Plot Twists Short Stories & Male POV Workplace Novels

The company janitor suffers a heart attack, and I race toward the elevator with him on my back. But the new COO, Alexis Brown, refuses to let us in with the excuse that we're dirty and smelly. I beg her, but she just scoffs and has security pin me to the floor. Then she takes the elevator down and deliberately presses every floor button to delay us. The janitor misses the critical window for treatment and dies on my back. The next day, Alexis calls a company meeting and shifts the blame on me. She tries to fire me for causing a disturbance at work and even demands compensation for her emotional distress. I look at her coldly before putting the security footage up on the big screen. Then, I say, "Ms. Brown, you left your own father to die. He sacrificed everything to put you through college. How are you going to pay for that?"

I owned a taco shop for twenty years. The entire street was crowded because of my shop. After the SATs were over, I wanted to give a 20% discount to the seniors who were graduating on my new taco flavor, but my meat supplier sent me a notice. [Due to the high temperatures, the cost of transporting frozen goods has increased. Effective today, the price of raw ingredients will increase by 30%.] [Items are available on a first-come, first-served basis due to limited quantities.] It was the third time he had increased the price this year. Immediately after, my landlord and vegetable supplier also increased their prices as though they had discussed this in advance. I was furious as I questioned them, but all of them gave me the same answer. “Your profit on your new taco menu is high! We also need to benefit!” I was trembling in anger. I went back to my hometown and sent them a group text message. [From now on, I don’t need you to supply any materials to me. I also won’t be renting the place anymore!]

On my first day at work, I received a carpool notice. [I'm three weeks pregnant and the company is quite far from my home.] [After verification, your car exceeds 400,000 dollars and has been on the road for less than a year. It meets my vehicle requirements.] [From now on, you will be responsible for sending me to and from work every day. You mustn't be late.] Looking at the message, I laughed out of sheer anger. I usually had a dedicated driver for my outings. After starting work, I had my family buy this inconspicuous car to keep things low-key. I replied directly: [No thanks!] Unexpectedly, the next day, Xenia Salter exploited her authority over the attendance records and marked me as arriving late and leaving early and deducted my salary. Since she was so shameless, she should not blame me for what was to come.

For our company's annual party, my manager handed me a hundred-dollar bill. His assignment? Go out and buy the latest, top-of-the-line iPhone as the grand raffle prize. I stared at the cash, my brow furrowed. “An iPhone 17 costs nearly a thousand dollars. A hundred is hardly enough.” A smug smile tugged at his lips. “That’s your problem to figure out. When your superior hands down an order, you find a way to make it happen, not sit there questioning me.” So he was trying to make me pay out of my own pocket! When I flatly refused, he didn't hesitate to use my full-time promotion to threaten me. Looking at his arrogant face, I pretended to back down. “Fine. Leave it to me.” The second I turned around, I stuffed a brick into an empty phone box, sealed it up, and handed it right over.

Joseph Zeigler, the heir of the richest man in the city, suddenly develops a rare acute illness, leaving the whole medical department completely stumped. In my past life, I pull three all-nighters buried in medical journals from around the world before finally landing on the safest conservative treatment plan. Derek Chapman, the newly hired doctor, dismisses my approach. He scans the lab sheet using an AI diagnostic app and insists that a simple minimally invasive procedure is all it takes to eradicate the problem. I publicly point out the AI app's misdiagnosis, driven by my duty as a doctor. Derek, unable to accept the humiliation, leaves the hospital in a huff, accidentally falls into a river, and drowns. Helen Walker, the head of the department, has resented me ever since then. She leads a cyberbullying crusade against me online. She breaks down crying in front of the cameras, saying, "If Dr. Lund hadn't bullied the newcomer out of sheer jealousy, he wouldn't have been distracted enough to fall into that river. Dr. Lund is supposed to be compassionate as a doctor, but all he has is just pure jealousy!" I eventually jump to my death from a building because of the relentless cyberbullying. I open my eyes again to find myself back on the day Derek holds up his phone, loudly bragging about the AI's diagnosis. I take a backseat of my own accord this time. "These youngsters nowadays are absolute medical prodigies. If the AI says it is safe to operate, I will let you take the lead surgeon position for this case."

