Elemento Ng Emotional Quotient Novels & Stories

I’d just left a creative meeting when a TikTok video popped up on my feed, slamming my company. The title: "Stay Away! This Austin startup is incredibly cheap. The perks are a joke." The video showed off the pour-over coffee from Austin's hottest independent cafe and pastries from a top-tier French bakery. The same ones I’d just had my assistant, Sam, hand out. I frowned. In the company's Slack channel, I tagged everyone. "@here Any suggestions for this afternoon's Happy Hour?" Leo, the new Gen-Z intern, replied instantly with a voice note. “Asher, with all due respect, these snacks with gluten and dairy are so unhealthy.” “A truly visionary company would hire a private chef to customize raw, vegan bites for everyone's dietary needs. That's what respect looks like.” I laughed. It was an angry laugh. The company's daily snack budget was $25 per person. For an Austin startup, that was top of the line. I typed back: "Since it's impossible to please everyone, the snack perk is canceled. I'll convert the budget into a cash bonus for all of you." Less than five minutes later, the TikTok caption was updated. "UPDATE: Y'all, I can't make this up. I made a suggestion about dietary inclusivity, and my toxic boss just canceled all the perks! This is how toxic bosses act. Can't handle a single piece of feedback!"

"Alexia, don't take any of the company's holiday bonus boxes. You're not one of us—there's nothing for you." My manager, Kevin Davis, delivered the notice coldly, as if he were commenting on the weather—routine, impersonal. My hand stilled on the mouse. "The rest of you, come with me. We're heading to the company gala to collect your million-dollar bonuses!" My colleagues filed out in high spirits. I watched their retreating backs and answered with a bitter, "Okay." I was a contract worker. For seven years, I had always been the odd one out in the department. Our ID badges said it all—blue for full-time employees, gray for me. Time off was no different. Full-time employees had weekends; I got one day off a month. As for pay and benefits, they enjoyed meal allowances, housing subsidies, team outings, afternoon snacks, holiday gifts, year-end bonuses… I received a fixed salary of three thousand dollars a month. I sat down, opened my computer, and returned to the candlestick charts of my stocks. They didn't know that I was the company's largest anonymous individual shareholder. And they certainly didn't know that tonight, at the company gala, I would step onto the stage as the new Chairman—and my very first proposal would be to lay off their entire department.

In order to prevent the employees from slacking off at their jobs, the HR department of my company has established a strict check-in policy. We're requested to check-in with the company once per ten minutes. On top of that, we have to follow the HR employee, Felicia Lane's instructions in striking poses. Otherwise, the system will list us to have skipped work for the day. After failing to check-in with the company for the eighth time, I head to the HR department immediately. "Ms. Lane, your check-in policy is far too strict to the sales department! We have to travel everywhere just to make sales and strike business deals with clients! There's no way we can keep returning to the company!" But Felicia just scowls at me disdainfully. "Since you're working at the company, you're meant to follow the company's rules. Why else are you even here, in the first place? If checking in with the company affects your sales performance that much, that just means you don't have any capabilities to begin with. You should reflect on your own work performance instead!" When I recall the number of contributions I've made for the company, I try to seek out my boss to take my side. But he just tells me, "Since this is a rule, you might as well follow it. What's the use in seeking me out?" Later on, I choose not to do anything related to my job just so I can follow the check-in policy very strictly. But the rest of the company flies into a state of panic because of me.

I die in the basement after being burned by acid. My family doesn't recognize me, and they don't call the cops. My mother picks up the scalpel that hasn't been used in years and debones me. My father excitedly mixes my skeleton with concrete and turns me into an exquisite statue. My sister uses the sculpture she's made out of my flesh and portrays herself as a genius sculptor whom everyone admires. Later, the sculpture is shattered, revealing half a broken finger inside. That's when everyone panics.

On the day I was promoted to department head, I invited my parents on a trip during the Independence Day holiday. However, my mother invited my older sister, Anna Smith, and her entire family. She even posted about it on her social media. [My eldest daughter is so filial. The first thing she does after getting her salary is to invite me on a trip.] Anna replied: [It's only right to be filial to your parents.] Our relatives all praised Anna and even sent messages in the family chat group, telling me to learn from her. I silently looked at my mother's post on social media and canceled the supplementary card I gave her. This time, I wanted to see how they kept up that loving mother and dutiful child act.

