The company next door was poaching, their main selling point a salary that was perpetually one hundred dollars higher than whatever I was paying. The signing bonus? An all-expenses-paid luxury travel package to Southeast Asia. My long-time employees were in an uproar, all of them threatening to jump ship. I pleaded with them, trying to explain that this was a classic recruitment scam. I even dug into my own pocket to give a few of my most senior staff a raise to appease them. It worked, for a while. Then, a month later, my intern posted a picture from a tropical beach. The caption read: So grateful that other company didn't hire me. Now I get to enjoy this tropical paradise for free! The employees who’d stayed behind turned on me, calling me a manipulative bitch, blaming me for costing them a free vacation. They lured me to the factory floor. They deliberately guided me onto a loose metal plate, sending me plummeting into the roaring industrial furnace below. “If it weren't for you, we’d be on a beach right now!” “You greedy monster! You were just scared you’d have no one left to slave away for you! Rot in hell!” I was burned alive. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my employees were clamoring to quit. … “Ms. Warren, we’re resigning!” The office door flew open, and a stampede of familiar faces surged toward my desk. Eagerness was written all over every single one of them. Hannah Miller, the intern, led the charge. “Ms. Warren, the company next door is hiring! And they’re paying a full hundred dollars more a month than you are!” Her expression was a caricature of playful defiance. A violent shudder wracked my body. Only then, feeling the cool draft from the AC vent, did I realize I had been reborn. I was back. “Well, Ms. Warren? Are you going to say yes or no?” Hannah pressed, her voice edged with impatience, clearly annoyed at being ignored. My gaze slowly shifted back to her. Hannah had joined the company as an intern a month ago. In an era where everyone in the workforce called themselves a corporate drone, she was a relentless ray of sunshine. Her energy had quickly infected the whole dreary office. Everyone, young and old, adored her. And it was from her that the news of the job next door, and the idea to stage a mass walkout, had originated. “Why?” My voice trembled as I forced the word out. “Just for a hundred dollars?” My eyes scanned the faces of the veteran employees standing behind her. Most of them had been with me since the very beginning, sticking by me even when the company nearly went under. In my past life, I’d been desperate to keep them. But this time, I needed to know. Why was a measly hundred dollars enough for them to abandon a place they’d dedicated decades of their lives to? Hannah scoffed, her lips curling in disdain. “You’re the boss, Ms. Warren. Of course you wouldn’t understand the needs of us working stiffs.” “What do you mean, a ‘measly’ hundred dollars?” “With an extra hundred a month, every single one of us could afford a decent meal out, you know? Boost our happiness!” She gestured out the window towards the neighboring building. “And they’re giving a Southeast Asia travel package just for signing on!” “This company is all work, work, work. Do you have any idea how many of your employees have their personal lives completely ignored?” “Only a company that’s actually human-centric deserves the hard work of the people standing behind me!” Hannah’s voice was loud, passionate, and it ignited a fire in the employees behind her. “Yeah, Ms. Warren! I’ve been slaving away for you for over a decade, and you’ve never once taken us on a company trip!” one of them yelled. “But these guys give you a vacation to Southeast Asia right off the bat! Don’t you see how pathetic that makes you look?” “Exactly! And what about raises? I’ve asked so many times, and you wouldn’t even bump me a hundred bucks!” “If another company is willing to pay it, why shouldn’t we go?” It was true, I never organized company-wide retreats. But I never shorted them on their two weeks of paid vacation or the thousands of dollars in travel stipends they received every year. Salaries were based on position. You got a raise when you got a promotion. Everyone was already at the top of their pay grade for their current roles. How much more could I add? What really stunned me, though, was that the first to complain were Chris and Kate. Chris was my college buddy. Back then, his family was dirt poor, living in a dilapidated shack, unable to scrape together a thousand dollars. When we started the company, I fronted his entire buy-in, didn't ask for a cent. When he got married, I gave him a fifty-thousand-dollar check as a wedding gift so he and his wife could have a two-week honeymoon. And Kate… last year, her parents got seriously ill, wiping out their life savings. Without a second thought, I pulled twenty grand out of my own account and gave it to her. I told her to use it, pay me back whenever she could, even pay back less if she needed to. I thought my conscience was clear with