The employees didn't look concerned at all. Instead, they just looked like they were eagerly watching and waiting for more drama to unfold.

I watched as Lilian continued making a loud fuss in front of me, then I looked at the other employees watching us and giving her their silent permission to do so.

Suddenly, I felt a wave of disappointment engulf me.

I thought that Lilian would be done once she finished throwing a fit in my office. However, I soon realized that I had severely underestimated her.

The next afternoon, I saw an intern, Amber Nolan, who had only just joined us not too long ago, taking a few photos and videos of the lunch that was served that day.

Lilian was right next to her, pointing at the food and saying, "That's right, that angle is perfect. Make sure you catch all the grease floating on it. And zoom in on the fatty deposits still on the chicken. Yes, perfect."

Amber listened to everything she said and filmed the video as told.

I frowned and walked up to her. I asked, "What are you filming?"

Amber got a huge fright and hurriedly hid her phone behind her.

Lilian, on the other hand, faced me with a calm expression and said, "She's just filming her lunch for fun, Ms. Summers. She's vlogging about her life."

I looked at her for a bit and said nothing more. Still, my gut told me that there was more to what met the eye.

As I expected, a video suddenly went viral that very night. The caption read, "Heartless boss feeds employees pig feed and gaslights them afterward."

The video thumbnail was Lilian's "honest and straightforward" face.

Meanwhile, the video showed all the food that the hotel had prepared for lunch this morning. The video used a special filter and was filmed at an angle that showed all the greasiest spots in the food.

They even recorded my conversation with them earlier when I patiently explained things to them and purposely distorted and edited my voice so that I sounded prude and snobbish.

"I'm only doing this because…the food is of higher quality…don't have to fuss…"

My voice sounded harsh and hypocritical after their edits. The video then cut to Lilian's upset face afterward. She said, "We just wanted to be a little savvy and bring our own food from home, so we suggested a meal allowance plan instead…

"But instead, the boss accused us of being ungrateful and of biting the hand that fed us. We're all just lowly employees here, so of course we'd never dare to refute her words! The only thing we can do now is to grin and bear with all this disgusting pig feed every day at lunch."

The video then ended with a few screenshots of the lunch chat group, all showing the employees' complaints and dissatisfaction about the food provided to them.

The comments exploded with feedback from the netizens.

"This boss is so disgusting! How much more fake could she be?"

"Did she say the food was worth 100 dollars? Haha! I bet it's not worth more than 10 bucks!"

"Unionize and fight for your rights! Expose disgusting companies like these!"

In a short while, our company name, address, and even my photos were doxxed and posted in the comments for everyone to see.

The company phone was immediately spammed with hostile spam calls, and everyone wouldn't stop cursing and dragging us further into the mud.

Some of our ongoing business partners even sent me text messages, inadvertently questioning me about the controversy.

I was so mad that I couldn't stop shaking with fury.

I quickly got Mandy to prepare a copy of our contract with the hotel and our monthly billed receipts so that we could make a proper statement on our official website and social media channels to refute the accusations.

While busy with the PR work, my phone suddenly buzzed with a text message from Dustin Jagger, my co-founder.

He was my college friend, and we had gone through plenty of hardships together before finally bringing the company to where it was now.

I thought that Dustin was here to comfort me.

When I tapped into his message, however, I was shocked.

"Rach, I saw the video, and the people are going crazy commenting about it.

"Don't you think we should just do as they say? It's not going to look good for the company's finances if this controversy keeps snowballing."

I stared at the text message for at least a whole minute.

This made me feel even more upset than the hundreds and thousands of malicious comments on the internet about me.

Dustin was someone I trusted the most. We had made a pact to build the best and the biggest gaming company many years ago.

But now, he was asking me to compromise and cave in to the company's ingrates who were demanding a few additional dollars.

I didn't reply to him.

For some reason, I tapped into the viral video again and refreshed the comments.

At once, the most popular comment appeared before my eyes. It said, "I'm with the employees, and the boss must apologize! She's just a capitalist, and she should never be this arrogant!"

I took a closer look at the people who liked this comment, and I immediately saw a very familiar profile picture in the list.

It was Dustin.

He had used his personal profile to like this comment under the viral video.

I didn't sleep that night.

When the night sky turned dusty gray, and a ray of sunshine finally cracked through the skies, I had finally thought everything through.

The Rachel Summers who had dreamed of building a company that felt like home and treated everyone like family had been too naive and stupid.

Families would never betray each other like this.

I took out my phone and sent Dustin a text message.

"You're right. I was wrong."

Dustin replied at once.

"It's good that you've thought things through. I'm only saying this for the company's sake. So, what are you planning to do now? Make a public apology? Then, give out the meal allowance?"

I read his response and replied with only two words.

"Company meeting."

…

At 9:00 am, I informed all of my employees to attend an urgent meeting.

Lilian and the group of young employees who started this filed into the conference room and sat in the first row of seats with a smug look on their faces.

They whispered among each other with victorious smiles on their lips.

When I walked into the conference room, the entire place immediately quieted down. Everyone's eyes were on me. Some of them looked at me empathically, some gleefully, and some eagerly, like they were watching a soap opera.

I went up to the front podium and lowered my head in apology.

"I apologize."

