Chapter 1 · Three Days to Collapse

Chapter 1

"Please welcome our most useless employee to the stage!" Edison said.

The room fell silent for a second before erupting in laughter.

My name appeared dead center on the big screen, followed by one number: 87.

There were 87 people in the company.

And all 87 had voted for me.

My director, Edison Aguilar, waved me over with a grin. "Emily, come on up. Don't be shy."

I walked onto the stage and accepted the cheap plastic trophy engraved with three words: "Queen of Slacking."

I smiled at everyone.

What they didn't know was that I already had my signed resignation letter in my pocket.

*****

The trophy was gold-colored plastic, with a printed sticker on the base that said "Annual King of Slackers—Emily."

I held it in my hands, and everyone's phones started snapping photos.

No reporters here, just my coworkers snapping pics.

"Post it online! Post it online."

"Emily, don't look so serious! Smile for us."

I smiled.

Alex handed me the mic. "Alright, any words for us?"

I took it. "Thanks, everyone."

After saying those four words, I handed the mic back to him and walked off the stage.

The laughter behind me exploded even louder.

"Is she mad?"

"Don't take it so seriously, we're just messing around."

"Emily's always like that, she just doesn't have a sense of humor."

I went back to my seat and set the trophy down on the table. Sophie King leaned over and patted my shoulder.

"Don't take it to heart, it's just a game," she said.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Hey, I got the Most Popular Award, and I didn't let it get to me either."

I glanced at her.

Next to the Most Popular Award were the Best Creativity, Best Performance, and Best Newcomer Awards. Those trophies were made of stainless steel, with solid wood bases.

Mine was the only one made of plastic.

It was thrown in at the last minute.

When Alex was planning the company retreat, he said, "Let's add a gag award to spice things up."

The voting was anonymous; they sent out a quick poll in the company group chat.

I got 87 votes. Every single one.

That meant everyone in the company, including the receptionist, the cleaning lady, and even the interns, voted for me.

I never bothered to ask why because I already knew.

In this company, nobody really knew what I was up to.

Alex didn't know, Sophie didn't know, HR didn't know, and even the CEO had no clue.

Even the finance team probably wondered, 'How does this person get paid 12,000 dollars a month? What does she even do?'

I was a backend developer.

It sounded like a normal job.

But the part I handled was completely invisible to everyone.

I was the one maintaining the underlying architecture of the company's core transaction system.

This system handled 30 million transactions every day, supporting 80% of the company's revenue.

Without it, the frontend would be nothing but a blank screen.

Without it, every click would just hit a 404.

Without it, the company wouldn't see a single penny of the more than six million dollars hitting the account every day.

But this system had been running flawlessly for three years.

Which meant, for three whole years, nobody even noticed it was there.

It was like the water pipes in one's your house; nobody gave them a second thought unless something broke.

The company retreat kept rolling.

Alex was up on stage, handing James a red envelope stuffed with 1,000 dollars for snagging the Best Performance Award.

The whole room broke into applause.

Sophie got the Best Creativity Award, and walked away with a red envelope holding 700 dollars.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Goddess!"

I sat in the corner, munching on a slice of watermelon.

My phone buzzed.

System alert.

I glanced down; server memory usage had exceeded the threshold, and I needed to manually clear the cache.

I opened my laptop, SSH'd into the server, and typed a few commands.

Three minutes later, it was fixed.

I looked up; the company retreat was still going strong.

No one had noticed what I'd just done.

And nobody realized that if I'd waited just thirty more minutes, all the customer orders would've been totally screwed up by tomorrow morning.

I closed my laptop.

Michael, the intern sitting next to me, glanced over. "Emily, you brought your laptop to the company retreat?"

"Just a habit," I replied.

"Not like you're busy or anything," he joked, flashing a grin before running off to grab some red envelopes.

By ten o'clock, the company retreat was finally over.

On the bus, most people were busy posting on social media.

