He Humiliated the “IT Girl” and Fired Her on the Spot—Then the Building Manager Stepped In and Whispered One Sentence That Made the Entire Floor Go Silent
The sound of a snapping finger is unmistakable. It isn’t loud, exactly, but it cuts. Sharp, dry, deliberate. A sound meant to slice through whatever space it enters and announce dominance without bothering with manners. In an office like this—glass walls, exposed beams, polished concrete floors that amplified every footstep—it carried even more weight. It echoed across the thirty-seventh floor like a challenge thrown down in public.
When it happened three inches from my ear, it wasn’t just noise. It was intent.
“Hey. IT girl.”
The words came lazy, coated in confidence, spoken by someone who had never once questioned whether the world would comply. I didn’t look up. Not immediately. I was in the middle of something that actually mattered, and years ago I learned that entitlement grows stronger when it’s rewarded with instant attention.
In front of me, spread neatly across the table, was a schematic detailing the Phase 3 fiber-optic routing for the building. A dense web of lines, annotations, airflow calculations, and redundancy notes. My finger traced the intersection where the backup cooling loop fed into the primary server annex, following the path with the same focus a surgeon gives an artery. This wasn’t abstract theory or “internet stuff,” as people liked to call it. This was the building’s nervous system. Power, data, airflow, fail-safes. Every piece balanced so that nothing overheated, nothing collapsed, nothing failed under pressure.
I had designed it that way. Negotiated it that way. Secured it that way three years earlier, when the tower’s ownership changed hands and everyone suddenly realized how fragile their sleek glass palace really was.
The snapping came again, faster this time. Impatient. Like a metronome operated by someone who had never been told to wait.
“I know you can hear me,” the voice said, amused, almost playful.
Of course I could hear him. The open-plan office was designed to look expensive and transparent, but it behaved like an echo chamber. Sound traveled. Attention traveled. Judgment traveled even faster.
I turned my chair slowly. Not because I was intimidated, but because moments like this deserved to be fully witnessed. If someone wanted to interrupt me in the middle of reviewing infrastructure specs, they could at least have the discomfort of being seen clearly while they did it.
It was Jared.
Of course it was.
Jared was twenty-six and dressed like confidence came prepackaged. A fleece vest that probably cost more than my first car, worn over a crisp shirt with the sleeves rolled just enough to signal effort without commitment. His hair had that carefully careless style that required mirrors, product, and time. His title—Director of Visionary Ops—floated somewhere between meaningless and inherited, a job that existed because his father needed him visible, occupied, and important-looking.
Behind him, inside the glass-walled conference room, his team hovered like a tableau. Five men in identical vests, all staring at a frozen Zoom screen as if the technology had personally betrayed them. Their posture screamed urgency. Their faces were tight with the kind of stress that comes from high stakes and low understanding.
“The Wi-Fi,” Jared said, sweeping his arm toward the conference room like a magician revealing a trick gone wrong. “It’s lagging. We’re pitching the Series B guys in three minutes. Fix it.”
I inhaled slowly through my nose and let the breath out just as deliberately. The kind of breath you take when you’re determined to keep the rational part of your brain in charge. I was a forty-five-year-old woman in a tailored blazer. No lanyard. No walkie-talkie. No branded polo. I was sitting at the table because the lighting was better for reading blueprints, not because I was waiting to reboot someone’s router.
“I’m not IT, Jared,” I said calmly. “I’m reviewing infrastructure specs. If you’re having latency issues, submit a ticket through the portal.”
He laughed. Not kindly. Not quietly. It was a harsh, barking sound that carried across the floor and made two nearby employees glance up from their screens.
“Excuse me?” he said, as if the word itself offended him. “I don’t submit tickets. I tell people to do their jobs.”
He pointed at my laptop like it proved something. “You’re sitting here with a computer, aren’t you? Fix the router. Reboot the whatever. Just make the internet work.”
I turned back to the schematic, refusing to rush my movements. “I’m busy,” I said. “And I don’t have admin access to your local VLAN.”
That was the moment everything tipped.
Because Jared wasn’t actually asking for help. He was asking for submission. And nothing rattles men like him faster than hearing language they don’t understand, especially when it reminds them they’re not in control.
