Chapter 1 · Worst Employee? The System Disagreed

Yeah, that was right. The "Worst Employee of the Year" was me.

When my name and employee ID popped up on the giant screen, the whole room went quiet for a couple of seconds, and then everyone burst out laughing.

It wasn't a mocking laugh. It was more like, "Of course, it's her."

"Caroline, please come up and get your award," my manager, Jaden Larsen, said, his tone relaxed as he held the mic.

I stood up and walked onto the stage.

Over three hundred people stared at me.

I took the red certificate of honor, opened it, and glanced inside.

Then I smiled, "Thanks."

Jaden paused, surprised.

The audience paused, stunned, too.

No one had a clue why I was smiling. But I knew.

*****

My name was Caroline Waters, and I'd been at BrightCore Solutions for four years.

I was a backend operations engineer. To put it bluntly, I was the company's babysitter.

If the servers went down, I was the one who fixed them. If the database crashed, I was the one who brought it back. If the system alerted, no matter what time it was, I was the one who handled it.

That was the thing about this job. When everything ran smoothly, nobody noticed. But the moment something went wrong, everyone was quick to point fingers.

It was like air. Nobody ever thought about it until they were suffocating.

I was the air at BrightCore Solutions.

The annual party was on a Friday, and the company had booked out a hotel hall. There were over three hundred people, twenty tables, and a post on stage that read: [BrightCore Solutions 2025 Annual Recognition Ceremony.]

The agenda was pretty standard. First, our CEO, Kyler Willis, gave a forty-minute speech, covering everything from industry trends to company strategy, and mentioned the company's plan to go public next year.

Then came the awards.

There were five spots for the "Employee of the Year" award.

The first one went to Kevin Stanley from sales. He was the top performer all year, so no surprise there.

The second was Peyton Guerra from marketing. She'd pulled off a viral campaign that everyone was talking about.

The third was Maddie Chase from the tech department.

When I heard her name, I looked down and took a sip of orange juice.

Maddie was my coworker. To be precise, we were in the same team.

Our desks were only separated by a short divider.

She'd stroll in at 9:30 every morning, boot up her computer, and spend the first twenty minutes scrolling through her phone.

Then she'd make herself a coffee, chat with folks from the other teams for a bit, and actually start working at 10. On the launch break, she'd head out for lunch, come back at 1:30, and log off right at 5:30.

And me?

I'd roll in at 8:30 because I had to check the system logs before 9. If there was a problem, I had to fix it before the business rush hit.

At lunch, I'd grab a quick bite and keep my eyes glued to the monitoring panel. If there were no alerts, I could leave by 8. But if there were, pulling a late night till 11 or midnight was nothing unusual.

Last year, I got woken up in the middle of the night to fix something 47 times.

That was about once a week, on average.

When Maddie went up to accept her award, the applause was thunderous. She was wearing a red dress, her makeup was flawless, and she was smiling brightly.

Jaden read her commendation, "Maddie led three technical optimization projects this year, and she was always proactive in coordinating with other departments..."

Three projects.

I knew exactly what those three projects were.

The first one was database query optimization. Maddie might've pitched the idea, but I was the one knee-deep in SQL, making it actually work. She whipped up a PowerPoint, and I cranked out three thousand lines of code.

The second was server migration. Maddie gave a slick twenty-minute presentation, clear logic, pretty charts, the whole package.

When the real migration work kicked off, I was holed up in the server room for thirty-six hours straight on the weekend. But Maddie? She was living it up in a resort, flooding her feed with nine vacation pics.

The third was a security audit project. Don't get me started. I wrote the entire document, every single word. But Maddie erased my name and slapped hers on it.

I kept my mouth shut. Because it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

Jaden didn't care who actually did the work. All he cared about was who got up there and presented it.

After the "Employee of the Year" awards, next up was a new award set up this year, the "Most in Need of Improvement" award.

To put it nicely, it was called "Most in Need of Improvement." To put it bluntly, it was the "Worst Employee."

Only one person would get this "honor."

Jaden took the mic and said, "This award is meant to encourage this friend to recognize her shortcomings and do better in the coming year."

The big screen lit up. [Caroline Waters. Employee ID: T-0847.]

I heard someone next to me whisper, "Hey, isn't that the tech girl?"

"Oh, the one who never talks."

"Isn't she always working late?"

"What's the point of all that overtime if she doesn't actually get results? Maddie is the opposite of her."

I stood up and walked onto the stage.

Over three hundred pairs of eyes were on me. Some people looked sympathetic, some were watching for the drama, and others didn't care at all.

Jaden handed me the red certificate, with an "I'm sorry, but my hands are tied" look on his face.

I opened the certificate.

It read: [Most in Need of Improvement for Caroline Waters. Keep up the effort and aim for progress.]

And in tiny print at the bottom: [Performance deduction: 600 dollars.]

I looked at that line and felt it was ridiculous.