I scrolled through and saw Sophie's post. [Feeling great today! Snagged the Best Creativity Award! Thanks, team.]

She'd posted a photo of herself holding the trophy.

Alex had liked it and commented: [Well deserved.]

Then I scrolled to James's post. [Best Performance Award! Gotta keep pushing!]

Alex had liked that one too.

I didn't post anything.

I was looking at my resignation letter.

It had been ready for three days.

Tonight, I could finally turn it in.

Three days ago, when I sat down to write my resignation letter, I actually had second thoughts.

After all, I'd spent three years here.

Three years wasn't forever, but it was not nothing either.

Back in 2021, when I first came onboard, the company was still a scrappy startup. The tech team? Just five of us. I was number three.

Back then, we were short on everything—frontend, backend, DevOps, testing.

I was the entire backend and DevOps team.

I built the core transaction system from scratch.

I designed the database architecture.

I wrote the server monitoring scripts.

I built the automated backup system.

The night the first version of the code went live, I pulled an all-nighter and didn't leave the office until four in the morning.

Alex wasn't the director back then; he was just the tech team lead.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, "Emily, keep up the good work. The company won't let you down."

I actually believed him back then.

In the first year, the company's business really took off. Daily transactions shot up from 10,000 to 1,000,000.

The system handled it like a champ.

Because I'd already planned for expansion, bought new servers, and set up load balancing ahead of time.

At the monthly meeting, Alex said, "The tech side is solid. The backend hasn't had a single issue."

The CEO nodded. "Good."

Then they started talking about the frontend redesign, and that discussion dragged on for forty minutes.

Nobody ever bothered to ask why the backend never had any problems.

By the second year, the company moved into a new office. Alex got promoted to director.

The tech team grew to 15 people.

We brought in five new frontend devs, three new backend devs, and two new product managers.

Of the three backend newbies, one was in charge of business APIs, one focused on data reports, and one dealt with third-party integrations.

But the core architecture? Still just me, solo because nobody else could figure it out.

Chapter 1

"Please welcome our most useless employee to the stage!" Edison said.

The room fell silent for a second before erupting in laughter.

My name appeared dead center on the big screen, followed by one number: 87.

There were 87 people in the company.

And all 87 had voted for me.

My director, Edison Aguilar, waved me over with a grin. "Emily, come on up. Don't be shy."

I walked onto the stage and accepted the cheap plastic trophy engraved with three words: "Queen of Slacking."

I smiled at everyone.

What they didn't know was that I already had my signed resignation letter in my pocket.

*****

The trophy was gold-colored plastic, with a printed sticker on the base that said "Annual King of Slackers—Emily."

I held it in my hands, and everyone's phones started snapping photos.

No reporters here, just my coworkers snapping pics.

"Post it online! Post it online."

"Emily, don't look so serious! Smile for us."

I smiled.

Alex handed me the mic. "Alright, any words for us?"

I took it. "Thanks, everyone."

After saying those four words, I handed the mic back to him and walked off the stage.

The laughter behind me exploded even louder.

"Is she mad?"

"Don't take it so seriously, we're just messing around."

"Emily's always like that, she just doesn't have a sense of humor."

I went back to my seat and set the trophy down on the table. Sophie King leaned over and patted my shoulder.

"Don't take it to heart, it's just a game," she said.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Hey, I got the Most Popular Award, and I didn't let it get to me either."

I glanced at her.

Next to the Most Popular Award were the Best Creativity, Best Performance, and Best Newcomer Awards. Those trophies were made of stainless steel, with solid wood bases.

Mine was the only one made of plastic.

It was thrown in at the last minute.

When Alex was planning the company retreat, he said, "Let's add a gag award to spice things up."

The voting was anonymous; they sent out a quick poll in the company group chat.

I got 87 votes. Every single one.

That meant everyone in the company, including the receptionist, the cleaning lady, and even the interns, voted for me.

I never bothered to ask why because I already knew.

