The day the year-end bonuses dropped, the boss suddenly @everyone in the company chat.

[Given the increasingly fierce external competition, starting this year, bonuses will be distributed based on contribution. Those who contribute more get more. Those who contribute less get less. Those who contribute nothing get nothing!]

The announcement sent cheers rippling through the neighboring departments.

"Boss is generous! I'm gonna work here for life!"

"Fat bonus means I can hold my head high! Taking the wife to Northland for New Year's!"

But in our Tech Department? Dead silence.

Milton Lambert, the most senior guy on the team, looked like he'd aged ten years in ten seconds.

"Boss... the bonus... did they make a mistake?"

"This amount... just eight bucks... that's way too little..."

Cordelia Henson, one of the younger ones, had tears welling in her eyes.

"Yeah, boss, my mom's waiting on money for her surgery. Can you check if this is right?"

Caspar Fox slammed his palm on the desk and shot to his feet.

"A mistake?! Didn't you see what the boss just posted? He's talking about us!"

"Eight bucks and eighty-eight cents—can't even buy a bowl of noodles downstairs! What are we, beggars?!"

My phone buzzed. A private message from the boss.

[The Tech Department's contribution to the company was insufficient this year. However, out of humanitarian consideration, we've given everyone a red envelope of $8.88. Your department needs to reflect seriously and strive to contribute more next year!]

All fifteen of us in Tech—no matter how many years we'd put in—got exactly $8.88.

Meanwhile, every other department was celebrating, pockets stuffed.

The Tech Department. The backbone of the entire company's technical operations. We answered every call, pulled countless all-nighters.

And now we were the department with "insufficient contribution."

In that case, I'd like to see how the company will function without our technical department.

——

The atmosphere in the office was suffocating. Somewhere, one of the girls started crying quietly.

I clenched my fists until my knuckles ached, then took a deep breath.

"I'm going to get answers. For all of us."

I stood and headed straight for the boss's office.

It was packed inside.

Finance, Planning, PR—people from every department crowded around, gushing gratitude and pledging loyalty.

Their faces glowing. Nothing like mine.

The moment I walked in, the smile slid off the boss's face.

"Alright everyone, back to work. Last shift before the holiday—let's finish strong."

The crowd filed out. He gestured for me to sit.

"What? Not happy with your bonus?"

I kept my voice level. Barely.

"No, I'm not. If we're distributing based on contribution, then our Tech Department—"

"Stop right there."

He cut me off and took a slow sip of tea.

"Looks like that message I sent you was a waste of time."

"You've been in management for years now, and you still have zero perspective. Your bonus is low and instead of reflecting on yourself and your team's problems, you come in here complaining it's unfair?"

Something snapped inside me.

Perspective. Perspective. Always with the "perspective."

Back in the middle of the year, when the company did its annual salary adjustments, everyone got raises. Everyone except us in Tech. Not a single cent.

I'd asked why.

[Your Tech Department's average salary is already higher than other departments. If we raise it further, it might cause resentment and hurt company harmony.]

[Claude Finch, you're management now. You need to have perspective.]

[Wait until year-end. I'll make sure your department gets a bigger bonus. You won't be disappointed.]

Sure, our salaries were higher than the other non-revenue departments. But they were still way below industry average.

Raises were just another pie the boss dangled every year.

But because of that one promise—"bigger bonus at year-end"—everyone had swallowed their frustration and waited.

I fought to keep my anger in check.

"Back in June, we agreed to skip the mid-year raise because you promised we'd get a bigger bonus at year-end. You said you'd make it right for everyone!"

Bang!

The teacup slammed against the desk, tea splashing everywhere.

"Claude! Watch your tone!"

"The company has its own evaluation process. The market's rough right now—things have changed. Of course bonuses have to be adjusted accordingly!"

The market was rough, sure. But our company's numbers weren't. Other departments had gotten their payouts just fine.

None of that explained why we were stuck with $8.80.

The boss didn't give me a chance to respond. He let out a heavy sigh.

"Do you have any idea how bad this looks? You storming in here like that?"

"Finance saw it. Strategy saw it. Everyone saw it. You set this precedent, and what—now anyone with a workplace grievance can just barge into my office and make a scene?"

"If everyone acted like you, how is this company supposed to function?"

I clenched my jaw, glaring at him.

"I'll write a self-criticism. But only after our department gets the full bonus we're owed."

He slammed his palm on the desk.

"Everyone says you're one of the honest ones. Guess that was all an act!"

"So honest people deserve to get screwed over?"

When I was hired, they promised annual raises of at least five percent. In all these years, that never happened. The best we ever got was three percent.

Every time, it was the same line: Wait until the company's doing better. We'll make it up to you.

Year after year. The company caught the AI wave. Revenue soared.

But our salaries in the tech department? Flatlined. Not a ripple.

"Screwed over? You think you can talk to me like that?"