them. But now, led by this intern, they were ready to cut me loose for a hundred bucks. I couldn’t stop the question from spilling out. “After everything… how can you do this to me?” Chris’s face hardened. He clenched his fists. “You’ve got it backward, Vera. It’s what you’ve done to us!” “All these years, I’ve busted my ass for you, brought in massive profits. And what do I get? You made me work through the Fourth of July weekend, ruining the vacation my wife and I had planned.” That project had come in on a tight deadline. I’d authorized triple pay for the holiday. I asked for volunteers; it was never mandatory. Chris was the first one to raise his hand, his face lit up with excitement. “This is a goldmine! Who wants to deal with holiday crowds anyway? We can save up and take a real vacation with our annual leave!” I looked at him now, my eyes flooding with disappointment. Kate snorted. “He’s right. You’ve forgotten where you came from, Vera.” “That time Hannah and I took a client out? We spent three thousand dollars on dinner, and you refused to let accounting reimburse us! How could you be so cold?” That time, Hannah, the self-proclaimed “newbie,” had ordered a mountain of appetizers and desserts. Not only did they fail to land the deal, but the client almost terminated their existing contract with us. An expense report that large for a failed meeting was a fireable offense. I went to bat for both of them, saved their jobs. The reimbursement was against policy, so I paid the three thousand out of my own pocket to cover for them. With Chris and Kate leading the charge, the floodgates of complaint opened. No company retreats, just money—so impersonal. Working them to the bone—overtime pay couldn't compensate for the mental toll. Constantly providing afternoon snacks—it was distracting and kept them from doing their work properly… My heart turned to ice, piece by piece. All these years, what I had considered kindness, consideration for my employees… In their eyes, it was just the mark of a heartless boss. Hannah slapped a stack of resignation forms on my desk. “Let’s get this over with, Ms. Warren.” “We’ve got flights to book and hotels to reserve for our trip. We’re on a schedule!” In my past life, my industry instincts had screamed that something was wrong. I had painstakingly explained to them that this was a common recruitment scam. That when they got off that plane, they wouldn’t find a pristine beach, but a human trafficking compound. To smooth things over, I even paid for their salary increases myself. In the end, only a furious Hannah had left the company. But then, two weeks later, she posted those vacation photos. My employees saw red. They were convinced I had deliberately blocked them, afraid I’d have no one left to exploit. And they led me to the factory and pushed me into the furnace. This time, I wasn’t going to waste my breath on these vipers. Watching Hannah, who was now glancing around impatiently, I smiled and picked up the resignation forms. “No problem.” The employees, who had been bracing for a fight, froze. “What? You agree?” I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose, my expression one of feigned confusion. “Why wouldn’t I?” “You want to leave. I can’t exactly chain you to your desks.” With the benefits and salary my company offered, I wasn’t worried about finding replacements. It was probably time for some new blood anyway. I lowered my head, preparing to stamp the company seal on each form they handed me. But before the stamp could fall, Hannah’s expression changed. She suddenly snapped, “Wait!” I frowned. “Now what?” “You’re the ones who wanted to quit. I agree, and now you’re changing your minds?” The employees behind her looked just as confused. “Yeah, Hannah, she agreed!” “The sooner we quit, the sooner we can get on that plane. What’s the problem?” With all eyes on her, Hannah picked up a resignation form and scrutinized it. Then she looked at me and sneered. “Ms. Warren, this contract is wrong.” “There’s no severance clause. Where’s our compensation package?” I stared at her for a few seconds, then let out a laugh that was pure disbelief. “Severance is for when the company terminates an employee.” “Given that you’re all resigning en masse, you should be thanking me for not enforcing your non-compete agreements. And you have the audacity to demand severance?” Even Chris looked uncomfortable. “Hannah, maybe we should just drop it?” But Hannah stood her ground, chest puffed out righteously. “Why did we resign in the first place?” “It’s because the company benefits are subpar! At its core, this is all Ms. Warren’s fault. We’re the victims here, so why can’t we demand compensation?” “With a proper severance package, we’d each get tens of thousands of dollars! That’s what we’re owed! It’s compensation for our suffering!” Her words hung in the air, and the expression on every face in the room shifted. Tens of thousands of dollars. A subtle, greedy tension began to ripple through the crowd. Kate spoke up, her voice ringing with