Their Billion Dollar Mistake
My boss’s son, Kyle, stormed up to me and threw a cup of scalding coffee right in my face.
“You have the nerve to show your face?” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “Look at you. You look like you just crawled out of a gutter. Which C-level exec did you have to sleep with last night to get your win?”
“Don’t bring your filth into this office,” he added, wrinkling his nose. “We’re not a dumpster for every piece of trash.”
“You really think you’re something special because you closed one deal? You’re just a pretty boy who knows how to sweet-talk clients.”
My boss, Don Harrison, called me into his office. He told me to apologize to his son and that he was docking my entire commission.
Without a word, I tore my ID badge off its lanyard and threw the shattered plastic in his face.
The day I quit, their whole company started to fall apart.
1
The plastic clasp of my badge holder made a sharp crack.
“To hell with this job. Let someone else have it.”
I threw the two pieces of my ID badge squarely at Don Harrison’s greasy face.
His face flushed with rage. He shot up from his chair, jabbing a finger so close to my eye I could feel the heat coming off it.
“You! You’re fired! Get the hell out of my office, now!” he bellowed.
“And from this day forward, every client you managed is being transferred to my son, Kyle!”
“Including Orion Enterprises!” he added, his voice laced with the thrill of revenge.
As if on cue, the door to the adjoining office opened.
Kyle leaned against the frame, a smug, triumphant smile on his face. “Leo,” he said, his tone mocking. “I’ll be optimizing the management of your former clients from now on.”
I ignored them both and walked out of that suffocating office.
Back at my desk, my colleagues shot me a mix of complicated looks. Some were sympathetic, others regretful. A few were clearly enjoying the show.
I paid them no mind, quietly packing my personal belongings into a small cardboard box. It didn’t take long.
Before I logged out for the last time, I opened my work computer. I found an encrypted folder. Inside was every template for client relations I’d built over the years, every data analysis model, every private note on the personal preferences of our major accounts—the product of countless sleepless nights.
I selected the folder. Right-clicked. Permanently deleted.
Not a moment of hesitation.
With that done, I picked up my box and, under the gaze of the entire office, walked out the front doors without a backward glance. The sunlight outside was harsh, but I felt a sense of relief so profound it was almost dizzying.
I gave myself a vacation. Booked a flight to the coast.
Sand, sun, the sound of waves.
Lying on a beach chair, I felt my phone buzz. It was a text from my former colleague, Amy.
“Leo, it’s absolute chaos here since you left!”
“That idiot Kyle held a meeting on his first day. You won’t believe the crap he was spouting.”
I texted back a question mark.
“He said he wants to ’empower our synergy,’ ‘close the loop on our deliverables,’ ‘find new levers,’ and ‘drill down to the core logic of our pipeline’!”
“My brain is still buzzing. What does any of that even mean?”
“Then he rolled out this insane new client communication process. A ‘Client Needs SOP.’ It’s a bureaucratic nightmare. You need to fill out three reports and get seven approvals for the smallest damn thing.”
“Yesterday, I was just trying to follow up on an invoice. It took me an hour to write the request form, and by the time he finally approved it, the client’s accounting department had already closed for the day!”
“He also lost a critical overnight package because his new protocol requires all deliveries to go to the admin desk first for ‘sanitization and logging.’ It delayed everything by a day, and the client was furious.”
“And he reamed out Mark, our top salesman from last month, saying he didn’t understand ‘matrix management’ or ‘talent profiling.’ Mark almost quit on the spot.”
I could perfectly picture Kyle, puffed up and spouting corporate buzzword salad. A bitter laugh escaped me.
“What else?” I typed.
“Oh, it gets better. This afternoon, Mr. Peterson from Orion—a client we’ve had for five years—called with an urgent question about a technical spec. The kind of thing you used to know off the top of your head.”
“Kyle fumbled through the files for ten minutes, stammering, and couldn’t give him a straight answer. Mr. Peterson just lost his patience and hung up on him!”
“His exact words were, ‘Is there anyone left at your company who knows what they’re doing? Why am I being handled by this incompetent fool?’”
Reading the text, I felt a wave of dark satisfaction. “Any other genius moves?”
“Plenty! To prove how brilliant he is, he’s forcing all our long-term clients to sign a new ‘standardized’ contract that he drafted himself.”
“I took a peek at it. The terms are predatory. All liability is shifted to the client. It’s insane, pure poison.”
A knot formed in my stomach.
“He’s not going to try that with Mr. Peterson at Orion, is he?”
“Who knows? He acts like landing the Orion renewal was his own personal victory. Walks around bragging about how his dad’s ‘masterful strategy’ made it happen.”
I sent a warning to Amy.
“Peterson hates being disrespected more than anything. Stay out of it. Don’t get caught in the crossfire.”
“I know, Leo. Just needed to vent. This place is a sinking ship.”