His hand slammed down on the table. Hard. My coffee cup rattled, liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. The crack of the impact rippled through the floor, and the entire office reacted as one organism sensing danger. Phones paused mid-scroll. Fingers froze above keyboards. Even the guy at the espresso machine stopped pumping syrup, his hand suspended in midair.
Jared’s face flushed, anger rising fast, ugly and unchecked. He’d been challenged. Worse—he’d been challenged in front of witnesses.
“You know what?” he shouted, voice echoing off glass and steel. “I am sick of the attitude from the support staff in this building.”
He gestured broadly, indicting an entire workforce with one sweep of his arm. “My father pays a fortune for this lease, and I can’t even get a stable connection.”
His eyes locked onto mine, and his mouth twisted with satisfaction. “You’re useless,” he said, savoring the word. “Actually useless.”
Then he pointed toward the door like he was banishing a servant from a throne room. “Get out. You’re fired.”
The word fired hovered in the air, absurd in its certainty.
“I don’t want to see you on this floor again,” he continued. “HR will send your final check. Go.”
For a brief moment, I didn’t move. Not because I was afraid, but because I was fascinated. Genuinely fascinated. Watching someone declare authority they didn’t possess was like watching a child bang a gavel and call court to order.
The office was silent. Not even performative typing. Just the collective discomfort of people who knew something had gone wrong and were hoping it wasn’t their responsibility to fix it.
“You’re firing me?” I asked evenly.
“I’m firing you,” Jared snapped. “Now get out.”
I stood.
I didn’t argue. I didn’t explain that I wasn’t employed by NextGen Synergies. I didn’t mention that the woman he’d just dismissed held the keys—literal and contractual—to the building’s infrastructure. I closed my laptop, capped my pen, and picked up my leather folio. The unsigned renewal addendum remained on the table, centered and forgotten, a quiet liability no one was looking at anymore.
“Understood,” I said softly. “Good luck with the Series B pitch.”
Then I walked out.
I felt eyes on my back as I crossed the floor, but I didn’t rush. Rushing would have implied panic, and panic was exactly what Jared wanted to believe he’d caused. At the elevator, I pressed the button and waited. Skyline Tower prided itself on its elevators—fast, silent, meticulously maintained. I knew that because I signed the invoices.
As the doors closed, I caught one last glimpse of Jared high-fiving one of his vest-clad colleagues, smug and satisfied, convinced he’d asserted dominance.
He hadn’t.
He’d severed an artery.
The ride down was smooth, quiet. When the doors opened in the lobby, cool air washed over me, carrying the scent of polished stone and expensive perfume. I nodded to Larry, the security chief, who barely glanced up from his monitors.
“Everything good on thirty-seven?” he asked.
“Not anymore,” I said.
Ten minutes later, Marcus—the building manager—stepped off the service elevator on the thirty-seventh floor with a notary stamp in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. He entered the glass conference room smiling, ready to celebrate.
Until he saw the unsigned contract.
“Where is she?” Marcus asked, confusion creeping in. “We’ve got ink to dry.”
Jared waved him off casually. “Oh, her? Fired her.”
The room stopped breathing.
Marcus’s smile collapsed. His voice dropped to a whisper, thick with dread. “Jared… Tess isn’t IT.”
Jared scoffed. “Whatever.”
Marcus swallowed hard, eyes darting around the room. “Tess is the landlord.”
“She owns the rights to…”
CHECK IT OUT>>FULL STORY👇👇
He Snapped at the “IT Girl” and Fired Her in Front of Everyone—Then the Building Manager Walked In and Whispered the Words That Froze the Entire 37th Floor
The sound of a finger snap is one of those things you feel as much as hear.
Sharp. Small. Rude.
It’s the kind of sound that slices right through the low murmur of phones chirping, keycaps clacking, and corporate jargon bouncing off glass walls. It doesn’t request attention; it takes it.
“Hey. IT girl.”
He did it again. Snap. Right next to my ear this time.
I didn’t look at him immediately.
Partly because I was mid-sentence in an email, partly because I’ve been in commercial infrastructure long enough to know: the people who snap their fingers at other adults only get worse when you reward them with instant obedience.
Instead, I finished the line about Phase 3 load balancing and hit send.