Immediately after picking up my new Porsche Panamera, I took a photo of the steering wheel and uploaded it to my Instagram. Less than two minutes later, the female manager from the department next to mine, Quinn Zote, began to bombard me with a slew of questions. "You're driving such a luxurious car? Can you even afford the upkeep?" "That car sits too low. Men are likely to get in accidents driving it, and if all that bouncing around ruins your prostate, how are you supposed to carry on the family line?" "Bring me the car key right this instant. It just so happens that I need to use a car tonight!" Completely dumbfounded, I was only able to retort with a "Is there something wrong with you?" before Quinn called me. She screamed angrily over the line, "You're just an insignificant little employee, so why should you drive a luxury car? After we marry, you have to transfer that car over to my name! "I'm warning you, if you ruin your body with all that bouncing around and can't get me pregnant, I'm going to divorce you, and you'll leave with nothing to your name! Now, I'm giving you ten minutes to drive that car over here to the office building. Otherwise, I'm going to deduct your attendance bonus for this month!" I could hardly contain my furious laughter at her outrageous behavior. After hanging up, I immediately sent a recording of the call to the "Executive Inspection" group chat my father set up. Along with it, I sent a message that read, "Is this woman really a member of the upper management at your branch company?"

My team was the only one in the company that hit its performance targets this year. At the year-end party, the boss waited until everyone else had left, then he pulled out a big red box and had the four of us in my team draw blind boxes. I drew a desktop tower caked in dust, an antique that looked like it belonged in a museum. Haley Lambert, my teammate, drew a monitor covered edge to edge in scratches. Drew Sandler got a keyboard with every letter worn clean off the keys. Gabe Carell ended up with a grease-slicked wired mouse. Our boss, Cyrus Griffin, clapped me on the shoulder, grinning drunkenly. "You young people love a blind box, right? It's all about that thrill of not knowing! "Besides, this is exactly the kind of hardware the tech department needs. Consider it motivation." That night, though, his social media told a different story: a photo of our whole team, captioned [Team snags a hundred-thousand-dollar bonus!] I zoomed in. He hadn't even bothered to crop out the AI watermark in the corner. The whole company liked the post. People started messaging me, asking how much I'd actually pocketed, before or after tax. I looked at that junker of a computer and laughed. Since the boss had gone to the trouble of "fully equipping" our team, our next project was obviously going to make "full use" of every last piece of it.

"Veya AI, book me a table for a business dinner tomorrow." In my last life, our intern, Vincent Tate, tried using AI to book a client dinner. I told him Veya AI couldn't make reservations. Yet he waited until after work to do it himself. Too late. Every table was gone. Vincent immediately started crying to the whole office. "If Mr. Alford hadn't stopped me from using AI, I would've gotten a table! Now we blew the deal!" My fiancée, Peyton Welch, and the rest of my coworkers piled on. "Why can't AI make reservations? Vincent's right. You're paying for every dollar we lose!" Peyton shoved me during the fight. Then I fell off the building. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Right at the moment Vincent tried using AI to book the table. This time, I kept my mouth shut. I listened as he gave Veya AI the command. Go for it, Vincent. Let's see AI get you that table...

When the kiss cam swept across the stands at the baseball stadium Warren Doyle, a married investor in the league, had his arms around his PR director and was kissing her. The two of them went up on the jumbotron, and the crowd erupted in hoots and cheers. Warren stormed into the camera bay and demanded I hand over my camera. I told him the camera pointed wherever the control room told it to. He stared at me for a few seconds, then suddenly let go and let me leave. I thought that was the end of it. The next day, audio from the crew channel shot to the top of the news feeds, with nothing left in it but two ambiguous lines from me. "Camera locked on row seven. Keep rolling. Don't cut." Overnight I became the shameless camera operator who'd filmed them on purpose. I was suspended from my job, my father's food cart was trashed, and Warren sued me for a million dollars. But he didn't know that the recording he was using to convict me could only ever convict him.

