The Manager Regrets Firing Me

I had been managing the company’s warehouse software for five years.

Then the new manager came to me out of the blue, saying I didn’t understand frontline operations and that I was being fired.

Looking at the five-thousand-dollar severance, I just nodded.

“Fine.”

He patted my shoulder after seeing me so compliant and started lecturing.

“Young people should be out on the line, moving boxes! What’s the use of sitting in the office staring at data every day?

“We’re a logistics company. Strength is what matters, not a tech geek like you!”

I glanced at the high-end gaming computer in his office and obediently replied, “Yes, Mr. Fuller. Lesson received.”

Maybe I had been too comfortable these past few years, and he thought I was dispensable.

So, I handed over my ID badge and casually deleted all my personal login keys from my computer.

Little did he know that the entire warehouse logistics, inventory management, and route planning software had been coded by me.

I had let the company use it for free simply because the place was close to home and the work was easy.

Now that I was gone, the system running on my personal cloud server was naturally inaccessible.

Tens of thousands of items in the warehouse ground to a halt. As for any commercial software that could replace my system, a year’s subscription would cost exactly one thousand times my severance.

I packed up my things, everything fitting into a single cardboard box.

As I passed the warehouse, an old employee stopped me. It was Mark Grant.

“Sam, you’re really leaving just like that?”

“Can’t help it, Mark. Management told me to go.”

Mark’s expression hardened. The next second, he stormed straight into the manager’s office.

“Henry! What right do you have to fire Sam?”

Henry Fuller answered with obvious impatience. “Company personnel changes need your approval now?”

“I may not have the authority, but that still makes you an idiot.” Mark pointed right at Henry and shot back.

“Last year, during the major sales surge, the warehouse was completely backed up. Hundreds of thousands of packages were stuck. Who fixed it?

“It was Sam! He stayed up three nights straight and built the scheduling system that saved the entire company!

“And now you fire him? What are you going to use to dispatch orders? Your mouth?”

Henry’s face flushed dark red, a mix of embarrassment and fury.

“You old fool, what do you know?” he roared.

“This company needs people who actually do work, not useless trash hiding in offices!

“Say one more word, and you can pack up and leave early, too!”

Mark laughed, anger written all over his face.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his employee badge, and slammed it onto Henry’s desk.

“Fine. I quit!”

Then he pointed at the document on the desk and spoke slowly, one word at a time.

“Henry, let me tell you something. What you signed today isn’t a termination notice.

“It’s this company’s death sentence!”

With that, Mark turned around and walked out, not sparing Henry another glance.

A wave of guilt hit me, and I hurried after him.

“Mark, don’t do this because of me—”

“It wasn’t just for you,” he said, waving his hand. “For myself as well.”

He let out a long sigh.

“With idiots like that running things, sooner or later, this company will be finished.”

However, I still felt uneasy and stopped him.

“Mark, I don’t really have anything to make this up to you.

“I’ll analyze a few tech stocks for you as a small gesture.”

Mark froze. “You understand stocks?”

I didn’t answer and took out my phone.

The screen instantly filled with dense candlestick charts and data models.

My fingers moved quickly as lines of code and analysis graphs flashed past.

“These three. Their core technology has broken through. In the next six months, they’ll at least double.”

Mark leaned in for a closer look. His eyes widened at once.

He couldn’t understand any of the data or its curves, but he could tell this wasn’t something an ordinary programmer could produce.

He looked at me, shock plain in his eyes.

“Sam… who are you, really?”

…

I had just gotten home and hadn’t even settled down when my phone rang.

It was Henry.

“Sam! What did you do to the company’s system?” he roared on the other end of the line.

“Why did the entire warehouse system collapse?!”

I put the phone on speaker, tossed it onto the table, and calmly poured myself a glass of water.

“Mr. Fuller, that system was my personal project.

“It’s been running on my private cloud server this whole time.”