Feel-Good Story 단편 소설 & Scumbag Workplace 소설

Todd Robyn, the intern, had used some kind of savings-transfer trick on me. No matter how much money I put into my bank account, the balance always turned into fifty dollars. In my previous life, I dreamed of buying a place of my own near the office. At last, I scraped together a five-thousand-dollar down payment. But when I swiped my card, the sales agent told me it had been declined for insufficient funds. I checked my transaction history, confronted the bank, and even went to the police, but everyone treated me like a lunatic. After all, every single purchase on my bank statement was recorded in black and white. But I lived so frugally. I had never made any of those purchases! When I told my coworkers about it, a few of the men took one look at my statement and started mocking me, "Drew's always dropping thousands at some bar in the middle of the night. That's exactly the going rate for an all-night escort!" No matter how hard I tried to explain, no one believed me. I posted the whole story online anonymously. The comments accused me of making things up for attention so I could start selling products. Only one person suggested I keep an eye on the people around me and see whether anyone's spending matched the charges on my statement. So I watched closely, and sure enough, I noticed something about Todd, the new intern in our department. Every time he spent money, the same amount was deducted from my card. Even when he ordered a drink, the charge showed up on my account right away. Once I was sure, I confronted Todd directly. He laughed in my face and said I was a spendthrift who couldn't save a dime and now wanted to pin it on someone else. He said I'd completely lost my mind. He even got our coworkers to help him have me committed to a psychiatric hospital. After two years of torment there, I finally found a chance to escape and threw myself into the river. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day before I was supposed to buy my home.

My husband's adopted younger sister, Shannon Carter, is a food vlogger. When she was recording a video at a restaurant, not only did she demand the customers stay silent, but she also impersonated me when she began insulting everyone else. "Shut up, you poor freaks! Especially you, kid! I'm Rina, a YouTuber with over tens of millions of fans! One of my live streams alone earns me more than whatever you can earn in a lifetime! Can you even pay me enough to compensate me for the disturbance you've caused me?" In my previous life, Shannon told me that she wanted to become a YouTuber as well, so she borrowed my smurf account from me and tried exploring restaurants on her own. But she impersonated me right away and lashed out at the family sitting at the next table just because they were laughing a little too loudly. In the heat of the moment, she even got into a physical brawl with them. As a result, Shannon shoved the little girl down the stairs, causing the latter to crash her head. That poor girl ended up suffering from permanent blindness. Shannon tossed 5,000 dollars in the ER arrogantly. "Impoverished bastards like that girl will only grow up as drug addicts or prostitutes. So what if she goes blind? She has no future anyway!" The girl's family couldn't take it anymore. They rallied their entire clan and came to my company. There, they had me completely surrounded. "That Rina influencer is right here! She's the one who caused my daughter to go blind!" In the end, the family pushed me down the stairs. Since that wasn't enough for them, they vented their anger on me by hacking me to death with their weapons. As for Shannon, not only did she inherit my YouTube account, but she also married Mark Tanner, my husband. Every day, she got to spend my assets as much as she wanted. Only then did I finally realize that this was their scheme all along.

All eighteen of my assistants got pregnant at the same time, and every one of them demanded that I take responsibility. I was certain I had never touched any of them, yet they stood together on the rooftop, threatening to jump unless I acknowledged their babies. Left with no choice, I livestreamed amniocentesis tests to prove my innocence. The results showed that I was the biological father of all eighteen unborn children. My wife slapped me again and again, calling me a cheating bastard and forcing me to divorce her with nothing. I went to drink with my best friend and pour out my misery, only for him to kick me so hard that he broke eight of my ribs. “Daniel Cooper, you sick bastard! You slept with every woman you could get your hands on! I hate trash like you who can’t keep it in their pants!” I fled back to my hometown to seek comfort from my parents, but before I could say much, they beat me to death with their hoes. Even as I died, I could not understand why all eighteen assistants had been carrying my children. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the assistants forced me to acknowledge the babies.

Vivian Sinclair, the company's new intern, knocks over the employee lunch I ordered right in front of everyone, scorning it as "frozen garbage only homeless people would eat". "Eating cheap, high-calorie food like this every single day is practically suicide! Who's going to be responsible when someone falls ill?" She rallies the entire team to switch to premium organic meals from a private catering business she's found and publicly accuses me of taking kickbacks from the current caterer. Even my boyfriend of three years, Marcus Vaughn, sides with her and berates me, "I can't believe you'd put your colleagues' health at risk just for a little kickback! Are you really that desperate for money?" I'm utterly disappointed. After all, he's the one who sat right next to me when I chose this caterer. Even though our daily meals aren't particularly fancy, they're always fresh, nutritious, and well-balanced. My colleagues' eyes light up when they look at the black truffles and seafood in Vivian's exquisite lunchbox. They make snide remarks about me before tossing all their lunch boxes into the trash. "The company is paying for it anyway. The new hire sure knows how to get the most out of the employee benefits!" "It's not like the company belongs to you. Why are you trying so hard to save the boss' money?" I look at the private catering invoice I've secretly pulled up on my phone and let out a derisive chuckle. Each employee is entitled to a 25-dollar daily meal stipend. Any additional expenses that haven't been approved in advance would be deducted from the employee's wages at the end of the month. I wonder how many days their meager monthly salaries can cover. Little do they know, Charles Kensington, the CEO of the company, has just sent me a message. "Sweetheart, once your rotation's over, it's time to discuss your plans to take over the company!"

