Chapter 2

The code I wrote wasn't anything fancy, no bells and whistles, no cool frameworks, no hip architecture diagrams.

It was just rock solid, so solid that it ran for three years without a single hiccup and nobody even remembered it existed.

At the end of the year, Alex called me in for a performance review.

"Emily, your KPIs this year honestly, they're not looking too hot," he said.

"What's so bad about them?" I asked.

"Look, James knocked out 38 business APIs, Sophie revamped 12 frontend pages, and David cranked out 7 data reports What did you do?"

I thought for a second. "I did three rounds of database optimization, migrated servers twice, patched a security hole, and rewrote the async logic for the core transaction module."

Alex frowned. "But how do we even measure that?"

"After I optimized the database, queries ran 40% faster. The server migration kept everything running, no downtime at all. And if I hadn't fixed that security hole, customer data would've been exposed," I said.

"But the boss doesn't notice any of that," he replied.

Alex sighed.

"Emily, I'll be honest with you. The stuff you do, nobody really sees. Year-end reviews are all about visible results. And honestly, your work it's tough to show on paper," he said.

I didn't say anything.

"Next year, try doing something people can actually see. Write a tech blog, give a talk, start some new project, just so people actually know what you're up to," Alex said.

"I'm maintaining the core system," I replied.

"Yeah, I get it. But you gotta let everyone else in on it."

After that talk, my year-end review came back as a B-.

That was the lowest in the whole department.

My year-end bonus was 1,300 dollars.

Sophie got 9,000 dollars.

James got 10,000 dollars.

I didn't ask why.

In my third year, I finally asked for a raise.

From 4,000 dollars to 5,000 dollars.

It was just a 3,000 dollar increase, the first time I'd ever asked for a raise in three years.

HR's reply was just one line: [After review, your current salary is well-aligned with your position. No adjustment will be made at this time.]

I went to talk to Alex.

He was so busy that I had to wait forty minutes.

And then he hit me with a line I'll never forget. "Emily, honestly, your job is pretty replaceable. A new grad could learn it in two weeks. There's no reason for the company to give you a raise."

I just nodded.

Back at my desk, I opened up a new document.

Title: My Resignation Letter.

I'd written my resignation letter, but I didn't hand it in right away.

There was something on my mind.

If I left, what would happen to my code?

I looked over the Git logs.

The core transaction system? From day one, it had racked up 140,000 lines of code.

I wrote 92,000 of those myself.

Of the other 48,000 lines, I went over and tweaked 30,000.

So basically, I had my hands on 95% of the code in this whole system.

But the real kicker? The documentation.

Or rather, there was no documentation at all.

It was not that I didn't want to write it.

Back in the startup days, I was way too busy to even think about it. In the second year, Alex told me, "Just focus on the business first, we'll get to the docs later."

By the third year, I couldn't even be bothered to bring it up anymore.

The logic behind all 140,000 lines of code? It was all in my head.

The 36 database tables: how they were connected, which fields couldn't be left empty, which triggers were untouchable; none of that was written down anywhere.

Server configs? Which one's the primary, which one's the backup, and when one gotta switch them manually; yeah, I was the only one who knew.

Monitoring scripts? What alert level shoots out an email, what level sends a text, and what level means a human needs to jump in, again, only I knew.

It was not like I was refusing to hand things over.

It was that nobody else could take it on.

Of the three backend guys, James handled business APIs, but he'd never even glanced at the database's partition logic. David worked on data reports, but he figured the system just ran itself.

Frank dealt with third-party integrations, but after a whole year, he still had no clue where the servers even were.

I once brought it up at a weekly meeting. "Shouldn't we update the documentation for the core system's architecture?" I asked.

Alex said, "Alright, put together a plan."

So I did, and estimated it would take about two weeks.

Alex said, "We're swamped with business right now. Let's push it to next quarter."

Next quarter. And then next quarter turned into the quarter after that.

And just like that, three years flew by.

That night, after finishing my resignation letter, I did one more thing.

I sorted through all the code I'd written at the company.

Any code that was for company business, I left it.

But any personal scripts, my own tools, automation scripts, monitoring scripts, those were written under my personal GitHub account, not part of the company's codebase.

I was taking those with me.

It wasn't stealing.

I'd gone over Article 7, Clause 3 of the employment contract front to back.

Any personal tool code created by an employee using their personal account, and not directly related to company business, belongs to the employee.

My monitoring scripts? Built on my own GitHub.

My automation scripts? Tweaked from open-source stuff I built and shared myself.

My database maintenance tools? Those were projects I started working on before I even got hired.

None of this was in the company repo, but their system had been running on it for three years.

They had used it for three whole years.

And they never paid me a single cent for any of it.

After wrapping things up, I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty.

That night after the company retreat, I printed out my resignation letter.

I signed my name and stuffed it in my bag.

The next morning, I showed up at the office right on time at nine.

I walked up to Alex's office and knocked on the door.

"Hey Alex, got something for you," I said.

"What's up?" he replied.

I set my resignation letter on his desk.

He hesitated for a moment, then picked it up and looked it over.

"You're leaving?" Alex asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Why all of a sudden?" he pressed.

"It's not sudden. I've been thinking about this for a long time."

Alex set the letter down and leaned back in his chair.

"Is it because of that award yesterday?" he asked.

I smiled. "Alex, I don't care about that award."

"Then what's the reason?"

"It's about the salary."

He nodded, like he expected it. "So, how much do you want?"

"It's not about the money. My mind's made up."

"Emily, don't do anything rash. You've been here three years—you're a veteran."

"Yeah, three years. And I'm still making 4,000 dollars a month."

Alex paused for a few seconds.

"I can try to push for you again."

"Don't bother."

I looked at him and said the longest sentence I'd said all day.

"Alex, there are 87 people in this company, and every single one thinks I'm the most useless. It's not just about that award. It's that everything I've done these past three years doesn't count for anything in your eyes," I said.

Alex started to say something, but the words just wouldn't come.

"The resignation letter's right here. Just go through the usual process," I said.

I turned and walked out.