Feel-Good Story-Kurzgeschichten & Independence Workplace-Kurzromane

The sales department organized a team-building trip and turned it into a killer-instinct trail race, with a $30,000 prize for the winner. I volunteer with a search and rescue team, and I stayed up all night mapping the safest route with supply points along the way. The new VP they had parachuted in tore up my map right before we set out. "What's the fun in a paved trail? We take the undeveloped Wildman Gorge. That's how you show real killer instinct! "To keep anyone from cheating with GPS, everyone hands over their communication devices." I pointed at the thunderheads on the horizon and tried to stop him. Wildman Gorge floods easily, and going in without radios was suicide. Instead, he smashed my radio to pieces in front of everyone. "You're just jealous that I got to lead this thing, and you want to keep everyone from taking home the prize money, right?" For that $30,000, my coworkers lined up to call me a coward who cared nothing about the team. Fine. I took off my shell jacket and volunteered to stay at base camp at the bottom of the mountain. A storm was coming. If this pack of office wolves wanted to take on a mudslide in Wildman Gorge, I would sit there with a hot cup of tea and wish them a triumphant return.

Right after the Christmas holidays, my former boss called me. The moment I picked up, he immediately barked down the line. "Do you know what time it is? Why aren't you here yet? The project on your desk is due today, and if it falls through, can you take responsibility for that? Get your butt over here right now!" He spoke with entitlement, as if I were still his overworked corporate slave standing by at his beck and call. Before I could get a word in, he slammed the phone down. A moment later, human resources called me. "Why aren't you here yet? Mr. Howell is furious! You've always been our most reliable employee. Even if you're unhappy with your bonus, you can't just throw a fit and walk out!" I was unimpressed. "Have you forgotten? I resigned before the holidays!" Today was my first day starting at one of our clients' firms.

After the New Year's holiday, my former boss called. The moment I picked up, she tore into me. "What time do you think it is? Why aren't you here yet? The project is about to be handed over. If it falls through, are you going to take responsibility for it? Get over here now!" She sounded completely entitled, as if I were still the same pushover who came running whenever she called. Before I could say a word, she hung up. Then HR called. "Why aren't you here yet? The boss is furious! You're usually the most reliable one. Even if you're unhappy about your year-end bonus, you can't just walk away from your work!" I laughed and explained, "It's not that I'm refusing to work. I already quit before the holiday!" Today was my first day at the client company.

I spent a few minutes in the bathroom during work hours, and my 20,000‑dollar salary was cut down to 3,500 dollars. I went to my boss to demand an explanation. He acted fair‑minded, and every word carried sarcasm. "According to last month's security footage, you spent a total of 40 minutes in the bathroom. Don't tell me you were working there. "Five hundred dollars for every minute you spent in the bathroom. "It’s a new company policy. As a senior employee, you should set an example. Honestly, I went easy on you." I had been one of the company's key employees for ten years, and the deals I brought in had generated over 100 million dollars in revenue. Now, even my most basic rights were taken away. When I did not react, he smiled coldly. "If you don't like it, quit. You really think this company can't function without you? "And don't forget that you still have five years left on your contract. Who's going to hire you?" I did not argue with him. However, when my contract expired five days later, he was the one who panicked.

The boss' daughter, Pamela Thompson, returns from overseas to take over the family business. The moment she sees me growing vegetables in an empty lot on the factory grounds, she covers her nose in disgust and sneers. "Our factory is a flagship company in this industrial hub!" she barks. "What kind of riffraff grows vegetables here? Do you think this is your personal farmer's market? Fire him, scrape that patch clean, and pave it over with concrete!" "And you!" she snaps, pointing to another worker. "Aren't you getting a little too old? You don't exactly fit our corporate image. You're fired too!" I take off my work uniform, load up my bicycle with my homegrown harvest, and pedal away. Behind me, the workers are all dumbfounded. One after another, they strip off their uniforms as well and fall in line behind me. "Where Drew goes, we go!" This time, it's the spoiled heiress who's left staring in utter disbelief.

The annual performance review came around. I was the company's top revenue generator. They gave me a D. I looked at the evaluation form in my hand and laughed, because the alternative was worse. "A D? No raise? You people call this a comprehensive assessment?" Even a dog that drags a forty-five-million-dollar deal home gets a couple of bones for it. Sonia Blake, our HR director, was busy touching up her lipstick. She didn't bother to look up. "Ethan, don't get arrogant. This company values character. It values teamwork. You lean too hard on individual heroics. The D was a unanimous decision by the board." "So that's the justification for wiping out my entire year-end bonus and cutting my pay twenty percent?" I didn't understand. That was when my direct supervisor, and the man I hated most in the building, Grant Palmer, walked in. "If you don't want the job, you can leave." He was flushed with satisfaction, waving around the letter of intent I had just closed. One and a half billion dollars. "Sonia, why are you still arguing with him? Ethan, here's the termination agreement. Sign it. And while you're at it, hand over the core code for the new platform." Use a man up, then throw him away. Fine. Wonderful. I picked up the pen and signed my name across the agreement with a flourish. "I hope you don't come begging me to come back."

Everyone in our neighborhood knew me as the meek full-time housewife. I had no income and no social life. Every hour of every day went to the kitchen, my child, and my hypercritical mother-in-law, Sofia Carter. Yet when I woke up, I had somehow swapped bodies with my insufferably smug husband, Kevin Carter. My phone lit up as he sent one mocking message after another: [Olivia, you act like having a baby entitles you to lie around at home all day, watch the kid, and throw together a couple of meals.] [For your information, this swap is permanent. I can finally get some rest.] [Don't run your mouth at my office. That management job is way beyond what a brain that never even made it through college can handle.] When I finished reading, I stared at the stubble-covered man in the bathroom mirror and burst into tearful laughter. He had no idea. My meekness and numbness had been bought with my health. From the day I married him, I never got more than five hours of sleep. At twenty-two, I suffered a severe hemorrhage during a difficult delivery. At twenty-four, I developed severe tendinitis. At twenty-six, after years of exhaustion and Sofia grinding me down, I was diagnosed with moderate depression. To him, I was never a wife. I was a live-in maid he didn't have to pay, someone he could take his temper out on whenever he pleased.

Six months later, Carlo, who once terrorized Port San Vito and forced us to pay protection money, knelt in the muddy water and blocked my path. Red-eyed, he begged me to bring the Moretti convoys back. "Ms. Moretti, if you come back, there'll be no protection money and no parking fees... I'll even pay you." I regarded him coldly and remembered how, six months earlier, he had flicked ash onto my financial statements and looked down at me as he said, "Pay, or get out of Port San Vito."

Just after the New Year, as I was about to return to work, my phone suddenly rang. "Charlie." With just one word, I immediately guessed who it was. Franklin Wood, my former colleague and superior, who had my ex-company and the entire industry blacklist me. We had not been in contact for three years. I did not understand why he was calling me out of the blue. "Is there something you need?" Hearing my response, the man on the other end of the line suddenly took a deep breath, his voice becoming a bit urgent. "Charlie, do you have a job now? What happened back then was my fault. The company needs you now. Can you come back?" 'Needs me?' I thought and laughed. Three years ago, he was the one who told me, "The company's success depends on the connections of its employees, not on their personal merits." 'Now, he's asking me to go back?' I thought, hanging up without replying. After all, the company I was working for now, Apex Systems, was their biggest rival.