Workplace Novels & Stories

The company held a management meeting, and my husband's secretary was standing at the door, checking everyone's identity. Every person who entered the conference room was greeted with a bright smile—until it was my turn. Then came a derisive snort. I frowned and handed over my badge from the Cybersecurity Department, but he didn't even bother to look. "Skye, Mr. Fraser only pitied you enough to make you a manager. Don't tell me you actually think you're something special?" I didn't respond. Instead, I turned around and dialed the CEO's direct line. "Someone just said this position was yours to grant out of pity. Is that true?"

For five years, I quietly supported my boyfriend, helping him rise from a lawyer's assistant to a partner at a top-tier law firm. At the annual awards ceremony, I was thrilled, ready to celebrate publicly and surprise him. But then, he walked on stage with a female coworker, their behavior cozy and intimate. "Cade owes his success to my brilliant strategies behind the scenes," Caitlyn boasted. Cade smiled, echoing her words, "Absolutely, without Caitlyn, I wouldn't be where I am today." The audience erupted in applause, congratulating them. I stood at the back of the crowd, frozen. Leaving the venue, I called my assistant. "Cut off all networking support for Cade Gilliam. End all cooperation. That shady case he took on? Stop smoothing things over. Let him face the consequences."

After encountering problems at work, I lose myself in a virtual reality game. I randomly meet a male player in there and depend on my amorous interactions with him to escape reaity. We flirt with each other and have roleplay; he grunts and groans over the microphone. Everything changes when I accidentally reveal my true identity. The young man next door pins me underneath him and roams his hands over my body. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse. "You were great at flirting in the game, weren't you? Why can't you make those noises now?"

My husband's cold, distant secretary, Ruby Kuntz, was so busy chasing a multimillion-dollar deal she hadn't even touched her food. Eric Tyler casually peeled three shrimp for her. Right in front of him, I called my lawyer. "Caleb, draft the divorce papers. I'm done." Eric looked at me like I'd lost it. He'd barely slept for days because of the contract. "You're divorcing me because I peeled three shrimp for Ruby?" "Yeah."

When I opened my eyes, my sister Serena Shaw was kneeling in front of me, sobbing with a fruit knife pressed near her wrist. “Nora, I swear I didn’t mean it. I had too much to drink. I don’t even know how Lucas and I…” I almost laughed. Because I had seen this scene before. In my last life, Serena cried like a victim after sleeping with my fiancé, Lucas Arden. Everyone comforted her. Lucas married her to save her reputation. And I was pushed into a marriage with Graham West, Serena’s abandoned fiancé. Before the wedding, Lucas showed me my name tattooed on his wrist and promised he would only love me. I believed him. I wasted five years beside a husband who wanted my sister, waiting for a man who had married her. Then Serena died. I thought Lucas would finally come back to me. Instead, I found him at the funeral home, holding her photograph like he had lost the love of his life. “She was my wife,” he told me. “Let it go, Nora.” At my birthday party, Lucas and Graham fought over Serena on the rooftop. One had married her. One had never stopped wanting her. While they fought over her, I was shoved into traffic and died under the headlights. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the beginning. This time, I thought I was the only one who remembered. I was wrong. Lucas remembered. Graham remembered. And even with a second chance, both of them still chose Serena. This time, I would not be traded, chosen, or discarded. This time, I would build something none of them could take from me.

During the annual awards gala, I stepped out to use the restroom. When I came back, my year-end bonus was gone, canceled for allegedly assaulting a new coworker, Elan Crowe. In my first life, I desperately tried to prove my innocence by showing my fitness tracker’s movement data, proving I had been in the bathroom. Calder Roane, the department head, flew into a rage. "Everyone in the department saw you hit him. And you still want to deny it?" I struggled and explained frantically, but in the chaos, I accidentally fell down the stairs and died on the spot. In my second life, I took medical leave and skipped the gala entirely. I never expected that just past noon, the police would surround my home. "Lyra Vale, you’re suspected of intentional homicide. You need to come with us." Elan’s enraged family had then rushed forward and stabbed me repeatedly. I died again. In my third life, I ran to the city plaza, started a livestream, and rapped on camera, turning every viewer into my alibi. That night, the police still came. "The evidence is conclusive. Please come with us." At the station, they pulled up surveillance footage. It clearly showed me sneaking into the gala hall, arguing with Elan, then picking up a knife and stabbing him straight in the back. I was completely stunned. Three days later, I took a bullet. After endless rebirths, I finally laughed in anger. This time, I stormed straight into the gala hall, pressed a knife across Elan's throat, and said, "This is a kidnapping."

My online boyfriend suddenly sent me a photo of his lunch—a steaming hot steak fresh off the grill. [Praise me, baby! I'm being a good boy and eating my lunch!] I was just about to send 'good boy' when my eyes darted downward, and I saw the conspicuous red letters on the edge of his plate. Mike Tech. What a coincidence—I worked at Mike Tech too… My heart skipped a beat as I froze right then, my mind going blank. But could it be? My online boyfriend, whom I had met over a year ago… was right there beside me?

My online boyfriend is very rich. Every time I get treated badly by my unscrupulous boss, he transfers money to me. But after another late overtime shift, I finally snapped. I was on the phone, yelling, “I’ll never forgive Zack Barlow. That scumbag!” However, my online boyfriend suddenly becomes quiet. He then asks, "Is your boss also named Zack Barlow?" His words made me pause.

The project I had poured my heart and soul into earned the company over a hundred million in profit, yet the credit was handed to the vice president's nephew. I stood in a corner, the stack of source code documents trembling in my hands, nearly crushed by my grip. That nephew—who couldn't even get Hello World to compile—was now on stage, smiling brightly as he accepted the award. The vice president came over and draped an arm around my shoulder like we were old friends. "You're just an outsourced worker," he said casually. "These honors wouldn't mean anything to you anyway. Jason is new. He's got limitless potential. From now on, you'll be responsible for mentoring him properly." Only then did I realize that decades of struggle had been nothing more than laying out a red carpet for someone else's glory. That very night, while reviewing the project's code repository, I discovered a massive flaw—one serious enough to bring the entire system crashing down within three days.

At the year-end company meeting, I was announcing the bonuses when a new employee suddenly raised her hand. "Over at the other company, they handed out two boxes of imported cherries at their annual party," she said, shaking her phone. "And we only get performance bonuses?" The video, maliciously edited, went viral online and hit the trending list the very next day. I had the finance department cancel all the year-end bonus transfers. "If cherries are what really count as a gesture of goodwill," I said, "then this year's year-end benefit will be cherries—fifty boxes per person." When they saw the mountain of cherries piling up before them, the employees who had once joined in mocking me panicked instantly. One by one, they cried and apologized, begging me to reconsider.