During the year-end performance review, all the achievements that should have been mine were credited to the new intern. Thinking of my mother in the ICU, I was beside myself with anxiety. I went to argue with the manager, but he just said, “Know your place. Who are you to compete for credit with the daughter of the company’s owner?” When I vented to my friend, she turned around and printed out our chat logs, plastering them all over the company. My boyfriend also complained that I was making a scene, saying I wasn’t acting like a respectable woman. He then went off to become the new intern’s lapdog. My mother, waiting for money for her treatment, ultimately missed the best window for treatment and passed away. In a fit of rage, I quit on the spot, and suddenly they all panicked. To motivate employees for one last push at the end of the year, the company had hinted early on about generous year-end bonuses. Not only was there no cap on the bonus amount, but the top salesperson would also receive additional rewards. My colleagues had already started congratulating me, saying this year-end bonus was surely mine. I couldn’t wait to share this good news with my boyfriend. Just as I opened my phone, his call came through first. “Babe, I heard from Jennifer that your company’s year-end bonus is really high this year.” “Yes! With this money, my mom’s surgery—” Before I could finish, William hastily cut me off. “That’s great! I’ll tell my parents right away that I’ll bring you home to meet them during the New Year.” Hearing my boyfriend’s words, I was overjoyed. I never expected such double happiness today. William and I had been dating for ten years, and we were certainly at the age to discuss marriage. But every time I brought up meeting his parents, he would brush it off with various excuses. “It’s almost New Year’s, and this is your first time visiting my family. You must prepare some nice gifts for my family! That’s the only way my parents will agree to you marrying into our family.” “I’ve already thought about what gifts to buy. You don’t need to buy anything too expensive. For my mom, I mean, our mom, buy a Hermès handbag.” “Dad doesn’t have many hobbies, he just loves to drink. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label wouldn’t be too much, right?” “And for my little brother, he’s just a kid, he doesn’t like much. Just buy him a phone, I’ll send you the link.” Before he finished speaking, a payment link popped up. It was for the latest iPhone 1TB Pro Max version. His tone grew more and more excited, while I became increasingly calm. First of all, the year-end bonus wasn’t even confirmed yet. My mom had been in the hospital for over half a year, waiting for money for her surgery. He knew about this situation. Now that he heard I might get a year-end bonus, not only did he not think about helping with my mother’s treatment, but his mind was full of how to spend this money for his own family. When I heard him say he wanted me to buy a phone for his month-old brother, I finally couldn’t help but interrupt him: “The year-end bonus hasn’t been decided yet, and you know my mom’s situation. The doctor—” “What about your mom?” Almost instinctively, William interrupted me again, immediately switching to his usual impatient tone: “Whatever’s wrong with your mom, you’re going to marry into my family in the future. Buying gifts for my family is the same as buying gifts for your family, isn’t it? How can you show favoritism from the start?” “I know it wasn’t easy for your mom to raise you, and your mom is important, but isn’t our future important too?” “Do you know how many times my parents have tried to persuade me to break up with you? Do you know how many people are lining up to go on blind dates with me?” “If you’re not willing to buy these small gifts, how can you say you love me! Let me tell you, if you can’t come up with these things this year, we’re breaking up.” With that, he hung up the phone without giving me a chance to explain. When I tried to call back, I found that my number had been blocked.
