Chapter 2Ten Years Invisible: My Last Day Revenge

Amber adapted quickly.

It’s almost ironic to say it like that.

Because "adapting" meant she learned how to perform for the bosses.

"Good morning, Mr. Evans!"

"Mr. Miller, have you had lunch yet?"

"Sarah, I love that dress on you!"

She was a sweet talker, all smiles and compliments, and always ready to run an errand. The complete opposite of me.

Her desk was next to mine. The first thing she did every morning was her makeup. Then she'd scroll through her phone, chat on social media, and browse online stores.

And her work?

"Lynn, how do you run this report? Can you show me?"

"Lynn, how do I log into this system? What's the password?"

"Lynn, this…"

Lynn, Lynn, Lynn. She said it so sweetly.

After training her for three days, I realized something.

She didn't know a thing.

I'm not exaggerating. She was genuinely clueless. A Master's from a top university who couldn't even write a clean SQL query.

"This wasn't my area of research," she'd said, completely unabashed. "My focus is on AI."

An AI specialist doing IT operations?

I didn't say anything. A job was a job. I'd teach her what she needed to know.

But there was one thing I didn't teach her.

The passwords.

The admin passwords to all forty-seven systems. I didn't give her a single one.

She asked once.

"Lynn, what are the admin passwords for all these systems? I should write them down."

"It's a lot to remember. Just use a standard user account for now."

"Oh, okay."

She never asked again.

And I never brought it up.

It wasn't that I was deliberately hiding them. It was that nobody cared. In ten years, no one besides me knew those passwords.

And no one had ever wanted to know.

When the systems are running smoothly, who cares who's maintaining them behind the scenes?

It's like air.

You breathe it, but you never thank it.

Not until the day it's gone.

A week later, Amber was handling simple issues on her own.

I overheard her chatting with a colleague in the breakroom.

"Honestly, I think the system architecture here is pretty clunky. If I had designed it, it would be much more efficient."

The colleague asked, "Didn't Lynn build that system?"

"Yeah, but you know how it is with long-term employees. Their tech gets a little outdated. I mean, everyone's using cloud-native and microservices now. Her whole setup is ancient."

I was standing right outside the door. I didn't make a sound.

Ancient.

Alright, then.

Let's see how well you handle something so "ancient."