Everyone immediately began to murmur.

Lilian's mouth broke into an even wider smile. Amber, who was seated next to her, had even taken out her phone to record this "historic" moment.

"I have acted arbitrarily over the past few years and ignored everyone's needs. I have been denying you the freedom of choice for your meals. I have reflected on my mistakes, and I admit that I was wrong."

The murmurs only got louder.

Someone had already whipped out their calculator to estimate how much extra money they would be receiving if they got an extra 60 dollars per day for their meal allowance.

I looked at the gleeful, greedy expressions on my employees' faces and continued, "As proof of my sincerity, and to respond to everyone's demands, I have decided to go with the public opinion and make some changes to the rules."

After pausing for a moment, I made my first announcement.

"Firstly, the free lunch buffet program that has been ongoing for the past two years is now cancelled, effective immediately."

The entire conference room erupted in wildly excited cheers. Lilian was exceptionally ecstatic, clapping louder than the rest.

I raised my hands and asked them to quiet down. Then, I made my next announcement.

"Moving forward, the lunch system will be changed to a reimbursement system. The company respects the wishes of the employees who want free will, and so, you will be free to choose whatever you want to have for lunch."

There was another round of loud applause from the employees.

I looked at their expectant gazes and said, "Everybody will be entitled to claim a maximum of 20 dollars a day."

The cheers and applause stopped at once. Their joyful expressions immediately froze on their faces.

Lilian's expression immediately fell. Her jaw dropped to the floor at my words.

I ignored all of their responses and continued with the third rule I was putting into place.

"Thirdly, all reimbursements require an official receipt from a food establishment. The receipts must bear the restaurant's full name, and the item purchased must be a food item or a meal expense. Handwritten receipts will not be accepted," I said.

"On the 25th of every month, the receipts for that month will be submitted to the admin department. The receipts must be approved by the admin department, the finance department, and finally, me.

"Once all reimbursements have been approved, the total amount will be paid out along with the following month's salary."

After my mini-speech, the entire conference room was dead silent.

Every employee who had been ecstatically rejoicing earlier was now staring at me in horror and disbelief.

I looked at their amusing facial expressions and felt nothing.

After the meeting was over, Dustin was the first person to rush into my office.

"You're crazy, Rachel Summers!" Dustin exclaimed. His eyes were red with anger as he pointed a finger in my face. "20 dollars per day? Do you know that the burger set meal downstairs costs more than that? You're doing this on purpose as revenge!"

I said nothing. Instead, I connected my phone screen to the display behind me and showed him a screenshot of the comment under the video I had taken earlier last night. Dustin's name and profile picture revealed that he was in the list of people who had liked it, and it was as clear as day.

"Weren't you the one who wanted me to go along with the public opinion?" I said. "That's exactly what I'm doing now. You also said that it wouldn't be good for the company if this got out of hand and affected the company's finances. You told me to do something about it.

"With the system now like this, I'm helping the company save millions of dollars in expenses every year. I'm sure that our investors would be very happy with this decision."

Dustin's face went pale almost immediately.

He looked at the screenshot of his like on the comment. His eyes flashed, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

In the end, he walked out of my office like a deflated balloon.

On the first day of the new system's implementation, something hilarious happened during lunchtime.

Every fast food restaurant below our company was filled to the brim with my employees. They pointed at the menu hanging over their heads, and they quickly calculated the best way to get their money's worth.

Alas, the cheapest burrito there cost them 25 dollars after tax and tips.

Some of them tried their best to stay below the 20-dollar threshold and bought a plain ham sandwich from a sandwich place instead, not even daring to get the one with extra cheese. Some others ended up not eating at all during lunch, opting to just drink plain water to suppress their hunger.

Meanwhile, Lilian's wishful thinking got her nowhere.

She thought of bringing her own food from home to save money, but if she brought her own food, then she wouldn't have an official receipt. And if she didn't have an official receipt, then it meant she wasn't getting a single penny from the lunch reimbursement plans.

I watched from the surveillance cameras in the washroom and saw how Lilian threw her mop to the floor in anger.

The other young employees who used to be in great favor of her pushing for the change now turned on her instead, blaming her for everything.

"It's all your fault, Lilian! Look at us now! We've lost not just the 100-dollar hotel-quality lunch spread—we can't even afford the 25-dollar burrito next door anymore!"

"Exactly! I just had a single bun for lunch! I'm so hungry I'm gonna die from hunger."

"I'll never listen to you again!"

Lilian was verbally attacked left and right, and her face immediately turned beet red. She couldn't even find the words to defend herself anymore.

Several people got ahead of themselves and thought of faking their receipts instead. However, when they brought the doctored receipts to the finance department, the experienced finance officers saw through their ploy at once.

Later that day, an email with the topic "Notice of Condemnation Regarding the Forgery of Reimbursement Receipts" was sent out to everyone at the company, and the employees who were caught faking their receipts had their names all bolded in the email.

Soon, the tide began to turn on our company's anonymous forum.

"This is the first time I'm actually missing the hotel lunches we used to have. I miss it so much."

"I was wrong! I won't complain about the five-cheese lasagna being too greasy anymore! Please come back!"

"What am I supposed to eat in the city center with only 20 dollars a day? Fresh air and sunshine?"