Looking at the disconnected call, I was momentarily lost in thought. I had mentioned my mother’s illness to him more than once in the past six months. His reaction today clearly showed that he had long forgotten about my mother’s hospitalization, or perhaps he had never really remembered it at all. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t disappointed. Composing myself, I had just returned to the company when Jennifer White, the department intern, approached me. She was the “Jenny” my boyfriend had mentioned earlier. We had only eaten together once before, and I didn’t know when they had exchanged contact information. They were even close enough for him to call her Jenny. Jennifer’s expression was full of embarrassment, but her words were full of entitlement: “Sis, Manager Johnson said that the follow-up on the Quinn contract you’ve been handling will now be taken over by me.” Hearing this, I couldn’t help but let out a cold laugh. The deal with Mr. Quinn was almost at the final stage, it could be said that it only needed a signature. Suddenly changing the person in charge at this point undoubtedly meant that all my previous efforts would become nothing more than paving the way for someone else. Despite this, when I spoke, I still took a roundabout approach, not intending to expose her directly. “You haven’t been involved in the early stages of this deal, so you might not be familiar with the relevant details. If you want to learn about closing deals, I can take you through the process from the beginning next time.” Before I could finish declining, a male voice interrupted. “What’s so difficult about this? You’ve already prepared the contract, and the signing date is set. Just let Jenny go and sign it, and the deal is done.” “Mia, the company still recognizes your abilities. It’s the end of the year, so give the newcomers a chance to close a deal. You have so many resources, what’s wrong with sharing one with Jenny?” “Besides, your deals are ultimately company resources. You’ve already been given the top salesperson position, don’t be so stingy about one or two small deals.” “You’re already at that age, almost thirty, about to go home to get married and have children. Holding onto these resources won’t do you much good, why not appropriately share them with your colleagues?” These words were almost no different from outright robbery. In just a few short sentences, he had brushed off all my previous efforts. He even tried to use moral coercion to make me hand over the resources I had carefully maintained. I didn’t follow his lead, but quietly reminded him: “Manager Johnson, if nothing goes wrong, this deal will be the biggest one of the year. Everyone is counting on this deal to sustain us through the first half of next year. If anything goes wrong, I might not be affected, but I’m afraid the company can’t afford to wait.” He knew very well what Jennifer was capable of. She was clearly just a connection who had been stuffed into the company to idle away her days. Let alone not having closed any deals in her year here, she had even messed up quite a few deals for her seniors. As a result, everyone later discussed collaborations like thieves, avoiding her. Now that I think about it, it’s the end of the year, and seeing her performance was too poor to account for, they just randomly found a scapegoat in the company to hand over resources to her, letting her reap the benefits without effort. But they had picked the wrong person. I wasn’t some pushover they could bully at will. He could sacrifice me to pave the way for Jennifer, but I didn’t believe he would dare risk sacrificing the collective interests of the company. Sure enough, hearing this, Manager Johnson’s expression showed some hesitation. When he spoke again, his tone had changed: “Alright, alright, everyone disperse. I understand the situation.” “Mia, you’re right, this deal is indeed very important. How about this, you prepare and personally go on a business trip to visit Mr. Quinn’s company again. This will show our sincerity. Time is of the essence, you should leave today.” “Jennifer, come with me to my office.” With that, he waved his hand to disperse the crowd and led Jennifer into his office. Although the sudden 180-degree turn was puzzling, at this point, I could only comply. I thought the matter was over, but I had underestimated how shameless they could be. After just a few days on the business trip, while I was still out of town, I saw a notice in the company group chat.
In the announcement, a large portion of my performance had vanished into thin air. And Jennifer, who hadn’t closed any deals before I left for the business trip, suddenly jumped to second place in performance. Just as I was about to question the finance department about how such a low-level mistake could occur, Jennifer’s call came through first, her tone full of smugness: “So this is all the great top salesperson Su can do after working hard for a year. Looking at the performance, it’s not much more than mine, is it?” “You don’t need to thank me too much, after all, I still left you two months’ worth of performance.” “I’m not exaggerating, but you’ve spent a year drinking and schmoozing with clients, and you only managed to bring in a few million in deals. That’s pretty useless.” “Did you call just to say this?” I interrupted her, barely containing my anger. “Oh, I almost forgot. Manager Johnson was worried you might not see the notice, so he specifically asked me to call and remind you. He said if anyone thinks there’s a problem with the performance data, they need to discuss it with him in person. The time limit is only today, no exceptions.” It wasn’t until I heard this that I realized what they were up to. Clearly, they knew that today was the day I was signing the contract with Quinn Corp. Even if I found out about this as quickly as possible, I wouldn’t be able to get back today. This meant I could only choose between the past half year’s performance and the contract with Quinn Corp. “Is he so determined to do this that he’s not afraid I’ll just quit altogether?” My voice was trembling with the immense anger that engulfed me. Hearing this, Jennifer laughed as if she had heard a joke: “Do you have the luxury to quit?” “Don’t forget your mom is still in the ICU.” “If you don’t get any money, be careful you might not even have enough to buy a coffin for your mom.” With that, she sneered and hung up the phone, leaving me standing there in shock. That’s right, my mother was still in the ICU. I could afford to wait, but she couldn’t. Starting a dispute with them now was clearly not a wise choice. I hurriedly signed the contract and caught the earliest high-speed train back to the company to prevent any further complications. They