Diet of Consequences

The new intern, Vivian, was an expert at milking the company for all it was worth.
Every day, she’d serve our department colleagues meager, 100-gram portions of food while she packed up 200 of the company’s free boxed lunches to sell to the construction crew next door.
When I tried to stop her, she turned the entire office against me.
“Seriously, lady? I can’t believe there are people who still sympathize with the capitalists. They exploit you, and you get off on it. You’re a total corporate bootlicker, a real slave to the system!”
My own boyfriend scolded me. “Vivian’s family is struggling. She’s selling the lunches to help them out. It’s for a good cause. Why do you have to be so selfish?”
My colleagues complained. “You’re so petty, Phoebe. At least when Vivian sells the lunches, it helps us lose weight. All you do is order us high-calorie afternoon snacks.”
They were united against me, as if I were the villain.
I was so furious I washed my hands of the whole affair.
Later, at the negotiation table for a billion-dollar contract, they were so famished they started dropping like flies, one by one, right onto the conference table.

1
Something strange had been happening at the office lately.
The cafeteria food was vanishing at an alarming rate. By the time I ever got there, all that was left were scraps you wouldn’t even feed to a chicken.
When I asked the kitchen staff, they just stammered. “Well, Phoebe… it’s a long story…”
I’d been on a business trip for two weeks. Had everyone turned into a ravenous wolf pack in my absence?
As I stood there puzzled, a young woman burst into the kitchen.
“Hey, Mark! You got the lunches saved for me? Let’s get them over to the site, the guys are waiting!”
The construction site?
I peeked behind the counter and my jaw dropped. The same head chef who’d just told me they were out of food had two hundred boxed lunches stacked neatly in the back. Each one, meant to be a free employee perk, was now being sold for twenty-five dollars a pop.
So this is where all the food was going.
The company provided free meals for employees, but this was on another level. They were brazenly reselling company property.
I frowned, my eyes landing on the woman’s ID badge.
[Marketing Intern: Vivian Shaw.]
She was an intern in my own department. How did someone so shamelessly opportunistic ever get past my discerning boyfriend, Matt, who did the hiring?
Watching Vivian grab a stack of boxes as if she owned the place, I stepped forward and blocked her path.
“Hold on. Did no one tell you that reselling company meals is against policy?”
Caught off guard, Vivian’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Against policy? I’m an employee. This is my employee meal. What’s wrong with that?”
“There’s nothing wrong with an employee taking their meal. But you’ve taken far more than your share.”
At that, Vivian scoffed as if I’d told the world’s worst joke.
She looked me up and down with contempt. “Oh my god, lady, are you for real? I can’t believe there are people who still suck up to the corporate overlords. They exploit you, and you love it. A true corporate slave.”
“And sorry, but even if you are my boss, I have to be blunt. We, Gen Z, are here to fix the workplace, not kiss corporate ass!”
Her logic was completely twisted. I was stating a simple fact, and she’d slapped me with the label of a bootlicker.
“Fixing the workplace doesn’t mean screwing over your colleagues,” I said, my voice firm.
Our department was in the final stages of a massive project. We were all working overtime, burning the midnight oil. A tiny 100-gram serving of food wasn’t nearly enough to sustain an adult through that kind of workload.
“You’re right about that,” Vivian said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “But the whole company knows I’m selling the lunches. They all agreed to it. You don’t have the authority to speak for everyone, do you?”
The whole company agreed? I was stunned. Had my team lost their minds from overwork?
Vivian’s smirk widened. “Everyone’s on my new diet plan. I suggest you cut back a little, too. I mean, once a woman hits thirty, it’s all downhill. And if you’re old and fat… well, no one’s going to want you, right?”
As it happened, I had just celebrated my thirtieth birthday. The jab was clearly intentional.
I, for one, preferred my healthy, curvy figure to the skeletal look she was promoting.
Our eyes met. She stuck her tongue out playfully. “Sorry, Phoebe. I just graduated, so I’m a little blunt. Please don’t take it personally.”
She had an answer for everything. Arguing with her was like punching a cloud.
“The company has no obligation to let you profit off its resources,” I said, my patience wearing thin. “Vivian, either you stop this immediately, or I’m reporting you to upper management.”
“You—!”
Seeing that her free lunch train was about to be derailed, Vivian’s face crumpled. She covered her face with her hands and ran out, sobbing.
That afternoon, the entire office was in an uproar.
The first person to knock on my door was my boyfriend, Matt.
Before I could even smile, he launched into a tirade. “Phoebe! Vivian’s family is poor! She’s selling those lunches to help them out and do some charity on the side. How could you be so selfish as to try and get her fired?”
Fired? When had I said anything about firing her? I was baffled. All I’d done was give her a verbal warning.
Even stranger was Matt’s reaction. He had never been this impulsive or hot-headed.
I explained what had happened and pointed out that Vivian’s diet plan was dangerously unhealthy.