The entire company was racing to get the year off to a strong start on the first day after our holiday break. I was the only one openly staring out the window, doing nothing. No one bothered me because I helped the boss make an extra 200 million dollars last year. So, she'd personally given me one special rule. "You can do whatever you want." Unfortunately, the new operations director didn't know that. So, she smashed my computer and ordered me to pay a 20,000-dollar fine in front of the entire office to set an example for everyone else. I didn't say anything. Instead, I made a phone call, packed up my things, and left the company. Early the next morning, the boss personally drove to my house herself. She'd come to take me back to work because the number I'd called the day before was the private cell phone number of a rival company's CEO.

A Code Blue in the emergency department means a patient's heart has stopped and every pair of hands in the building is wanted. The president cut his own report off mid-sentence and sent me down to the resuscitation. The charge nurse was already prepping my gown at a run, saving every second she could find. And a first-year resident, three months on the job, was standing in front of the procedure-room doors with a printout from the pharmacy in his hand. He put it to me in front of everyone. "Dr. Hale, sixty ampoules of anesthetic went out of your department in March. Did you take them out and sell them? "The head of cardiothoracic surgery, doing something that filthy? Sixteen years in this hospital. Tell all of us how much you've taken in kickbacks." He said it with real conviction. And the eyes coming at me from up and down the corridor were full of doubt. But I didn't have the time to fight with him. The window on a heart attack like that one is ninety minutes. Fifteen of them were already gone.

My sister, Gizanne Miller, is the founder and CEO of Miller Corporation. I hide my identity and join the company as an intern. However, the Head of HR, Dorothy Kellan, tells me that after three months as an intern, I will not be offered a permanent position, and that all my wages from the internship will be withheld. "Why?" "You took three days off." I look at Dorothy, almost amused. "First of all, that was bereavement leave. Second, I followed the proper procedure when I applied for it. And third..." I turn to look at another intern who started on the same day as me, Ethan Holte. "He takes days off every month to take care of his girlfriend who suffers from menstrual pain. Why does he get to stay?" Dorothy looks at me with disdain. "He's related to the boss; that's why. Besides, his girlfriend's period pain is so severe it's practically life-threatening. But you? You just lost your grandmother. That's all. Why do you think that you're entitled to take time off?"

For all four years of college, my girlfriend Vanessa Moore never once let anyone know we were together. "Dating someone in your own class is asking for trouble. If we break up, it'll be humiliating." To keep our distance, I never dared say a single word to her in front of other people. But Marcus Hale, the guy she grew up with, got to be glued to her side. On the way to the graduation party, a white sedan swerved out of nowhere and slammed into my car. Glass sliced open my face and my arm. When the dizziness cleared, I saw Marcus in the other car, smiling like he had just pulled something off. Blood kept dripping from the cuts. I was pinned, and I couldn't move an inch. Then Vanessa's car came down the road toward us. I called out for help until my voice went raw. She walked straight past me to Marcus. "Are you okay? Where are you hurt?" Leaning on my girlfriend's arm, Marcus limped over to her car and got in. She didn't come for me first. Ten minutes later Vanessa finally walked back, but she stopped three feet away. "It's the graduation party today. Everyone will be there. We have to keep our distance even more carefully. "I heard someone already called an ambulance, so just hang on. I'm taking him to the hospital first." Then she drove off without looking back. She had never intended to save me. My white shirt was soaked through red, and the pain shooting through my body cleared my head completely. A love that never answers back is a love you should put down.