In this company, nobody really knew what I was up to.

Alex didn't know, Sophie didn't know, HR didn't know, and even the CEO had no clue.

Even the finance team probably wondered, 'How does this person get paid 12,000 dollars a month? What does she even do?'

I was a backend developer.

It sounded like a normal job.

But the part I handled was completely invisible to everyone.

I was the one maintaining the underlying architecture of the company's core transaction system.

This system handled 30 million transactions every day, supporting 80% of the company's revenue.

Without it, the frontend would be nothing but a blank screen.

Without it, every click would just hit a 404.

Without it, the company wouldn't see a single penny of the more than six million dollars hitting the account every day.

But this system had been running flawlessly for three years.

Which meant, for three whole years, nobody even noticed it was there.

It was like the water pipes in one's your house; nobody gave them a second thought unless something broke.

The company retreat kept rolling.

Alex was up on stage, handing James a red envelope stuffed with 1,000 dollars for snagging the Best Performance Award.

The whole room broke into applause.

Sophie got the Best Creativity Award, and walked away with a red envelope holding 700 dollars.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Goddess!"

I sat in the corner, munching on a slice of watermelon.

My phone buzzed.

System alert.

I glanced down; server memory usage had exceeded the threshold, and I needed to manually clear the cache.

I opened my laptop, SSH'd into the server, and typed a few commands.

Three minutes later, it was fixed.

I looked up; the company retreat was still going strong.

No one had noticed what I'd just done.

And nobody realized that if I'd waited just thirty more minutes, all the customer orders would've been totally screwed up by tomorrow morning.

I closed my laptop.

Michael, the intern sitting next to me, glanced over. "Emily, you brought your laptop to the company retreat?"

"Just a habit," I replied.

"Not like you're busy or anything," he joked, flashing a grin before running off to grab some red envelopes.

By ten o'clock, the company retreat was finally over.

On the bus, most people were busy posting on social media.

I scrolled through and saw Sophie's post. [Feeling great today! Snagged the Best Creativity Award! Thanks, team.]

She'd posted a photo of herself holding the trophy.

Alex had liked it and commented: [Well deserved.]

Then I scrolled to James's post. [Best Performance Award! Gotta keep pushing!]

Alex had liked that one too.

I didn't post anything.

I was looking at my resignation letter.

It had been ready for three days.

Tonight, I could finally turn it in.

Three days ago, when I sat down to write my resignation letter, I actually had second thoughts.

After all, I'd spent three years here.

Three years wasn't forever, but it was not nothing either.

Back in 2021, when I first came onboard, the company was still a scrappy startup. The tech team? Just five of us. I was number three.

Back then, we were short on everything—frontend, backend, DevOps, testing.

I was the entire backend and DevOps team.

I built the core transaction system from scratch.

I designed the database architecture.

I wrote the server monitoring scripts.

I built the automated backup system.

The night the first version of the code went live, I pulled an all-nighter and didn't leave the office until four in the morning.

Alex wasn't the director back then; he was just the tech team lead.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, "Emily, keep up the good work. The company won't let you down."

I actually believed him back then.

In the first year, the company's business really took off. Daily transactions shot up from 10,000 to 1,000,000.

The system handled it like a champ.

Because I'd already planned for expansion, bought new servers, and set up load balancing ahead of time.

At the monthly meeting, Alex said, "The tech side is solid. The backend hasn't had a single issue."

The CEO nodded. "Good."

Then they started talking about the frontend redesign, and that discussion dragged on for forty minutes.

Nobody ever bothered to ask why the backend never had any problems.

By the second year, the company moved into a new office. Alex got promoted to director.

The tech team grew to 15 people.

We brought in five new frontend devs, three new backend devs, and two new product managers.

Of the three backend newbies, one was in charge of business APIs, one focused on data reports, and one dealt with third-party integrations.

But the core architecture? Still just me, solo because nobody else could figure it out.