Matt just laughed. “We’ve all been eating just fine for the two weeks you were gone. It’s just a few lunches. It’s not like you own the company. Why are you so worked up about it?”
He lowered his voice, but I still heard his next words clearly. “I guess Vivian was right. The higher you climb, the more you turn into a good little corporate dog…”
Ever since I’d been chosen over him for that business trip to the States two weeks ago, Matt’s words had been laced with a subtle venom. But I had earned that trip. In the workplace, we weren’t a couple; we were competitors.
We had a huge fight, right there in my office. I’d never heard someone defend such blatant freeloading as a noble act. Vivian, doing charity? How was selling free food for a profit charity?
Later, in the breakroom, I ran into some colleagues. I couldn’t help but vent. “I’m not just fighting for my own meal, you know. This isn’t healthy for any of you. Forget work, you’re going to ruin your health!”
They just exchanged awkward glances.
Then, one of them spoke up, her tone dripping with passive aggression. “Honestly, Phoebe, you’re being a little petty. Vivian’s diet plan is helping us lose weight. All you do is order us afternoon snacks.”
What?
I couldn’t believe my ears. To help them through the high-stress project, I’d been regularly treating the department to high-end afternoon tea, paying for it out of my own pocket. I’d thought it was a nice gesture. I never imagined it would be used as a weapon against me.
“It’s always Starbucks or some fancy pastry. My face has gotten so puffy. Are you trying to make sure I end up single like you?”
“Yeah, you make thirty grand a month, so you can afford to buy us expensive snacks. Vivian only makes three thousand, but she bought us all thirty-dollar whole-wheat bread.”
“Seriously, Phoebe, you’re the one being unreasonable. We’re all worried about gaining weight from stress-eating at our desks. Vivian is actually looking out for our health. You just want to sabotage us with cake…”
The complaints started pouring in from all sides. A bitter laugh escaped my lips.
Every single time I ordered snacks, I asked for their preferences and dietary restrictions. They never had a problem then. They always ate with gusto. And now, they were turning it all back on me.
Fine. No good deed goes unpunished.
I never ate in the cafeteria anyway. If they wanted to live on a hundred grams of rice a day, they could knock themselves out.
Vivian, emboldened by her success, declared she was on a mission to “disrupt the workplace” and “beat the capitalists at their own game.” Soon, every free perk the company offered was under attack.
“I propose we clear out the breakroom snacks!” she announced one day, her voice ringing with righteous indignation. “They say it’s a free perk, but we all know they just deduct it from our salaries! We Gen Z will not be corporate pawns!”
She was young and charismatic, and in just a few weeks, she had become the office darling. The other employees hung on her every word. So, under the guise of “sustainability,” she started taking home entire boxes of office supplies. When the company provided a watermelon for afternoon tea, others would take a slice; she’d take the entire platter. The freezer, once stocked with ice cream and cakes, was now perpetually empty.
“These are all high-sugar foods that are bad for you!” she’d proclaim. “It’s a capitalist trap to make you sick so you have to spend your hard-earned money at the hospital. I’m just getting rid of them for your own good.”
The nerve of this woman. She made freeloading sound like a public service.
“And by ‘getting rid of them,’ you mean selling them to the construction crew next door?” I interjected, cutting through her charade.
A flicker of embarrassment crossed her face, but she recovered quickly. “I’m just putting resources where they’re needed most, Phoebe. Giving them away for free would just create other problems.”
“The workers need them, so I sell to them. I’m completely transparent about earning money, and I always use it to buy little gifts for my colleagues. I may be poor, but I have my pride. You don’t need to be so sarcastic. My conscience is clear!”
At this, my colleagues’ eyes welled up with tears.
“Thank you so much, Vivian! You’re saving us from ourselves! We’ll finally lose this awful desk-job weight!”
“Vivian’s the only one who actually cares about us. The company just sees us as workhorses, but she’s looking out for our health.”
“Phoebe, have you forgotten what it’s like to be one of us now that you’ve been promoted? The managers aren’t even here. You don’t have to suck up so hard.”
She had twisted everything. I was so angry I just turned and walked away.
She even started a side hustle using the office’s free printer, and soon our workspace was littered with tacky, colorful flyers that made my skin crawl. When I confronted her, she was defiant.
“The rich get richer while the poor starve. It costs three dollars a page to print outside. I only charge one. Think of what they can do with those extra two dollars!” she preached. “You might not care about two dollars, but you’re so worried about the corporation’s bottom line. Honestly, Phoebe, I really look down on people like you.”
She was using her “disruptor” persona to shamelessly exploit company resources for personal gain.
I decided to stop engaging. There was no point in arguing with someone so delusional. I would just wait for her to self-destruct. The company’s headquarters sent a team for a quarterly review every three months. The next one was in a week. Her little empire would come crashing down then.
But I underestimated her audacity. She had apparently decided that any item left in the office for more than three days was trash.
