him, now!"You wouldn't be where you are without him. Don't bite the hand that feeds you!"Her voice was getting more piercing by the second. "Seth's a catch, and he's put up with you for twelve years. You should count your blessings!"Now you've gone and made him mad. Do you thi

The employee was on edge, but Seth cut him off with a sharp tone before he could finish."What are you talking about? Over a hundred cancellations?"He stepped forward and grabbed the employee by the collar. "Is there some mistake? These customers paid deposits. Why would they all cancel at once?"Lily pushed her way in, fixing a hard gaze on the employee. "There's got to be a mistake. Check it again!"Is this some kind of sick joke? Someone pretending to be a customer just to mess with us?"The employee, scared stiff by their reaction, shook his head desperately. "I've triple-checked. The calls are from the customers' official numbers, and lots of them have sent emails to cancel. It's no joke!"Seth's face turned a shade of stormy gray, and he spun to face me, standing by the elevator."Janice! You're behind this, aren't you?"You can't stand the thought of resigning, so you're stirring up customers to cancel, trying to bring down the company!"Lily caught on, and her voice r

"I spent three years dragging Hoffman out of the mud. There's no way Janice can tank it in one day!"Janice can reel in clients, and so can everyone else! Here's the game plan: every single employee drops what they're doing and hits the sales floor. We're selling houses, people! I can't believe we can't outdo one Janice with the whole team on it!"However, things were spiraling even faster than Seth feared.The very next morning, as the sales office opened up, a bunch of suppliers showed up, contracts in hand, crowding the front desk and demanding that Seth sort out the late payments.They were playing hardball, threatening to sue Hoffman and cut off all future supplies if they did not cough up the cash for the building materials in three days.As if that was not enough, the bank folks came knocking, too.Hoffman was behind on a whopper of a loan, and the bank was giving us one week to settle up, or they would start seizing assets.With all that drama, the few folks who were act

"The clients didn't back out because of me stirring things up–they left because they trust me. It was bound to happen. Without me, Hoffman Real Estate was going to lose them. That's not on me. Seth's the one who doesn't know how to value people, who ran his own company into the ground!"I've poured so much into the company, sacrificed so much for Seth, and you never bothered to ask. Seth throws a few crumbs your way, and you treat his word like it's law, then turn on me! Did it ever cross your mind that I'm your daughter?"I let it all out in one go, my voice growing raw until I was sobbing too hard to speak.The line went dead silent.It felt like forever before she finally whispered, "Is all that...true? Did Seth really do that to you?""Every single word." I said firmly, "I don't need to make up lies about him."Mom, I get it. You think it's super important for a girl to snag a great guy. But what I really want you to understand is that a girl can rock it solo, too. A guy like