"Claude, let me make something clear. You know what 'pay for performance' means? All your department does is write a little code and fix the occasional bug. What kind of contribution is that? The fact that I'm giving you people $8.80 each is me being generous."

Write a little code? Fix the occasional bug?

All those late nights. All that brainpower poured into every line. And to him, it was worthless—just like that.

My face burned. I yanked the badge from around my neck and threw it onto his desk.

"That's not what you said when you begged us to pull all-nighters for your precious business growth!"

"You called us the backbone of the operation. Said without us, all the deals in the world wouldn't mean a damn thing because nothing would actually work."

"But now that it's time to share the rewards, suddenly we're the most useless department?"

"You want to burn the bridge after crossing it? We're not going to stand for that!"

I kicked over the trash can and stormed out, slamming the door behind me.

The moment I stepped out, all the rubberneckers ducked back behind their monitors.

Let them stare. I didn't care.

All I could think about was how I was going to face my team.

They were my people. They'd followed me, learned from me, pulled countless late nights without a single complaint.

And I couldn't even get them the bonus they'd earned.

My eyes stung.

"Come with me."

Executive VP Sawyer stepped into my path.

Ronnie Sawyer had joined the company the same time I did—one of the original crew. He ran HR, and most days he came across as reasonable enough.

He shut the door behind us and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Was that really necessary?"

My head snapped up. I stared at him in disbelief.

"Necessary? Mr. Sawyer, my team is counting on that money to get through the holidays!"

"Milton's mother is eighty years old! She's always wanted to see the Capital, and he promised her—promised her—he'd take her once the bonus came through."

"Cordelia's mom needs surgery, and that money was supposed to cover it. And Caspar—"

"But the company isn't a charity. We follow the rules here. We can't just hand out extra bonuses because employees are having a hard time."

He brushed it off like it was nothing.

"Fine. Then let's not talk about hardship."

I pulled out a chair and sat down, my expression dead serious.

"Let's talk about contributions."

"Bonuses are supposed to be based on contributions. And according to the results, the Tech Department contributed nothing to this company this year."

I opened my email and pulled up every single request form from the Sales Department.

"This year, Sales brought in twenty new clients. That means twenty new software systems to support those accounts."

"If we'd outsourced that development, each system would've cost at least five hundred thousand dollars. That's ten million total—not counting ongoing maintenance."

"The Tech Department has fifteen people. Average monthly salary: six thousand. Total payroll for the year: one point zero eight million."

"On development alone, we saved the company at least eight point nine two million dollars. And that's not even counting the long-term value those systems generate." I stared him down. "You call that no contribution?"

VP Sawyer went quiet. After a long pause, he found another angle.

"No one said you didn't contribute. But your department's salaries are higher than other departments."

I let out a cold laugh.

"AI is the hottest field in tech right now. Other companies are offering fresh graduates four hundred thousand a year just to walk in the door."

"My team? Every one of them has solid credentials and real experience. And their annual salary is less than a fifth of what a new grad makes elsewhere." I leaned forward. "You call that high wages?"

I pulled up the attendance records.

"Fine. You're worried about internal harmony? Let's look at hourly rates."

"There were two hundred forty-eight official workdays in 2025. Our department averaged three hundred fifty days on-site. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, while everyone else was home with their families, we were rolling out a new system. We slept in the office."

"Out of those three hundred fifty days, the earliest anyone clocked out was eight p.m. The latest?" I paused. "There was no latest. We pulled all-nighters for a hundred of those days. Our actual logged hours hit five thousand nine hundred."

"At seventy-two thousand a year, that's twelve dollars an hour."

I let that sit for a moment, then spoke slowly, each word deliberate.

"Twelve dollars. In this city, bubble tea shops pay twenty-two."

"The company provides dinner and late-night meals when you work overtime. No one's mistreating you—"

"Dinner and a midnight snack. Less than ten bucks a person. Every single time, we had to dig into our own pockets just to not go hungry."

By then, I was barely holding it together.

Ronnie's expression turned cold.

"Claude, you can't just focus on your own contributions. You have to compare horizontally. Finance and Strategy contribute far more than your department."

I stood up and rolled my eyes so hard it hurt.

"What contributions? Blocking reimbursements?"

"Oh right—this year, our department submitted legitimate expense reports. Fifty thousand dollars' worth. The boss's niece, Vanessa Blake, the head of Finance, refused to approve a single one. No explanation. I guess that does save the company money."

"And Strategy?" I kept going. "The boss's distant relative who couldn't pass the college entrance exam, so he got shipped overseas for some worthless master's degree. Came back and landed the director title."

"Dylan Mercer. All year, his team's been busy filming vlogs and making us build mini-apps for their projects. Last month, they uploaded the wrong photo and cost us a major deal."

"That's contribution?"

The more I spoke, the angrier I got.

"And then there's your department. All you do is make PowerPoints and hand out fines. Missed a clock-in? Two hundred dollars. Messy desk? Two hundred. Didn't say hi to the boss? Three hundred."

I laughed—bitter and sharp.