could transfer my performance to Jennifer, which meant they might do even more shameless things. But I didn’t expect that as soon as I got back to the company, before I could even hand over the contract, a figure darted out and, without a word, slapped me across the face. When I saw who it was, I could no longer contain my anger: “Jennifer, what are you throwing a tantrum about now? It’s not enough to steal my performance, you have to add insult to injury? Do you think people won’t get angry just because they don’t show it? Do you take everyone for a fool?” “Using your performance is doing you a favor. Many people are begging to give me their performance, and I don’t even want it.” “You act like you’re so noble. What right do you have to publicly insult me! It’s just because you saw the announcement and couldn’t accept it, so you used such a despicable method to humiliate me!” “I earned my performance with my own abilities! If you have the ability, why don’t you earn it back yourself!” Hearing her baseless accusations, I couldn’t help but laugh: “I publicly insulted you? Do you have any evidence? Coming up and hitting someone without rhyme or reason, is this your idea of class?” More and more people were gathering around, and although they didn’t show it clearly, they were obviously curious to see which of us would come out on top. “Evidence? This is the evidence!” Jennifer threw a stack of papers in my face. They were clearly my comments about her being a connection. Although it was just stating facts, the tone was naturally not very nice given that my performance had been stolen. Surprisingly, the record of messages spanned an entire year, organized chronologically, including even my casual complaints when Jennifer first joined the company. Every comment I made about Jennifer was taken out of context, with all praise and acknowledgment hidden, leaving only my negative evaluations of her. But I was certain that I had never disclosed these chat logs. Looking up, I saw that there were still many papers that hadn’t been torn down from the surrounding walls, with groups of people standing in front of them, observing. “Jennifer, I advise you to use your brain. Thanks to you, I’ve just returned from a business trip and haven’t even had time to do the handover. Where would I find the time to compile your glorious deeds and paste them all over the company?” “If you had any sense, you’d know that instead of picking a fight with me, you should go check the security cameras to see who the real culprit is!” “At the very least, you should find someone to clean up this garbage. Otherwise, in less than half a day, your and Manager Johnson’s glorious deeds will be spread throughout the entire company.”
I rolled my eyes, not intending to deal with her any further. Although I didn’t know who was behind this, I wasn’t stupid enough to think they were on my side. They just wanted to see Jennifer and me tear into each other, while they sat back and reaped the benefits. But clearly, Jennifer hadn’t figured this out. She continued to see me as her enemy and kept attacking: “No matter who posted it, aren’t those your own words?” “How can you have the guts to say it but not to admit it? You’re trying to shift the blame to someone else?” “Do you really think I’m that stupid, that I don’t know who did this? Security informed me immediately, it was Rachel who posted these large posters.” “Ask anyone in the sales department, who doesn’t know that you and Rachel are the closest? Do you dare say you’re not the mastermind behind this?” Hearing this, I was stunned. Even Jennifer knew that Rachel and I were the closest partners, which was enough to prove that our relationship wasn’t close enough for her to throw me under the bus. I had considered countless possibilities, but never thought it could be her. But thinking about it, I’m not one to gossip, and I had only said these things to one person, and that was Rachel. Who else could have such clear and complete chat records if not her? The only thing I couldn’t understand was why she was targeting me. “Why target you?” A woman’s voice asked the question in my mind. I turned to see it was Rachel. “Guess who was forced to give up their contract that was about to be signed after you refused White and Manager Johnson’s request that day?” Hearing her question, I finally understood. The day I left to sign the contract, Jennifer and Manager Johnson were still in the office, so I hadn’t paid attention to what happened afterward. I didn’t expect that when they didn’t get a satisfactory answer from me, they turned their target to someone else. In just a few days, so much drama had unfolded, it must have been difficult for them. “But you’re right about one thing, what kind of deal could that idiot sign? It was already at the final stage, just needing a signature to seal the deal, and she actually managed to fail the signing.” “What’s even funnier is that after failing, she still took my performance, saying it was compensation for her not successfully signing the contract.” “Do you know why I came to the company today? I came to pick up my resignation letter. They found fault with me because my performance didn’t meet the standard, and fired me.” “And all of this is thanks to you, Mia Sullivan. What’s the big deal about sharing a bit of your performance with her! Why should I pay the price for your stubborn refusal! You’re just a stupid top salesperson, what’s so great about that! Everything that’s happened to me is your fault!” Looking at Rachel’s angry expression, I felt a wave of helplessness. Clearly, we were both victims, yet she blamed everything on me, who was equally oppressed by them. The weak only swing their swords at the weak, completely failing to see that it was Jennifer and Manager Johnson, who abused their power, who were the real culprits behind this tragedy. “Implicated by me? Without Mia Sullivan, there would be a Lisa Sullivan, a Sarah Sullivan, or maybe you would have been the top salesperson! What led to this result was never colleagues unwilling to give way, but as long as there are useless colleagues like this and leaders who only know how to curry favor with their superiors! Everyone will be a sacrifice!” Faced with my colleague’s backstabbing, I could no longer hold back. I wanted to vent all the grievances I had suffered these past few days. Just as I was about to continue, my phone suddenly rang: “Hello, is this Ms. Sullivan? Your mother’s condition has suddenly deteriorated severely. The situation is very critical. We hope you can come to the hospital as soon as possible.”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “295631”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster #现实主义Realistic #重生Reborn
Leave a Reply