Workplace Fiction Novels & Stories

I've worked with my wife, Naomi Prescott, for seven long years. Yet, she refuses to make my identity public in the company. Naomi claims that she's worried that the entire company might think of me as a man who relies on his partner. Believing her excuse, I stick to myself and keep a low profile all this time. But on the day my project team secures a ten-million-dollar business deal, Naomi is quick to make me give the credit to her childhood friend, Matthias Crowell. When faced with my questions, Naomi retorts in a matter-of-fact tone, "Matt is new to the company. Can't a veteran employee like you take care of him at work?" I'm furious, to say the least. "What if I say no?" Naomi throws a resignation letter at my face. "Well then, you can pack up and get lost, you pathetic loser!" I pack my belongings calmly and leave the company afterward. Three days later, Naomi's company is on the brink of bankruptcy. She sobs loudly as she begs me to return with her. I produce a business card and give it to her. "Sorry, but I prefer being the boss of my own company. It so happens that my company still needs a janitor. I suppose I can reserve that position for you, seeing as we used to be married and all."

As I walk out of the emergency room, a woman rushes over to me. "You're a doctor, right? My son scraped his knee. Hurry up and come treat him!" I am about to explain, but she glares at me and questions indignantly, "Isn't a doctor supposed to save people? You have time to slack off, but you have no time to treat my son's wound. Is that it?" She grabs my collar and drags me toward the ward. I try to explain, "Ma'am, I’m not—" But she doesn't listen at all and slaps me across the face. "Not what? Are you blind? Can't you see my son is bleeding? Instead of helping my son, you treat those poor nobodies! If you keep delaying my son's treatment, I won't let you off! "Get on your knees and apologize to him right now! Otherwise, I'll file a complaint and have your license revoked!" I endure the sharp pain and struggle to lift my head. In my five years of practicing medicine, this is the first time I have ever been complained about by a living person. "It's not that I won't treat him. I am a forensic pathologist..."

My adoptive parents' long-lost daughter came back. She's a wellness influencer. She eats from crystal bowls she "cleansed." Sleeps with a white noise machine. She will only ride in a custom, climate-controlled car. That's not all. She filled our family's Manhattan law firm with Himalayan salt lamps and energy crystals. The espresso in the conference room? Replaced with gluten-free, organic dandelion root tea. "The energy here is so murky," she'd say. "We need to cleanse the world with love and light!" My guilt-ridden parents gave her everything she wanted. Even my fiancé told me, "Ava, you stole twenty years of her Upper East Side life. Can't you cut her some slack?" The day of the final hearing for our firm's biggest case, the entire court had to wait for her to finish her "emotional cleansing meditation." The judge was furious. I stood up. Delivered a flawless closing argument. I won our client $500 million and secured the future of the firm. But at the party, she had a drunken breakdown, fell into the pool, and drowned. My parents and my fiancé blamed me for everything. "You always have to win, don't you? It was a simple, open-and-shut case. You couldn't even let her have that?" They had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. They destroyed my law license and my reputation. They even had me injected with a fatal overdose of sedatives. I died full of hate. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back. Back to the day she was crying on her Instagram Live, begging for the case. This time, I walked straight into our rival's law firm. This "sure-win" case? I'm going to make you lose everything.

My boss had a new boyfriend called Eugene Larson. The first day he came to the office, he put on a great show of exerting his dominance. He deleted my number from my boss's phone right in front of me. Eugene waved his phone in front of me while playing innocently. "You can talk to me about anything you need to communicate to Tina, Mr. Sanders. I'll help you pass the message to her. I don't have much sense of security, so please don't mind this. It's to avoid any misunderstanding between us." I was hoping my boss, Tina Kayden, would be able to say something fair on my behalf, but all she did was stare at Eugene approvingly and adoringly throughout the conversation. She turned to me and said, "This is a pretty good plan, Mr. Sanders. Do take good care of Eugene from now on." As there was no way for me to reject her, I was forced to add Eugene's contact to my phone. However, the moment he had my number, he flooded my phone with messages. [Mr. Sanders, is the client you're meeting tomorrow with the surname Charleston a man or a woman?] [Where are you having the meeting tomorrow? Wear something casual tomorrow. It would be best if you avoid washing your face and hair. Otherwise, I would think you're trying to seduce my wife.] [I believe your relationship with Tina is innocent. You're not allowed to betray me because I'm treating you like my buddy!] [By the way, you have an extra duty from now on. You need to remind Tina every 30 minutes to send me a message telling me that she loves me.] As I read these ridiculous messages, I laughed in anger. I put my phone on silent mode and flung it to the side before going to bed. The next morning, I woke up to dozens of missed calls on my phone.

