He Called Me a Fool for Working Hard, Then Cried When the Fool Left Chapter 04

He Called Me a Fool for Working Hard, Then Cried When the Fool Left Chapter 04

Denise froze. She came over and looked at my screen.

Excel spreadsheet. Every invoice was listed with its details. A status column said “Clean” or “Flagged.”

For the six flagged ones, I’d written the specific issue in the notes.

Invalid invoice number. Date mismatch. Mismatched Tax ID.

Denise stared at the screen for a few seconds, then looked at me. “How did you do that?”

“Wrote a small script. It checks everything automatically.”

She didn’t say anything else. She pulled the six flagged invoices out of her stack and checked them by hand.

Every single one was a real problem.

After that day, Denise’s attitude toward me changed.

Not that she got warm overnight. But she started talking to me like I was actually worth talking to.

Before, there’d always been this tone in her voice. Like we weren’t on the same level.

That tone was gone.

Another week passed. I used the script to cut the data prep time from half a day to half an hour.

Denise didn’t say much. But that afternoon when she went to the break lounge for coffee, she brought me back a cup.

That afternoon, I went up to the fifteenth floor to drop off some documents.

On the way back, I pressed the button for the elevator. When the doors opened, two people were already inside.

Manager Harlow and Craig.

Craig saw me. He looked uncomfortable. His eyes darted to the side.

Marcus’s face stayed perfectly pleasant. He even smiled. “Elizabeth. Long time no see. How’s Finance treating you?”

I stepped inside and pressed five.

“It’s fine.”

“Good.” Marcus’s tone was casual. “That coding skill of yours. Not much use in Finance, is it?”

“You should drop by Engineering sometime. We’ve got small issues here and there. You could give us a hand.”

“Just like old times.”

The elevator hummed. Quiet.

I watched the floor numbers tick down from fifteen to fourteen. Then I said, “Manager Harlow, I’m in Finance. I have nothing to do with Engineering.”

“Just like those two million dollars. I didn’t see a cent of it.”

The elevator went quiet for a second.

Craig looked down at his shoes.

Marcus’s smile stayed exactly where it was. But his eyes changed.

He stared at me for a couple of seconds. His mouth was still smiling, but his voice went cold. “Elizabeth, what exactly are you trying to say?”

“Exactly what I said.” I looked at him. “I’m in Finance. Engineering’s problems aren’t mine.”

“You—”

The floor numbers ticked down to eight.

Marcus’s face slowly fell. The smile peeled away like cheap wallpaper.

“Elizabeth, I’m a department manager. I’m being nice to you. Don’t push it.”

I didn’t respond.

“Fresh out of college. Writes a little code and suddenly you think you run the place?”

His voice wasn’t loud, but every word had an edge.

“Let me tell you something. In this company, who do you think you are?”

“You’re nothing.”

“I’ve been here fifteen years. And you, some college kid, want to get smart with me?”

“Who gave you that confidence?”

The floor numbers ticked down to five.

Craig tugged his sleeve. “Marcus. Let it go.”

Marcus shook him off. He kept staring at me.

“Doesn’t know her place.”

“Just wait. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

The doors opened.

Without looking at him, I walked out.

I was two steps down the hall when his phone rang.

He answered, still angry. “What?”

Then his voice changed.

“What did you say? Say that again?”

“The client says the whole system is falling apart? The control logic is completely broken? The production line has been down for an hour and they’ve already lost over a million dollars?”

Marcus’s voice was shaking.

Craig froze. “How? They signed off on everything.”

“They said yesterday the system started acting up. This morning all the data went completely haywire. The whole production line is shut down.”

“And the client already called the boss.”

I pushed open the door to Finance and walked in.

Behind me, I heard Marcus yelling. “Get everyone back here. Now.”

I didn’t look back, just smiled.

I wrote the core algorithm for that system.

No one understood it better than I did.

And no one else could fix it.