Then I turned.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The man looming over my shoulder was exactly who I expected to see.
Jared Vance.
Twenty-six. Family money. Fleece vest with the logo of his own company embroidered over his heart, as if he needed to wear his privilege like a name tag. Dark hair styled in that careful “I woke up like this” way. White trainers too clean to have ever visited a construction site.
Behind him, through the glass wall, I could see his team in the conference room: four other guys in nearly identical vests, a huge screen frozen mid-pixel on a video call, a ring light still glowing from whatever pitch they were trying to salvage.
Jared leaned on the table, letting his palm slap against the polished wood.
“The Wi-Fi is lagging,” he announced, enunciating like he thought I might not speak his language. “We’re about to present to investors in three minutes. Fix it.”
I’m forty-five. I wear blazers with real internal pockets. I have a leather notebook on the table, blueprints spread out in front of me, and a badge clipped to my waistband that doesn’t say IT.
It says: Skyline Infrastructure Holdings.
But men like Jared don’t read badges. They read convenience.
“I’m not IT,” I said calmly. “If you’re having network issues, submit a ticket through the portal. I’m in the middle of reviewing your cooling—”
He laughed.
It was a loud, careless sound that made two heads pop up in the open-plan area beyond us.
“Okay, but you’re… sitting at a laptop,” he said, gesturing at my machine like that proved something. “And you’re in this building all the time with those little blueprints. You’re the building tech person.” He snapped again, like that clarified things. “Just reboot the router or whatever. We pay a fortune to be here. Make it work.”
He had cologne on. Something expensive and sharp that made my eyes sting.
I took a steady breath.
“Jared,” I said. “I’m the infrastructure contractor for the building. Not your personal support line. I don’t have admin access on your VLAN. If you log a ticket—”
He hit the table harder this time.
The sound cracked across the 37th floor like a gunshot.
Conversations died mid-sentence. A barista at the fancy espresso machine stopped mid-pump. Someone’s laugh cut off like it had been snipped.
“I am sick,” Jared said loudly, “of the attitude from the support staff in this building.”
He made a vague sweeping gesture in my direction.
“We are a high-growth startup. I shouldn’t have to beg some IT girl to do her job when I have investors waiting. You know what? You’re useless.” He pointed at the door. “You’re fired. Get out.”
The room held its breath.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Jared stood there, flushed with righteous anger, waiting for me to crumple or protest or cry, anything that would prove his words had landed the way he intended.
I didn’t.
If anything, his tantrum crystallized a decision that had been forming quietly in the back of my head ever since he moved in three years ago with his vest army and his “move fast and break things” energy.
Breaking things was about to become very literal.
“You’re firing me,” I repeated, so there’d be no confusion later.
He folded his arms. “That’s right. This is my floor. I don’t want to see you up here again. HR will send your final check or whatever.”
I closed my laptop gently.
“He doesn’t actually have the authority to fire you, right?” the tiny, prudent voice in my brain whispered.
But his authority or lack thereof wasn’t actually the point. He’d handed me something far more valuable than a legal technicality.
He’d given me a reason.
“I understand,” I said.
I slid my notebook into my bag, stacked the printed schematics into a neat pile, and left them right in the center of the conference table.
Unsigned renewal contract on top.
“Good luck with your pitch,” I added, because I am, at heart, a generous woman.
His jaw clenched.
I picked up my bag and walked out.
Not fast. Not stormy. Just… gone.
In my peripheral vision, I could see people studiously pretending not to watch. A developer stared straight at his code while his hand hovered over the mouse, unmoving. Sarah from HR had her eyes locked on her keyboard, fingers limp.
No one said a word.
The elevator chimed with a soft, expensive sound when I pressed the call button. The doors slid open, revealing stainless steel and a faint wood polish smell. I stepped inside, pressed 4, and watched the doors close on Jared’s triumphant smirk.
It would be one of the last times he smiled in this building.
The ride down was smooth. Skyline Tower prides itself on its elevators. They’re as much part of the brand as the glass facade and the expensive lobby art.
I know because I have signed every service invoice for the last seven years.
When the doors opened onto the lobby, Larry, the head of security, glanced over from his wall of monitors.
“Afternoon, Ms. Morrison,” he said.
