Motivational Workplace Stories

Orlando and I had been together for ten years. I'd looked after his sick mom, sweating out a fever of my own, and where was he? Knocking back drinks with Rosalind, playing therapist to her broken heart. I swallowed my pride at work, getting chewed out by my boss, while he spent the night companying Rosalind because she had cramps. Then, when I got the news my mom had passed, I tried calling him, desperate for support. But nope—phone off. After a wild goose chase, turns out he was at Rosalind's graduation. That was it. I gave up. But Orlando wouldn't let go. Red-eyed, he begged me for just one more chance.

That night, I returned from a business trip to surprise my wife. However, when I sneak home, I realize my boss is there, too. His smile deepens when he sees me; he tells me he's there to welcome me home because he knew I would return that night. My wife nods and agrees with him. For some reason, I can't help finding the looks on their faces odd.

My pregnant colleague told me to get her a drink. However, she had severe stomach ache after the drink and suffered a miscarriage. In the hospital, she was crying about how I harmed her. Her family members beat me up badly, even extorted 150 thousand dollars in compensation from me. I made a police report and was ready to take legal action against them. However, his mother-in-law pushed me to the middle of the road, and I was crushed to death by being run over by a truck.

After I brought in 300 million dollars in investment for his company, my fiance showed me the home we would share. I thought we would finally get married after eight years together, but instead, he turned on a building game. “I laid every brick here. Once the company is listed, I’ll build you a house just like this one.” I found him and his secretary showing off their love. He had bought her an expensive villa as a gift. I sent the photo to my fiance. “You can afford to buy someone a villa as a gift, but not our home?” Displeased, he said, “Alyssa is the company’s backbone. I’m only giving her a villa to encourage the other staff to do better!” But in the background, I heard Alyssa’s pleased laughter. “Some people should really be more self-aware. Does she think getting some investment makes her the boss of this company?” I did my best to suppress my anger. I wanted to see just how long the company would survive if not for the investments I found!

On my way to the interview, my best friend—who had always warned me not to meddle in other people’s business—suddenly rushed toward the crashed luxury car without hesitation. That was when I knew she had been reborn too. In our previous life, she and I were known as the two top aces of the Finance Department. After graduation, we both made it to the final interview at one of the world’s top five hundred companies. On the day of that interview, we encountered a terrible car accident. The company’s president was inside the wreck. I gave up the interview to save him, while my friend ran straight to the interview without looking back. In the end, she got the offer, and I lost my chance at the prestigious firm. Everyone pitied me. However, the president held a grand wedding to repay me. I became the wife of my friend’s boss. I was admired and envied by all. She, on the other hand, struggled under endless performance targets. She got buried by work. At the company’s annual gala, I stood beside the president, dazzling under the lights, while she faded into the crowd—exhausted and invisible. Jealousy drove her mad. She grabbed a knife and stabbed me right there at the gala. When I opened my eyes again, she and I had both returned to the day of the president’s car accident.

The mother of Mr. Burr, the hospital director, was critically ill and needed emergency surgery. My wife, wanting to help her beloved crush, Cedric Grey, take the spotlight, deliberately kept the surgery time from me. By the time I finally arrived—late, Mr. Burr stopped me from entering the operating room and scolded me harshly for being unprofessional and unethical. Once I realized what my wife was doing, I handed the lead surgeon position over to her beloved crush. “Well, since you're so eager to shine,” I said coldly, “you’d better not screw it up.” The nurses tried to talk me out of it. They said I was being impulsive, that this was a rare chance to prove myself. However, none of them knew that I was the only doctor in the entire country capable of performing this rare and complex heart valve surgery. Even if Cedric managed to buy time with some miracle drug and made it look like the patient was improving, without my diagnosis and surgical skills, the operation was doomed to fail. And when that happens, he’d be held responsible. As for my wife, her blind favoritism would come back to haunt her.

After I join a new company, I keep running into problems—not from people, but from the company's equipment. The fingerprint scanner fails to recognize me every single time, and I have to submit a manual attendance appeal almost daily. When I ask the admin to change the device, they respond with thinly veiled sarcasm. "Everyone else clocks in just fine. Why are you the only one with so many issues?" The air vent above my desk blasts cold air directly at me. My hands and feet are freezing every day. I ask to switch seats. My manager looks at me like I am making things up. "Everyone else sits there without a problem. How come the AC only blows cold air when you sit there?" One strange incident after another makes it impossible for me to function at work. When I get home, I complain to my boyfriend and say I want to quit. He shuts down the thought immediately. "You're making almost 60 thousand dollars a year before benefits, with weekends off and paid leave. Where are you going to find a job like that?" I think about it and realize he isn't wrong. Just as I decide to stick it out, the company elevator malfunctions. I fall from the 33rd floor and die. In my final moments, I can't understand it—why does every piece of equipment in the company seem to target me alone? All the devices are newly installed. All my coworkers are people I have just met. I have no grudges with anyone. There's no reason for someone to sabotage me from behind the scenes. When I open my eyes again, I am back at the company. It's my very first day on the job.

My husband and his employees went on a camping trip, and his assistant posted on social media. [We drew lots for the tents, and guess who ended up with the handsome CEO!] The post showed a selfie she took. Behind her, my husband was taking his shirt off. Someone left a comment. [A man and a woman alone together? Sounds juicy.] The assistant quickly replied with a smirking emoji. [I like a little excitement!] After I liked the post, it was deleted right away. Soon, my husband called me on video. In front of his crying assistant and several employees, he scolded, “Why did you like the post?! It was just a game! Don’t be so close-minded!” As I watched him hold the assistant in arms and comforted her, I quietly hung up. After ten years of loving Caelan Sullivan, I decided then and there to let go.

Three days into the silent treatment, Derrick—my fiancé and CEO—greenlit his assistant's pitch for a self-driving road trip. He expected me to flip, like always. I didn't. A month later, he came back and saw it—I wasn't the same. He backed Molly, stole my project, and thought I'd explode. I didn't. I just helped her draft the proposal. He trashed everything I built, just so she could snag her year-end bonus. I didn't fight back. Took the blame, took the hit. Molly was all smug. "See? Told you. You can't go at Yara head-on. Give her the silent treatment—she folds. She's scared of losing you. That's why she's playing nice." Derrick ate it up. Called her smart. Then he pulled me aside—offered a raise, a promotion, even a fancy wedding. First time he'd ever brought it up. But he missed one detail: he'd already signed off on my resignation while he was off playing road trip king. And I'd already dumped him. That was it. Clean cut. Nothing left.

I worked for a restaurant, and our boss loved making empty promises about giving us restaurant shares. The boss said we would start with zero shares, but we could earn 0.01% for every two hours of overtime, covering someone else’s work or saving the restaurant 1,000 bucks. I suggested she write this down in an official document and have someone track it properly. She just smiled and told everyone to work harder. She never actually put it in writing. The experienced staff did not believe her, but one prep cook took it seriously. At the end of the year, he went to the boss to claim his shares. The boss said, “Sorry, the head chef told me there’s no official document, so it doesn’t count. You can’t claim any shares.” The prep cook worked hard all year and got nothing for it, so he took his anger out on me. The day before I was going home for the New Year, he killed me with a knife. “If you hadn’t said it doesn’t count without an official document, this whole restaurant would’ve been mine!” I lay in a pool of blood. When I opened my eyes, I was back to the day the boss first made those empty promises.