One Joke Too Many

At the annual company raffle, I had barely stepped onto the stage when my supervisor, Lily Smith, pressed a crumpled slip of paper into my palm.

"A special reward for our top salesperson," she chirped. "Go ahead, open it. Let everyone see."

Under the eager gaze of the crowd, I unfolded the note. Written in messy handwriting were the words: Clean the company toilets for three days.

The room erupted in laughter.

Lily folded her arms, cocked her head, and smirked at me.

"Nice, right?" she said. "Everyone knows those sales of yours came from sleeping with old men. Dirty money. To keep things fair, the others get a break, and you pick up a little extra work. You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

The laughter surged again, nearly lifting the roof.

From the side of the room, my boyfriend, Seth Hoffman, the company's CEO, watched everything unfold. As usual, he said nothing in my defense.

They all thought I would fall apart, cry, or make a scene.

Instead, I simply gave a calm nod.

The very next day, the company was hit with over three hundred property cancellations. Its cash flow collapsed overnight.

That was when Lily and Seth rushed to me, demanding I go plead with the buyers.

I smiled and said,

"No thanks. I wouldn't want to help the company recover and end up with strong numbers again. That might make everyone even more uncomfortable."

The room went dead quiet when I said I would take the prize, but that quiet did not last.

A second later, laughter thundered through the air. Lily Smith was the loudest, doubling over with tears streaming from her eyes.

"How else could she be the top seller?" she cackled. "A woman like her has to have skin as thick as a rhino."

I ignored her snide comments and kept my cool.

"Just to be clear," I said, "since the company so generously 'rewarded' me with bathroom duty, that's all I'll be doing for the next three days. Everything else is off my plate."

Lily paused, her smile faltering. She had not seen that coming.

Well, it was year-end, and I had already smashed our sales goals. The only thing left was for our clients to finish up their payments, and we would be golden.

By stepping back from sales, I was practically gifting Lily millions in deals!

She must have thought I had gone bonkers with rage because she agreed without a second thought.

"Alright, you're off the hook," she said. "The sales team isn't a one-person show. You think we can't spin without you?

"Just stick to scrubbing toilets for the next few days. Spot a single hair, and you're out!"

I did not bother with a comeback. I just walked away, pulled out my phone, and shot a message to my client list.

[Big news, I'm being shuffled around. Hold off on those bank payments and stay tuned for my next move.]

Before I could pocket my phone, Seth Hoffman's text popped up.

[Drop by my office. We need to talk.]

I tossed my phone aside like it was nothing. I had bigger fish to fry.

We fell for each other back in our college days, and after we tossed our caps, Seth convinced me to ditch a job that would have made me a millionaire, so we could build something from the ground up together.

He promised me that once our little startup hit the jackpot of 150 million, we would tie the knot for real.

I bought into his tall tales, pouring my heart and soul into the company, only to be sidelined and squashed down time and time again.

Lily was a newbie, barely three months in, and her numbers were peanuts compared to mine.

However, Seth was all starry-eyed over her fancy international background and her time abroad, so he skipped right over me and handed her the sales director crown.

Me? I was the sales champ three years running, and what did I get? The 'glorious' job of scrubbing toilets for three days.