“Afternoon, Larry,” I replied.
“Everything quiet upstairs?” he asked.
I thought of Jared’s red face, the stunned silence, the word fired hanging in the air like static.
“Not for long,” I said, and walked toward the revolving doors.
Outside, the Denver sun hit my face, bright and a little too hot for spring. Cars moved along the one-way street at their usual steady pace. People in suits rushed by with their phones pressed to their ears.
Nothing in the outside world had shifted yet.
But inside Skyline, the 37th floor had just pulled the pin out of its own grenade.
I crossed the street to the coffee shop where I’d been intending to get a refill before Jared had detonated his ego. The barista, Chris, greeted me with his usual grin.
“The usual, Tess?” he asked, already reaching for a cup.
“Make it a double,” I said.
When people ask what I do, their eyes usually glaze over somewhere between “commercial long-term infrastructure consultant” and “administrative rights to technological amenities.”
So I started telling them: I’m the nervous system landlord.
The building is a body. The tenants think they’re the brain, that their logos and glass offices are the important part. But without nerves, the brain doesn’t get signals. Without a spine, it collapses.
I own the spine.
Cool air, power, fiber.
The trifecta.
On paper, Skyline Tower is owned by a real estate investment trust. But about a decade ago, when the city started incentivizing tech retrofits for old buildings, the REIT carved out the infrastructure as a separate entity for liability reasons.
That entity is mine.
I designed it. I negotiated the agreements. I spent nights reading through the building’s original blueprints from the 1970s and days arguing with utility companies until we had enough redundancy that a squirrel frying itself on a line in Aurora wouldn’t take down the 30th floor’s trading desk.
I know exactly how this tower breathes.
So when someone like Jared snaps his fingers at me in my own building and calls me “IT girl”?
That’s not just rude.
It’s stupid.
My phone buzzed on the table just as Chris handed me my espresso.
Text from Marcus: Please tell me he didn’t actually just fire you.
I typed: He did. In front of everyone.
The little dots appeared, then disappeared. Then: You walking out?
Already gone, I replied.
Oh God, Marcus wrote. He has no idea.
I put my phone face-down and savored the first sip of coffee.
People think revenge is an impulse thing. It’s not. Not real revenge.
Real revenge is infrastructure.
It’s knowing exactly which valve to close, which line to deprioritize, which clause in a forty-page lease holds the weight of a guillotine.
I finished my espresso, left a good tip, and walked back across the street.
Not to the 37th floor.
To the fourth.
Where the real power lives.
The door to my office is a plain gray metal slab with a keycard reader. No frosted glass. No logo. Just a plaque that says: Mechanical / Authorized Personnel Only.
I pressed my card to the reader. The light turned green.
The cool smells hit me as soon as I opened the door: metal, dust, a faint tang of electrical ozone. The hum of engines and fans vibrated in my bones.
My kingdom.
Inside, the space is bigger than most of the tenant suites: rows of racks, blinking lights, industrial chillers, a wall of monitors showing everything from elevator movement to coolant temperatures to network traffic.
I sat at my desk, opened the NextGen Synergies binder, and flipped to the tab marked “Amenities.”
Their base lease gave them four walls, a ceiling, basic HVAC, water, and waste lines. The flashy stuff—the dedicated fiber conduit, the extra chilled water loop for their server room, the biometric access control, the “smart glass” that turned opaque at the touch of a button—those were all under separate agreements.
Agreements that were up for renewal. Agreements that were not yet signed.
Agreements that Jared had just, very publicly, “terminated.”
Section 4.3c: “Landlord reserves the right to revoke access to any and all non-base building technological amenities at any time upon tenant’s breach of decorum, failure to comply with building policies, or termination of service negotiations.”
Breach of decorum.
It sounds like a Victorian rule about teacups.
Legally, it covers finger-snapping and public firing of contractors.
I logged into the management console.
Root access.
Every building has a nervous system. Skyline’s was a series of cascading menus and diagrams.
Tenant 3700: NextGen Synergies.
Their dashboard listed everything they were currently tied into.
– Fiber Allocation: 10 Gbps dedicated, prioritized.
– HVAC Override: Additional 15 tons cooling.
– Elevator Priority: VIP group A.
– Biometric Access: Enabled.
