Accused Of Overworking Staff, I Took Back All Rights

Chapter 4

The next morning, I got a call from Rebecca Hayes, the brand lead at our biggest client.

"Vivian, what on earth is going on with your team?" Her voice was calm, but it carried more weight than if she'd been yelling.

I said, "There's a lot of misinformation floating around on social media. We're handling it."

"I don't care who's right or wrong online," Rebecca said coldly. "I only care about two things. First, whether the deliverable your team is sending me this week is going to be affected. Second, whether I can still trust a team that can't even keep its own house in order to run our national campaign next quarter."

She paused, her voice dropping lower. "If you can't prove your team's still functioning normally by tonight, I'll recommend we put next quarter's bid evaluation on hold. If we have to, we'll hand this entire account over to another agency. And if today's presentation gets derailed, too, we'll also review whether to trigger the breach of contract clause."

After she hung up, I stood by the window and didn't move.

This wasn't just about me being misunderstood anymore.

My whole team was gambling the company's business reputation, all to prop up some performative display of victimhood.

I walked back to my desk and hit the intercom. "Emily."

"I'm here."

I said, "Tell the entire creative team there's a meeting in the main conference room tomorrow at 9 a.m. No exceptions."

Emily hesitated for a second. "Is this to address the online backlash?"

"No," I said. "This is about changing our policies."

That afternoon, I sat through a three-hour meeting with HR, operations, and legal.

I went through every unwritten leniency and favor I'd extended over the past five years one by one and demanded they all be formalized into official rules covering:

-fixed on-site arrival and fixed departure times,

-a formal approval process for remote work,

-guidelines for after-hours and weekend work messages,

-official tracking for tardiness and early departures,

-mandatory project workflow checkpoints in the system, -penalties for unapproved meeting absences,

-non-recognition of overtime without prior approval,

-full employee accountability for delays stemming from personal reasons.

The HR director looked over the list and asked me, "Are you positive you want to roll all of this back at once?"

I nodded. "Positive."

He frowned. "This is going to cause a huge backlash."

"Bigger than what we're dealing with right now?" I asked.

No one said another word.

After the meeting, I walked past the break room and heard Jason laughing inside. "Of course, she's gonna apologize. There's no way the company can ignore this when it's blown up this big. Madison's totally made a name for herself with this. This kind of stuff works so well now, crying, sounding off, building a whole persona. Way more effective than just grinding away at your job. Either way, she'll always clean up the mess for us in the end."

I stood at the end of the hallway, didn't go in, and didn't make a sound.

I just thought about how much I'd spoiled them over the years, so much that they actually believed I'd never take it all away.

Thirty minutes later, I revised the last line of the meeting notice.

Vivian: Anyone who fails to attend without a valid excuse will be deemed to have voluntarily waived their right to follow-up appeals.

They all probably thought I'd show up tomorrow, apologize, explain myself, and give them an easy way out.

At 8:55 the next morning, I pushed open the door to the main conference room. It was almost completely full.

Madison sat in the front row, her phone lay flat next to her notebook.

Jason sat a few seats back and to her side, looking relaxed, like he already knew how this would go.

Every eye in the room was on me.

They were waiting for me to back down, waiting for me to explain, waiting for me to frame this whole mess as some kind, thoughtful discussion about boundaries and team growth.

The first thing I said was, "First off, I owe all of you an apology."

Almost instantly, I saw shoulders relax all across the room.

A flicker of triumph crossed Madison's face.

Jason leaned back in his chair.

A few people in the back row even started typing quietly on their phones.