Before the contract was even signed, the client's representative casually said he was craving pancakes with maple syrup. I didn't hesitate. I texted my fiancé, Nigel Cross, and asked him to stand in line and grab some. He came back with the box, all proud of himself. The client took one bite, and within seconds, his face went red. Hives bloomed across his neck. He shot to his feet, furious, and called the whole deal off on the spot. Then he turned around and handed the million-dollar order to Olivia Field, the intern who had rushed to grab him allergy meds. Three months of grinding work were gone just like that. I stood there, my throat tight, trying not to fall apart. Nigel squeezed my shoulder, his voice soft as he said, "It was just bad luck. Don't beat yourself up." I nodded weakly, drained of energy. But the second I stepped away, I heard him laughing in the break room with his friend. "That guy's seriously allergic to mango. Good thing I added mango syrup to the pancakes. Olivia's about to score a huge year-end bonus. Enough for a down payment on her new apartment." His friend hesitated. "Melissa hasn't slept in a month over that deal. She was working while she was sick. She needed that money for her mom's surgery—" Nigel waved him off, already annoyed. "She has me. Isn't that enough? Olivia earned this." My hands curled into fists so tightly that my nails dug into my palms. Bad luck? Yeah, right. Nigel had planned every second of it. And now, he thought he could smooth it over by marrying me someday, toss me a few cheap words, and I would just swallow it. I was done with that disgusting man.

On the day of the company’s annual meeting, Victoria Quinn brought a man onstage and publicly announced that he was the newly appointed vice president. All eyes in the room instantly turned to me. Mr. Lane looked at me with undisguised mockery. “Ms. Quinn, Mr. Cabell has been with the company for so many years. How did this promotion skip over him?” Victoria smiled casually. “Mr. Cabell is a pillar of the company. He’s most effective staying at the grassroots level.” I knew she was certain I would not object and that I would not leave her. When I glanced at the new vice president, I understood why. He looked exactly like her first love from college, the one who had died in an accident. Suddenly, I felt exhausted. I ripped off my ID badge, tossed it in front of Victoria, and said, “Ms. Quinn, I quit.”

"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.

When Matthew Sinclair accused me of selling company secrets, I expected my girlfriend to stand by me. Instead, Selena Oxford told me to apologize. To the man who framed me. That was the moment I understood that trust was not something you pleaded for. You either had it, or you did not. I resigned the same day, cut every tie, left a ring on the table that she would never wear, and walked out of her life without looking back. I believed we would never cross paths again. Eight years later, at a black-tie banquet, Selena spotted me across the crowd. I was dancing with another woman, moving through the room as if I belonged there. In front of everyone, now known as a corporate powerhouse, she met my gaze with red-rimmed eyes and asked, "Was it for her? Is that why you left me eight years ago?"

I sat in the driver's seat as the GPS chimed, "You've arrived at Northpoint Corp. Check-in successful." I looked up. Graves. Nothing but graves. My phone buzzed. My boss tagged me in the group chat: [Zane Zander, system says you checked in ten minutes ago. Where the hell are you? The whole company's waiting. Learned how to spoof your GPS to slack off?] Cold sweat slid down my back. I stared at the fresh headstone outside my window. My photo was on it. My hands shook. I tried to send my boss a video—no signal. Just dead bars. No service. So how did I check in? Worse— In the rearview mirror, someone in my exact outfit rose slowly from behind a dirt mound. Could it be... Was I already "dead"?

After I resign from my job as a forensic pathologist and return to my rural hometown to enjoy a laidback, leisurely life, I feel totally at peace. In contrast, my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart, Jessica Lester, starts panicking for real. She keeps begging me to stay. "Dr. Gardner, even though you're not that talented, I still hope you can stand beside me and speak up for those who have died unjustly!" I roll my eyes coolly and leave without looking back. In my previous life, Jessica is an intern put under my care. But every time we conduct an autopsy, she watches from the side but somehow manages to describe the victim's experiences before death ahead of me. She even uses wording that is identical to what I am thinking. I cannot make sense of it. In later autopsies, I give everything and go all out to prove myself, but even when she is not present, she can still iterate my findings at length. From then on, everyone idolizes her. Meanwhile, I become a laughingstock even if I am the most authoritative forensic expert in the state. Later on, the enraged family members of victims come to my doorstep every day. They lambast me and say that I am unworthy of being a forensic pathologist. They eventually set my house on fire, and I die miserably in the flames. When I open my eyes again, I return to the day I take Jessica to her first autopsy.