– Smart Glass: Enabled.
I clicked the first item.
Bandwith: 10 Gbps.
I changed it to 0.
The system blinked a warning. “Are you sure? Tenant 3700 has active sessions.”
I clicked “Yes.”
Immediately, a graph on the adjacent screen started to drop. Their data stream dipped, stuttered, rerouted through the base building line. That line was a shared 500 Mbps pipe meant for “standard office use”—email, web browsing, not twenty simultaneous HD investor calls and a cluster of hungry developers pulling gigabyte repositories from the cloud.
Next, HVAC override.
Their server room sat in the southeast corner, a glass fishbowl full of blinking lights and expensive hardware. Without the extra chilled water loop I provided, it would rely on the same air that kept the accountants on the 12th floor from sweating.
I toggled their override from “Enabled” to “Disabled.”
In the schematic, a little blue line feeding their rack room changed to gray.
Sensors started logging: 73°F, 74°F, 75°F.
I didn’t want anyone’s equipment to literally melt, so I set an automated shutoff: if the temperature hit 85°F, their racks would perform an emergency shutdown to protect themselves.
Then I moved to the “Elevator Priority” tab.
On a regular day, when someone from NextGen swiped their badge in the lobby, at least one elevator would always be reserved just for them. It meant they rarely waited longer than thirty seconds.
I moved their cards from “Priority Group A” to “General.”
They’d now wait in line with everyone else.
Small? Petty?
Sure.
But people used to a life with no friction notice it when the world stops parting for them.
Biometric access was next.
The interior doors of their suite—the ones separating the “visionary ops bullpen” from the “executive core”—were controlled by fingerprint scanners wired through my server.
I disabled their template.
The locks defaulted to fail-safe mode: open.
No more exclusive sanctum for Jared and his vest cronies.
Finally, the smart glass.
Privacy glass is like fancy sunglasses: an electric current running through liquid crystal allows it to go from clear to frosted in a second.
Guess who supplies the current.
I flipped the toggle.
Windows reverted to their default state: transparent.
If Jared had another meltdown in a meeting, the whole floor could enjoy the show.
I sat back and watched the dashboards.
Somewhere above me, Jared was probably calling his dad.
Somewhere above me, investors were wondering why their screen was suddenly pixelated, why the confident startup founder was sweating through his vest.
My desk phone rang.
“Skyline Infrastructure,” I answered.
“Tess.” Marcus’s voice came through, frazzled. “I just got a call from Sarah in HR. Jared’s flipping out. Their internet’s crawling, the server room is a sauna, the badge readers are glitching. He says the building is broken.”
“The building is fine,” I said. “I have metrics on every fan and chiller. Nothing’s broken. Just turned off.”
“Did you… do this?” Marcus whispered.
“I honored a termination,” I said. “He fired me. I complied.”
Marcus made a strangled sound. “He thought you were… IT support.”
“I know,” I said. “That was his first mistake.”
His second mistake was assuming the building needed him more than he needed the building.
“Legal’s on line two,” Marcus said. “Vance senior called. He wants a meeting.”
“Tell Brenda I’ll come up with terms when I’m done rerouting their capacity,” I said.
Marcus hesitated. “You’re not… actually going to lock them out of the bathrooms, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not a monster. Just the trash can and the VIP washroom.”
“Tess,” Marcus said. “Be nice.”
“I am being nice,” I replied. “Their base lease has bathrooms on the floor. They just have to walk past their own staff to use them.”
After lunch, my console started lighting up with tickets.
“High temp alert server room.”
“VPN latency.”
“Door controls failing.”
I read each one.
I filed them under “Unauthorized Requests.”
And I waited.
It didn’t take long.
At 2:17 p.m., my cell buzzed.
Not the desk phone the lawyers used.
My personal phone.
Unknown number.
I let it go to voicemail.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again.
Same number.
I answered.
“Tess speaking.”
“Miss Morrison.” The voice was smooth, practiced, a few decades older than Jared’s.
“This is Alan Sterling, general counsel at Vance Capital.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Sterling,” I said.
“I’ve been reviewing your agreement with Skyline,” he said. “There seems to be a misunderstanding with our… local representative. I’m hoping we can resolve this quickly.”
