Chapter 3: The Office Rules

“No rules, no standards. Company provides drinks for meetings, but you ordered bubble tea on your own, messing up the meeting. This isn’t your college fest, beta. Here, there are rules. You can’t just order bubble tea for everyone and expect a party.”

My assistant’s voice carried the weight of a strict PT master. He wagged his finger, as if scolding a group of naughty children.

“You barged into the boss’s office without knocking. If I’d known you treated work like this, I’d never have hired you. If you don’t want to work, you can resign right now.”

Sneha’s face turned as red as a ripe tomato. She looked down, biting her lip, cheeks flaming. Even the office help peered in curiously, their gossip engines revving.

I was about to play the good guy—firing her wasn’t my plan yet. I cleared my throat, putting on my most fatherly expression. But Sneha apologized first: “Sorry, Sir, it was my fault. I’ll try to adapt—I really need this job.” She wiped her tears and left.

Wait, Sneha didn’t make a scene? My eyebrows shot up. Was this the same girl who created chaos days ago? I almost pinched myself, Bollywood-style, wondering if the timeline had really changed.

I let the assistant get back to work; he exhaled in relief, mumbling about “kids these days” as he shuffled papers.

I remembered after my online shaming in my previous life, Sneha’s account was also dug up: every photo, every WhatsApp chat, even a canteen selfie, was twisted to make me look like a villain. The internet had a field day. Her work records, taken out of context, really made it look like I’d done something shady.

I searched for the nickname “SnehaTheWorkplaceQueen” and finally found an account with over a thousand followers. The profile was a pouty selfie, captioned, ‘Surviving the 9 to 5, one drama at a time.’

The latest video had just dropped: “The second diary of a Gen Z making easy money: ordering bubble tea. I tried it, everyone, don’t copy me. Old-school companies can’t handle it and even docked my pay. It’s already pretty exploitative, but they made it worse. But don’t worry, my precious fans, I won’t quit on my own. Next step, I’m going to confess to the boss. Stay tuned! After I confess, the boss definitely won’t dare assign me work anymore. Here’s another little office hack.”

I scowled so hard my eyebrows could have killed a mosquito. I could almost hear my mother’s voice: “Yeh aaj kal ke bachche, kuch bhi karte hain content ke liye!”

By night, her account had over five thousand followers and ten thousand likes. In other words, she wanted free paisa, yaar—coasting at work while building her influencer game. According to her videos, the only cost was time, and the worst that could happen was getting fired. Unbelievable. This time, I’d make her pay.