I'm known throughout my family as the resident tattletale, and I refuse to let even the smallest offense slide. When I was three, Aunt Cassandra stole a piece of my cheesecake. That same night, I ran to Grandma's bedside and wailed as though someone had died. The next morning, Aunt Cassandra stepped out of her room with her left foot first, and Grandma beat her so badly that she ended up with a broken leg. When I was eight, my cousin, Penelope Georgiou, secretly hid her lunch money inside her shoe. I immediately tipped off my Uncle Reuben. Penelope not only received a beating, but also got searched down to her underwear and lost every last dollar. From then on, Mom established a new family rule. No one is allowed to sneak food, hide money, or give me any reason to start talking. After graduating from college, I conceal my identity and take a job at the family company. Dad holds my hand, his face lined with worry. "The company is crawling with snakes and backstabbers. Treat it like entertainment, keep your head down, and stay out of the drama. Most importantly, keep your mouth shut and don't start tattling. Let your sister enjoy a few peaceful days for once!" I follow his advice so well that, after three months, everyone at the company assumes I'm a spineless pushover. Then, an intern named Finley Tatum joins the company, steals my proposal, and puts his own name on it. "A nobody with no connections can't possibly beat me out for a full-time position. After all, my sister is the CEO of this company." Melanie Ashcroft, the supervisor, is quick to suck up to him. "Once his sister takes full control of the company, low-level nobodies like you will be packing your bags and leaving," she says. Remembering Dad's warning, I keep my mouth firmly shut and don't say a word. However, he only told me not to talk. My hands still work perfectly well. I immediately text my sister, Sabrina Georgiou. "Sabrina, your dear little brother says I'm getting fired as soon as you take over the company."

I rode overnight in the cheapest coach seat I could get to negotiate a deal for the company. Sticking strictly to the company's meal allowance, I treated the client, Caelum Worthington, to a 10-dollar takeout meal. I never expected us to hit it off so well that he started calling me "Bro" on the spot. He took me straight to the most exclusive club in the city and dropped 50,000 dollars on the full VIP treatment. When I returned to the office, I only submitted a few takeout-meal receipts for reimbursement. Then, out of nowhere, my boss, Oscar Richmond, threw the 50,000-dollar bill from the club right in my face. "You went to negotiate with a client, and you let him pay to entertain you? You're openly taking kickbacks, aren't you?" he demanded. Before I could even pull out the 200,000,000-dollar contract I'd just signed, the reprimand notice had already gone out to the entire company. They withheld my entire salary and bonus, then demanded that I repay the 50,000 dollars myself. Otherwise, they said I'd rot in prison for the rest of my life. "That 50,000 dollars was spent because the client was showing the company respect. That makes it a company asset! You embezzled it, so you have to pay back every last cent! Pay up or go to prison. Take your pick." I looked at the greedy, twisted expression on my boss' face and smiled. Right in front of him, I dialed Caelum's number. "Hey, Cael. You got a minute?" "Tonight, the usual spot. Full VIP treatment. It's on me," Caelum replied.

My hands were completely full with a massive stack of files, so I dropped a quick message in the team group chat: [Anyone down to pick up lunch for me? I’ll cover a coffee for your trouble.] Brandon Cole, the brand-new intern, saw it and immediately chimed in to offer a hand. When he handed me the takeout container, he casually let out a heavy sigh and looked down at his phone. "Man, I was just scrolling Instagram and saw Starbucks came out with this new iced strawberry lemonade. It’s like six bucks, but I’ve never tried it." My finger froze over the ordering app on my screen. My entire lunch, including the delivery fee, was about eleven dollars. Still, looking at the eager, expectant puppy-dog look on Brandon’s face, I didn't say a word. I quietly added the six-dollar Starbucks drink to my order and checked out. Brandon’s face instantly lit up. "You're the best, man," he beamed, leaning in. "Seriously, hit me up whenever you need anything else." The next morning, I stepped into the office, my bag barely off my shoulder and my badge not even scanned yet. Brandon was already standing at my desk. He slammed a takeout container down in front of me with a proud smile. "Hey, Jay! I went ahead and got you lunch today." He patted the lid of the container like he'd done me a massive favor. "Chipotle bowl from down the street, twelve bucks. The delivery fee is the same as yesterday, though. I'll take a vanilla latte from Starbucks." He didn't even pause to let me react. "Light ice, blonde espresso, no foam, in a Venti size. It comes out to seven fifty. Thanks, man!"

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.