“Misunderstanding?” I echoed.
“Jared may have… spoken out of turn,” Sterling said. “He thought you were an employee of the building manager.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“Yes, we’re aware now,” he said quickly. “We are very aware now. We’d like to reinstate the prior terms and sign the renewal immediately.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” I said.
Silence hummed across the line.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“The capacity that NextGen was using has been reallocated, Mr. Sterling,” I said. “To another tenant. We have a signed agreement with them as of last night.”
“You sold our fiber,” he said slowly, like he couldn’t believe the sentence.
“I sold my fiber,” I corrected. “You hadn’t renewed yet. It was my inventory.”
He exhaled sharply. “Do you understand the damage you’re causing? My clients have investors on calls. They’re closing a $50 million round.”
“I understand you have investors on calls,” I said. “I also understand that when your local rep publicly terminates negotiations and orders me off his floor, I am not obligated to hold prime capacity empty on the off chance he changes his mind.”
“Tess,” Sterling said. “We can pay more. Double the market rate. Triple.”
“I’ve already committed the capacity,” I said. “To a tenant who asked nicely.”
He was quiet for a second.
Then, “OmniTech?”
“I can’t disclose other clients,” I said.
His sigh was answer enough.
“This isn’t over,” he said.
“I’d like it to be,” I replied. “I have other buildings to manage.”
On Monday, we held the meeting anyway.
Brenda from legal insisted, citing “ongoing relationship concerns” and “future potential.”
It took place in the ugly conference room on four. Wood paneled, bad fluorescent lights, a large speakerphone in the middle like a glass eye watching everyone.
Thomas Vance arrived first.
He was shorter than I remembered, older too. In the seven years since leasing the 37th floor, his hair had thinned and his gut had expanded. The suit was still sharp, though, navy wool and a tie with tiny woven logos that probably meant something in his world.
Sterling came in next, clutching a leather folio and a paper cup of coffee that smelled burnt.
Marcus hovered at the door, nervous.
Jared slunk in last.
He’d traded his fleece vest for a rumpled button-down. There were circles under his eyes. His hair had lost its careful volume.
He sat down without a word.
“Tess,” Thomas said, forcing a smile. “Good to see you.”
“Mr. Vance,” I said, giving him a professional nod.
“Let’s fix this,” he said. “We’ve all had a… learning experience.”
Brenda cleared her throat. “For the record,” she said, “NextGen’s authorized representative offended and dismissed our contractor in a manner that triggered the decorum breach clause.”
“We’ve all read the clause, Brenda,” Thomas cut in. “We’re not here to debate that. My boy messed up. He knows that.”
He looked at Jared pointedly.
“Don’t you, son?”
Jared stared at the table.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
I didn’t say, “For what?”
I didn’t say, “Do you even understand why?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You’re angry,” Thomas said to me. “Understandable. But we need to move past that. Let’s sign the papers, turn the damn internet back on, and get on with making money.”
“This isn’t about my anger,” I said. “It’s about capacity.”
Brenda slid a sheet of paper across the table. It was a one-page summary of the allocation map.
“You have, based on current city regulations and trunk line limitations, X amount of dedicated fiber you can sell,” she began. “That was all tied up between tenants A, B, and C. B released theirs,” she nodded at Thomas, “and that was sold to D. There’s nothing left.”
“Rebalance,” Thomas said. “Take some from the law firm. They fax things. They don’t need speed.”
“I can’t,” I said. “They signed a ten-year agreement with guarantees. I made promises. I keep them.”
“We’ve been here seven years,” he said. “We’ve never missed a payment.”
“And I appreciate that,” I said. “That’s why you can keep your base space. Your four walls, your ceiling, your ordinary amenities. But the premium spine? That’s fully committed.”
“We’ll move,” Jared said suddenly, voice high with frustration. “We’ll go to the building down the street. They’ve been courting us.”
“Do,” I said. “You’ll need to. Because without new capacity, this building cannot support your load.”
Thomas stared at me.
“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” he asked quietly.
“I do,” I said. “A man whose son thought he could snap his fingers at the wrong woman and found out she reads the fine print.”
Sterling pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we at least get transitional access?” he asked. “A month to move our operations?”
I considered it.