That night, while scrolling through a secondhand marketplace, I came across a bizarre listing. [Virtual Girlfriend Companion Service — 99.9 dollars/month, premium relationship experience. [Emotionally stable, available on demand, online 24/7, satisfaction guaranteed. [Rave reviews, three customers have already renewed. DM for details.] More than a dozen user reviews were stacked below. [The experience is incredible—more attentive than my ex. Totally worth the money!] [OP, where did you find such a gem? Share the source, please.] [Is this girlfriend AI? She's way too obedient.] [How much to buy her out?] The seller replied: [Real-person service, exclusive source. Tenfold compensation if proven fake. Buyout inquiries via DM.] I frowned, a mix of disbelief and disgust tightening my chest, and was just about to scroll past. Then, by chance, I caught a glimpse of a partially blurred chat background image in the details section. It was something I had drawn myself—the matching profile pictures my long-distance boyfriend and I used.

The day after my mom used 880 grand from selling our family restaurant to buy a house for my cousin, my girlfriend of five years dumped me. "Evan," Ruby Lawrence said while she sat across from me. "Let's break up." My hands trembled. "Why?" "I waited for you for five years." Her eyes welled with tears. "You said once the restaurant was sold, we'd have the down payment for a house in Seahaven. Where is it now? Where's the money?" I tried to explain, but she cut me off. "In your parents' eyes, you're not even as important as your cousin. So tell me, who's really their son? I'm 28, Evan. I can't keep waiting." She grabbed her bag and walked away without looking back. My phone buzzed. My mom sent me a photo of her and my cousin at his new house. That was followed with a voice note. She sounded joyful. "Your cousin finally achieved his biggest life goal. We can relax now." I stared at his smug smile in the photo. I laughed until tears ran down my face. I exited the 'Clark Family Forever' group chat and blocked every single relative. 'Since you all choose him, then from this moment on, your reputation or loyalty will have nothing to do with me. I only wonder if you'll think of the son you abandoned when that precious nephew of yours, who you poured all your resources into, throws you out of your own home.'

On the day of our engagement, my boyfriend, Henley Chatham, handed his assistant, Kiara Dalby, an unlimited black card—then set me up with a shared wallet. Daily limit: twenty bucks. I laughed. Cold. Said no. He called me materialistic—then spun around and made some grand confession to Kiara. So I ended it. Right there. Then I signed with a classified agency. Five years later, Kiara and I crossed paths at a car wash. I was in line when she whipped her car in and cut me off. I couldn't dodge. Metal slammed—my whole front end wrecked. She rolled her window down. "Hey, you in the back—blind or what? Can't you see my car?" I let out a short laugh. "You cut me off. Then you crash into me. And somehow that's my fault?" Kiara sneered, same attitude, just louder. "I cut in line? Please. Every inch of Hawthorne Bay belongs to the Chatham family. Ever heard of Chatham Corp? My boss could shake this whole town with one move." I actually laughed this time. Pulled out my phone. Dialed. "Ex-boyfriend, I hear Hawthorne Bay answers to you now?"

When dorm picks opened, two beds were left. My hometown girl, Chloe Parker, beat me by a step and grabbed Room 501—the honors suite. That left me with Room 502, the rich-girl suite. In 501, the try-hards rode her nonstop. She made grad school. In 502, I ran errands and pulled five grand a month. At graduation, she snapped and shoved me off the roof. "It's all your fault. Without you, I wouldn't wake up every day buried in studying. How'd you stack hundreds of thousands in four years while all I got was a useless grad school offer?" I opened my eyes. Dorm selection day. Behind me, Chloe shoved past and lunged forward. "I'm picking first. I want 502."

When I was seven months pregnant, my husband, Brandon Adkins, got into a car accident. I held my belly and rushed over as fast as I could, but by the time I got there, his body was already mangled beyond recognition. The shock hit so hard that I started bleeding right there. At my lowest point, it was the eldest son of the Elledges who got me to the hospital and handled Brandon's funeral. Three years later, Brandon showed up out of nowhere, holding his first love. He pulled me into a tight embrace, voice soft as he explained, "I'm sorry. Alanna was terminally ill. Her last wish was to travel the world. I was afraid you wouldn't agree, so I faked my death. "Now that her wish has been fulfilled, we can go back to the way things were." I looked into his affectionate eyes, then shoved him away in disgust. "Too bad for you. In the three years you were gone, I got engaged to someone else."