Six hundred bucks.

Last year, I dealt with 1,247 system alerts. That was an average of 3.4 per day.

I was the only one keeping the backend running for the company's core business system, customer database, financial system, and office automation system.

Last year, those four systems ran at 99.97% uptime.

All that, and they docked me 600 bucks.

So, I laughed.

"Thanks," I said.

I went back to my seat and slipped the certificate into my bag.

The coworker next to me glanced at me, as if she wanted to say something but thought better of it.

I ignored her. I unlocked my phone and tapped into a folder.

Inside was the resignation letter I'd written yesterday.

Chapter 1

Yeah, that was right. The "Worst Employee of the Year" was me.

When my name and employee ID popped up on the giant screen, the whole room went quiet for a couple of seconds, and then everyone burst out laughing.

It wasn't a mocking laugh. It was more like, "Of course, it's her."

"Caroline, please come up and get your award," my manager, Jaden Larsen, said, his tone relaxed as he held the mic.

I stood up and walked onto the stage.

Over three hundred people stared at me.

I took the red certificate of honor, opened it, and glanced inside.

Then I smiled, "Thanks."

Jaden paused, surprised.

The audience paused, stunned, too.

No one had a clue why I was smiling. But I knew.

*****

My name was Caroline Waters, and I'd been at BrightCore Solutions for four years.

I was a backend operations engineer. To put it bluntly, I was the company's babysitter.

If the servers went down, I was the one who fixed them. If the database crashed, I was the one who brought it back. If the system alerted, no matter what time it was, I was the one who handled it.

That was the thing about this job. When everything ran smoothly, nobody noticed. But the moment something went wrong, everyone was quick to point fingers.

It was like air. Nobody ever thought about it until they were suffocating.

I was the air at BrightCore Solutions.

Then came the awards.

There were five spots for the "Employee of the Year" award.

The first one went to Kevin Stanley from sales. He was the top performer all year, so no surprise there.

The second was Peyton Guerra from marketing. She'd pulled off a viral campaign that everyone was talking about.

The third was Maddie Chase from the tech department.

When I heard her name, I looked down and took a sip of orange juice.

Maddie was my coworker. To be precise, we were in the same team.

Our desks were only separated by a short divider.

She'd stroll in at 9:30 every morning, boot up her computer, and spend the first twenty minutes scrolling through her phone.

And me?

I'd roll in at 8:30 because I had to check the system logs before 9. If there was a problem, I had to fix it before the business rush hit.

Last year, I got woken up in the middle of the night to fix something 47 times.

That was about once a week, on average.

When Maddie went up to accept her award, the applause was thunderous. She was wearing a red dress, her makeup was flawless, and she was smiling brightly.

Jaden read her commendation, "Maddie led three technical optimization projects this year, and she was always proactive in coordinating with other departments..."

Three projects.

I knew exactly what those three projects were.

The second was server migration. Maddie gave a slick twenty-minute presentation, clear logic, pretty charts, the whole package.

The third was a security audit project. Don't get me started. I wrote the entire document, every single word. But Maddie erased my name and slapped hers on it.

I kept my mouth shut. Because it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

Jaden didn't care who actually did the work. All he cared about was who got up there and presented it.

After the "Employee of the Year" awards, next up was a new award set up this year, the "Most in Need of Improvement" award.

To put it nicely, it was called "Most in Need of Improvement." To put it bluntly, it was the "Worst Employee."

Only one person would get this "honor."

Jaden took the mic and said, "This award is meant to encourage this friend to recognize her shortcomings and do better in the coming year."

The big screen lit up. [Caroline Waters. Employee ID: T-0847.]

I heard someone next to me whisper, "Hey, isn't that the tech girl?"

"Oh, the one who never talks."

"Isn't she always working late?"

"What's the point of all that overtime if she doesn't actually get results? Maddie is the opposite of her."

I stood up and walked onto the stage.

Over three hundred pairs of eyes were on me. Some people looked sympathetic, some were watching for the drama, and others didn't care at all.

Jaden handed me the red certificate, with an "I'm sorry, but my hands are tied" look on his face.

I opened the certificate.

It read: [Most in Need of Improvement for Caroline Waters. Keep up the effort and aim for progress.]

And in tiny print at the bottom: [Performance deduction: 600 dollars.]

I looked at that line and felt it was ridiculous.

Six hundred bucks.

Last year, I dealt with 1,247 system alerts. That was an average of 3.4 per day.

I was the only one keeping the backend running for the company's core business system, customer database, financial system, and office automation system.

Last year, those four systems ran at 99.97% uptime.

All that, and they docked me 600 bucks.

So, I laughed.

"Thanks," I said.

I went back to my seat and slipped the certificate into my bag.

The coworker next to me glanced at me, as if she wanted to say something but thought better of it.

I ignored her. I unlocked my phone and tapped into a folder.

Inside was the resignation letter I'd written yesterday.