entitlement. “Ms. Warren, we’ve made you a lot of money over the years. A little compensation isn’t too much to ask, is it?” With someone taking the lead, the chorus began. “Yeah, we deserve it!” “You forced us into this! You owe us!” My gaze swept over each person in the office, one by one. Then I pushed the stack of resignation forms back across my desk. My voice was ice. “I may be reasonable, but I’m not a doormat.” “As for severance? Don’t even think about it.” The words had barely left my mouth when a wave of resentful, venomous glares washed over me. So many years of genuine care had cultivated nothing but a pack of insatiable, ungrateful wolves. Seeing my resolve, Hannah nodded, a strange, twisted smile on her face. “Fine, Ms. Warren. We’ll see about that.” She delivered her threat and led the employees out. I didn’t give it another thought. But the next morning, my assistant burst into my office, frantic. “Ms. Warren, it’s bad!” “The company is getting destroyed online! We’re trending for all the wrong reasons!” I pulled up our company’s social media accounts. The comments section was a toxic wasteland. Greedy capitalist. Bitch. Old hag. The insults were everywhere. “What happened?” I demanded, my brow furrowed. It wasn't until my assistant showed me her phone that I understood. Hannah had organized a live stream with the employees’ families to publicly accuse me of corporate malpractice. Chris’s wife was the first to appear, her voice shrill and piercing. “The day I went into labor was a Saturday! My husband was supposed to be home, but that witch, Warren, deliberately called him in to work overtime! He missed the birth of his own child!” “Holiday overtime, overnight shifts—it never ended!” “I was afraid to speak up before, afraid she’d retaliate against my husband. But now she’s gone too far! She won’t even give him his rightful severance pay!” She held up screenshots of my texts asking Chris to work. The internet erupted in a firestorm of righteous fury. “Have some damn shame!” “We have to boycott this monster! We can’t let her get away with this!” I was shaking with rage. Yes, I had asked Chris to work that day. Because we had a critical system failure. The moment it was fixed, I personally drove him to the hospital. Not only did he make it in time for the birth, but I also gave them a two-thousand-dollar cash gift as an apology. At the time, his wife couldn’t stop smiling, calling me the most conscientious boss she’d ever heard of. Next up were Kate’s parents, two elderly people weeping into the camera. “When we got sick, that heartless capitalist found out. And because she knew our daughter needed the money and couldn’t afford to quit, she exploited her relentlessly!” “She docked her pay, sent her on endless business trips!” “Now our daughter has finally escaped that hellhole, and she refuses to pay what she owes! How can someone so evil exist in this world?” Netizens immediately rallied to their cause, vowing to get justice for the poor old couple. Kate’s paystub was indeed missing one month's salary. Because that was the month I had fronted the twenty thousand dollars for their medical bills. I still remembered how happily they had smiled when I visited them in the hospital, my arms full of fruit and supplements. My assistant cried out again. “Ms. Warren, it’s worse! Our retail stores… they’re being vandalized!” She showed me the photos. The glass doors were shattered. The walls were covered in spray paint. Scrawled on the ground in black marker were curses directed at me. Capitalist pig, drop dead. Hope your whole family dies in a car crash… The online mob was united. Their one demand was that I pay every single employee their severance. I sat in my office, silent. More than the online vitriol, what truly broke me was the betrayal of the families I had helped. All my support, all my generosity… it meant nothing in the face of greed. The phone rang. “Vera, I had no idea you were this kind of person. This year’s contract is cancelled.” One call after another. Every single one was a partner pulling their business. My eyes drifted back to the screen. Hannah was leading the charge, orchestrating a full-scale assault on my company. They were calling all my clients and partners. Some screamed obscenities, others spread vicious lies. They were systematically destroying every single deal we had in the pipeline. The internet cheered them on. “That’s how you deal with scum like her! Fight fire with fire!” “Yes! Strength in numbers! Post the phone numbers, we’ll all help!” My assistant’s voice trembled. “Ms. Warren, we can’t fight public opinion.” “This company is your life’s work. Losing some money is better than going bankrupt!” I sat in my office all night. The next morning, I released a statement. “The severance applications have been approved.” “Payment will be disbursed in one month, following a final review.” The internet exploded with celebration. Everyone was patting themselves on the back for taking down the evil capitalist.
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