At the party celebrating the multimillion-dollar deal I've landed, my husband, Nick Ferguson, is about to announce my promotion and raise, but Ruby Holm, his secretary, deliberately interrupts him by feeding him her drink. My germaphobic husband doesn't even flinch. Without thinking, he puts the straw she has just used into his mouth. The employees immediately start teasing them, asking when they're getting married. Instead of denying it, Nick promotes Ruby to department manager. A coworker nudges my elbow. "Chloe, you've been with Mr. Ferguson for ten years. You're really not going to say anything?" I let out a cold laugh and toss my equity transfer agreement to Ruby. "Mr. Ferguson, don't be so stingy. A promotion isn't enough. Take these shares too. Consider them my wedding gift to the two of you!"

Giselle Shaw, the intern, has sent a five-dollar bonus to the company's group chat that has 500 members in it. I get crowned as the luckiest person for being able to claim 20 cents from the bonus. So, Giselle tags me in the group chat immediately. "Hey Rebecca! Since you're the luckiest person in the group chat, why don't you send a bonus here? There are 500 people in this group chat altogether, so you can just send 5,000 dollars here. "5,000 dollars isn't much for you, right? It so happens to be the bonus you've received from Mr. Gallagher because of the project you've secured. You can send us the bonus so that we can get some good luck from you!" The moment I refuse, Giselle begins playing the pity card in the group chat by claiming that she can't reap good luck for everyone in the company. My boyfriend, Vincent Gallagher, rushes into my office and starts berating me angrily. "Rebecca Campbell, just how stingy are you to not want to send a five-thousand-dollar bonus to the group chat despite being a higher-up in this company? You even made a young woman cry! Is this how you do things? "You'd better send a 50-thousand-dollar bonus to the group chat right now and write a five-thousand-word apology letter by hand! I want you to sincerely apologize to Giselle as well! Otherwise, I'll break up with you! You can forget about retaining your position in this company, too!"

At a major press conference, my husband, Julian Winslow, is about to publicly introduce me as the love of his life when his young assistant suddenly walks onto the stage carrying a girl. "Go on, sweetheart. Daddy's calling for you." The room erupts. Reporters start firing questions about Julian's relationship with his assistant, but instead of correcting them, Julian simply takes the little girl into his arms and fastens the company's multimillion-dollar new necklace around her neck. "Yes," he says. "We have a daughter." As I stand silently in the crowd, the reporters turn their attention to me. "Ms. Aldridge, you've been with Mr. Winslow and the company for years. Surely you have something to say on such a special occasion?" I smile. Then I take the designs I spent an entire year perfecting and toss them straight into the assistant's hands. "You can have the designs too. Consider them my gift to your happy little family."

First day back in the office. I was face down at my desk during lunch when the desk next to mine started rattling under a series of hard knocks. I looked up. It was the firm's new architect, Flora Reeves. "Lunch time ended five minutes ago. You're still asleep at your desk? Don't bother coming in tomorrow. You're fired!" I told her I had just come back from a client meeting. I had been pulling all-nighters on the project for a week. She looked at me like I was something on her shoe. "All you do is take clients out, drink with them, and scribble a few sketches. "You don't even punch in. You're barely in the office. What gives you the right to nap at your desk during work hours?" I almost laughed in her face! I was the firm's chief architect. The bulk of the projects on Walsh & Co.'s books had my name on them. The firm's success was, frankly, carried by me. She saw me out of the office most days. She did not see me in another city, on another job site, talking down another client. And in our industry, most of those clients had hired Walsh & Co. because of my name and reputation. I kept my composure. "You're not in HR. On what authority are you firing me?" She said, "On the authority that my husband is the president of this company." I went still. When did my boyfriend get married?

To everyone else, Helen Hart was just Ronin Dudley's ignored, pregnant wife. In reality, she was a world-class interpreter who could dominate any international negotiation. Ronin Dudley thought the $50,000 she owed him would keep her trapped forever. Kelly Choney thought a few social media posts could ruin her. They were both wrong. With one bank card, Helen paid off the debt that had chained her down for years. With one divorce agreement, she ended a five-year marriage. She wanted no money. No excuses. And no love that came too late. When Ronin finally learned the truth, he fell apart. "I got revenge for you!" Helen smiled. "You're the one I hate most." Only after she stepped into the spotlight, shining brighter than ever, did he realize what he'd destroyed with his own hands. Not just his wife. His only shot at redemption.

My pregnant coworker, Tessa Ford, walked up to me with one hand resting on her stomach. "Maya, could I stay at your apartment near the office for a few months? "Commuting in from another city every day is getting too hard. I swear I'll move out as soon as the baby is born." I was just about to agree when a line of text suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. [Don't say yes.] A second later, a flood of floating comments drifted past in front of the projector screen. [The baby lost its heartbeat three days ago.] [The baby is your boyfriend Adrian Cross's.] [After tonight, Tessa will collapse inside your apartment and claim you went crazy with jealousy after learning the truth and caused her to fall.] [At the same time, your home network will be used to leak your company's confidential bid price.] [You'll be suspended, dragged through social media, held responsible by the company, and treated like a criminal who killed a pregnant woman's baby while stealing corporate secrets.] I stared at the words as a chill crept down my spine. Tessa was still waiting for my answer. I looked at the slight curve of her stomach. Then I closed my laptop. "Sorry. "I don't lend out my home."

My fiancé's secretary had my wedding ring remade into a Hello Kitty trinket. When I confronted her, she twisted the truth with shameless arrogance, insisting that my wedding was hers to decide. I turned to my fiancé for support, only to have him dismiss me as petty and unworthy of being his bride. Together, they ridiculed and humiliated me, unaware that their families' power and future all depended on me. When my superior stepped in, their mockery collapsed in the face of truth. My fiancé fell to his knees, begging me to honor our engagement. But I cast him aside without hesitation, breaking off the marriage and leaving him with nothing.