My Holiday Bonus Was a $5 Million IOU! I Quit and Their Company Collapsed novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Hattie's Garage

Hattie's garage held a station wagon, a space heater and thirty-one folding chairs.

By seven o'clock on Saturday every chair had somebody in it.

They had come from the ninth floor with their coffee mugs and their cardigans, the editors and the accountants, the woman from the mail room and the two security guards.

Nobody was sure why they'd come.

Hattie stood on an upturned crate by the water heater with her reading glasses pushed up into her bun.

"Quiet," she said, and thirty-one people went quiet.

"Everyone here walked out on Thursday. Everyone here was owed a January bonus that no longer exists. And everyone here has a mortgage or a landlord who doesn't care about either."

A man near the front laughed, and then stopped.

"I called this," Hattie said. "But Mara has something to say, so I'm giving her my crate."

She stepped down, and I stepped up.

My knees were not entirely steady.

I had spent eight years standing in the corner of that office with a paper plate, and now every one of them was looking at me.

"I'm not your boss," I said. "I'm not anybody's boss. I make soup on the internet."

Somebody in the back said, "Best soup on the internet," and a few people clapped.

"Strandberg Home signed with me on Thursday. The first payment lands Monday. Constance promised you January bonuses, and she can't pay them." I took a breath. "I can."

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