Legally, I didn’t have to give them anything. Technically, I could strand them on DSL and watch them limp.
But I’m not actually a monster. I’m just a woman who keeps databases tidy.
“I can give you 30 days of baseline capacity,” I said. “No dedicated cooling. No priority routing. Enough to keep email functioning and light usage. Heavy server work you’ll need to offload to the cloud or relocate.”
Thomas opened his mouth to argue.
Brenda kicked him under the table.
“Take it,” she hissed.
He glowered.
“Fine,” he said. “Thirty days.”
I slid a new contract across to him.
“Sign here,” I said. “It’s a release of claims. You agree not to sue Skyline or my holding company for any damages related to bandwidth reallocation.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sterling muttered.
“No,” Brenda said sharply. “We won’t. That’s the condition.”
Thomas picked up the pen.
He stared at the paper.
He signed.
When they left the room, Jared lingered for a second.
He looked at me, something like uncertainty in his eyes.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“You didn’t ask,” I replied.
He swallowed. “You made me look like an idiot.”
“You did that yourself,” I said. “All I did was make sure everyone saw the lights turn on.”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“You enjoy this,” he accused.
“Not particularly,” I said. “But I enjoy systems that function. Your behavior was a bug. I debugged it.”
He blinked at that.
Then he left.
A week later, NextGen announced they were relocating to a “state-of-the-art campus” south of town.
The press release framed it as “strategic expansion.”
People in the industry knew better.
Rumors trickled back through vendors.
Investors asking why their calls had glitched.
Partners noticing the move’s timing.
OmniTech moved into their vacated space after renovations.
They brought in plants. And snacks. And an HR policy that didn’t include finger snapping.
Months passed.
The building hummed.
One afternoon, I was in the lobby talking to Larry about a fire drill when someone cleared their throat behind me.
I turned.
It was Jared.
He looked… different.
No vest. Just a plain button-down. No swagger. Just a man carrying a cardboard box.
“I’m just here to drop something off for my dad,” he said quickly, holding up the box as if I might call security.
“Okay,” I said.
We stood in awkward silence for a second.
“Are you… doing okay?” he asked finally.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Busy. You?”
He shrugged. “Tulsa’s… fine.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Did you figure out how to reboot a router yet?” I asked.
He gave a strangled laugh.
“I had to,” he said. “Our Tulsa office has one IT guy and he only works three days a week.”
“Rough,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. He shifted his weight. “Look, I—I didn’t… I’m not good at this.”
“Here’s a tip,” I said. “Stop thinking of people as roles. Try names instead.”
He flushed.
“Tess,” he said, stumbling over my name slightly. “I’m sorry. Really. Not for getting what I deserved, I guess. Just… for being an ass.”
I studied him.
It wasn’t my job to redeem him.
But it also wasn’t my job to hold onto his shadow.
“Don’t apologize to me,” I said. “Apologize to the women you’ll work with in the future by not treating them the way you treated me.”
He nodded.
“I’m trying,” he said.
“That’s a start,” I replied.
He walked toward the elevator, cardboard box in his arms, shoulders slightly hunched.
Larry watched him go.
“Think he learned his lesson?” Larry asked.
I watched the doors close.
“Maybe,” I said. “If Oklahoma internet was as bad as I heard.”
Larry chuckled.
Life went on.
Lease cycles turned.
The building breathed.
Tenants moved in and out.
Servers got hotter as AI workloads spiked and we installed more cooling.
Sometimes, when I’m in my office, feet up on the drawer, coffee gone cold, I think of that moment in the conference room.
Finger snapping.
“It girl.”
“You’re fired.”
And I smile—not because of what happened to Jared.
But because of what didn’t happen to me.
I didn’t shrink.
I didn’t explain my worth to someone who wasn’t listening.
I didn’t go back upstairs and fix something for a man who refused basic respect.
I let my work, my contracts, my infrastructure speak for me.
I let the building teach him who actually needed whom.
Power isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it’s a woman in a blazer in a small office on the fourth floor, tracing lines on a schematic and deciding which ones stay lit.
Sometimes it’s knowing you don’t have to raise your voice to make an entire 37th floor go quiet.
Sometimes it’s letting a boy fire you—
And realizing, as you walk away, that you just fired him from your world.
THE END