My brand-new designer handbag went missing. I searched everywhere, only to find it listed on Vivian’s Poshmark account.
Status: Sold.
“Vivian,” I said, my voice shaking with rage, “why is my handbag on your resale site?”
She just gave me a sly smile. “Oh, Phoebe, you don’t have to thank me for helping you declutter.”
“I got a whole $500 for that fake bag, you know. I used the money to buy gifts for the office. Yours is on your desk.”
Five hundred dollars? My vision went black. It was a new-season bag from a luxury brand. It was worth five thousand.
“How dare you sell my things without asking? That’s stealing!”
Vivian just shrugged. “Don’t be so dramatic, Phoebe. The office has a rule: anything left on the floor for more than three days is considered trash. You should be thanking me, not accusing me.”
What office rule? I’d worked here for three years and never heard of such a thing. It was just another one of her self-serving fabrications.
Five thousand dollars was enough to file a police report. I was done arguing. I pulled out my phone to call the police.
Vivian burst into tears. “It was just a fake bag! Is it really that big of a deal? It’s not like I can’t pay you back the five hundred. I may be poor, but I have my pride. I guess I just won’t eat for the next week!”
Her outburst immediately rallied the troops.
“Vivian was just trying to be helpful! It was a fake bag, just let it go. Why are you bullying her like this, Phoebe?”
“Wow, some people have no shame. You accepted her expensive gift and now you’re still shaking her down for money.”
Gift? I suddenly remembered the new skincare set that had appeared on my desk yesterday. I used that brand and had noticed a subtle difference in the logo. Suspecting it was a knockoff, I’d set it aside. I never imagined that was the gift she was talking about.
“Taking something without asking is stealing. You can have the fake skincare back. My bag was worth five thousand dollars, and I want it back. Today.”
I started to dial 911.
The next thing I knew, my phone was smacked out of my hand and clattered to the floor.
Matt’s voice was cold as ice. “Phoebe, have you made enough of a scene? Don’t push it.”
“How much was the bag? I’ll pay you for it.”
“Matt!” This wasn’t about the money. It was about basic human decency.
I stared in disbelief at the man I had been with for six years. We were supposed to be getting engaged soon. But right now, all he cared about was comforting a crying Vivian.
“It’s okay, Vivi. I’m here now,” he said, his voice softer than I’d heard it in years.
I hadn’t seen him look at anyone with such tenderness in a long, long time.
Vivian had been hired by Matt directly. They’d gone to the same university, and he was her senior. The office had been buzzing with rumors about them for weeks. I’d ignored them, but seeing them together now, a sour knot formed in my stomach.
Company policy forbade office romances. My relationship with Matt had always been a secret. I never thought I’d have to stand by and watch my own boyfriend be so intimate with another woman.
“Vivian is new to the corporate world,” Matt said, his brow furrowed in disapproval. “She’s sensitive and shy. How could you humiliate her in front of everyone?”
“It was just a bag. When did you become so petty?”
In his eyes, my defending my own property was an act of aggression.
I fought back tears. “Fine. Your ‘sensitive’ Vivian is so wonderful. Why don’t you just spend the rest of your life with her?”
“That’s not what I mean… She’s just my junior from school. Her family’s not well-off, so it’s only natural for me to look out for her.”
Seeing my tears, Matt sighed and pulled me into a hug. “And you, Phoebe… you’ve been with me for six years. You’ve been by my side as I climbed to this position. You know I only love you…”
He loved me. I knew he did. The brilliant, ambitious son of a well-to-do family, a top graduate, who, for me, was willing to agree to my family’s demanding terms for our marriage. His love had always felt certain.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm my own spiraling emotions.
But then, I noticed something. The small, worn elastic hair tie that he always wore on his wrist was gone.
“Where’s the hair tie I gave you?”
“Oh, I lost it during a client meeting. Phoebe, I hope you don’t mind…” As he spoke, he pulled a small, red agate bead bracelet from behind his back with a flourish. “Don’t be sad, baby. Just give me another one to wear. It breaks my heart to see you cry.”
He was so smooth. My anger dissipated. I put on the bracelet and went back to my desk.
But as I approached, I saw my colleagues gathered around Vivian, cooing over her.
“Don’t cry, Vivian. Wow, that gold bracelet is gorgeous! It makes your skin look so pale and beautiful. Who’s the secret admirer?”
Vivian blushed. “Don’t be silly. I don’t have any admirers.”
“Oh, stop being modest! I saw you at the mall the other day. Matt picked it out for you himself! A two-thousand-dollar gold bracelet, just like that.”
“Hehe, don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone. Just remember to invite us to the wedding!”
They chattered excitedly. Vivian looked shyly toward Matt’s office. “Okay, okay… I was just in a bad mood that day, and Matt said gold looks pretty on a girl, so he bought it to cheer me up.”
“Honestly, I told him it was too expensive, but he insisted. He said only gold was good enough for me…”

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