I’d just put my phone down when a notification popped up from the old department group chat. An @everyone tag.
It was Kyle.
“Team, next Monday, I will personally lead our delegation to visit our most important strategic partner, Orion Enterprises!”
“In this visit, we will be finalizing a new, more comprehensive multi-million-dollar renewal contract with Mr. Peterson, securing my first big win! It will show certain people who the real sales elite are!”
Immediately after he sent it, his father, Don, chimed in.
“Kyle is a graduate of a prestigious international business school. He’s a classically trained management professional, not like some ‘street-level’ salesman who gets by on schmoozing and free dinners.”
“All of you should learn from Kyle. The future of this company belongs to young talents like him!”
The chat immediately flooded with sycophantic praise.
“Incredible, Kyle!”
“One meeting from you is worth ten from anyone else!”
“Congratulations in advance on the huge win!”
I stared at the nauseating display on my screen and let out a cold laugh.
The deal you’re all dreaming of is now a ticking time bomb.
I shut off my phone and tossed it aside.
The sea breeze swept over me, thick with the smell of salt.
The real show was just about to begin.
On Monday, Kyle and his sister, Tiffany, strode into the Orion Enterprises headquarters like they owned the place.
They were dressed to the nines, their faces radiating an unshakeable sense of entitlement.
Inside Mr. Peterson’s office, Kyle didn’t even bother with pleasantries. He slapped the binder containing his proud “standardized” contract down on the polished mahogany desk.
“Mr. Peterson, this is our new contract, drafted by our corporate legal team. It reflects our company’s professionalism. Take a look, and if there are no issues, you can go ahead and sign.”
Tiffany stood beside him, adding with a condescending air, “My father has decided our company needs to formalize its procedures. The old, messy way of doing business is over. This is for your benefit as well.”
Mr. Peterson picked up the contract. He only had to flip through two pages before his expression hardened.
The draconian clauses were a direct assault on his intelligence. Things like “The supplier reserves the right to unilaterally terminate the contract without liability,” and “Payment terms are extended to net 180 days.”
He looked up, his gaze falling on the two arrogant, utterly insincere young people before him.
His fury was immediate and absolute.
“This is your professionalism? This is your formal procedure?”
He slammed the contract down on the desk.
“Security! Get these two out of my building!”
When the news hit our old office, it was like a bomb had gone off.
Amy sent me a voice message, her voice trembling.
“Leo, it’s a disaster! Orion isn’t just refusing to renew; they’re terminating all existing contracts, effective immediately!”
“The finance department is in a full-blown panic. The early termination penalty means we have to refund a fortune in pre-payments. The company doesn't have that kind of cash on hand!”
“Don has locked himself in his office. We can hear him throwing things!”
“And it gets worse! They’re demanding an immediate refund of all the advance payments from this quarter!”
That money, I knew, had already been spent. Don had used it to buy Kyle a new sports car.
The company’s cash flow was instantly frozen.
Don Harrison, sweating profusely, personally called Mr. Peterson.
When the call connected, his voice was dripping with humility. “Mr. Peterson, please, calm down. There must be some misunderstanding. The kids… they don’t know any better. Don’t hold it against them.”
A single, ice-cold sentence came from the other end of the line.
“Don, the only person I’ll talk to is Leo Morgan.”
“Anyone else from your company calls me, they can go to hell.”
The line went dead.
Don stood there, clutching the phone, his face a ghastly shade of gray.
In the main office, Tiffany, rather than reflecting on her catastrophic failure, was screaming, placing all the blame on me.
“It’s all Leo’s fault!” she shrieked at the remaining sales staff. “That backstabbing snake! He must have set this up behind our backs, dug a trap for us to fall into!”
“That ungrateful bastard! We basically raised a viper in our own house!”
Cornered and desperate, Don Harrison finally remembered me.
He called my phone.
It rang for a long time before I leisurely answered.
“Leo! I’m ordering you to come back to the company right now! You need to fix this mess with Orion!” he roared, his voice accustomed to command.
“If you come back, I’m willing to forget what happened before!”
I put the phone on speaker.
The sound of waves crashing against the sand was clearly audible.
“Mr. Harrison, I’m currently unemployed,” I said, my voice perfectly calm.
“I have neither the authority nor the ability to handle your company’s business.”
“You! Leo, don’t push your luck! After all the years this company invested in you, this is how you repay us? You’re a goddamn traitor!”
Before he could finish his tirade, I hung up.
Then, I blocked his number.
The news of Orion’s contract termination exploded across the industry.
Our company’s reputation as Orion's long-term, trusted supplier was shattered overnight. The next day, our stock price plummeted at the opening bell, wiping out tens of millions in market value in a matter of hours.
Several other major clients who had been on the fence about signing new deals immediately called to terminate negotiations. A distribution partner we’d worked with for years showed up in person, demanding payment for long-overdue invoices.
The dominoes had begun to fall.
To try and salvage morale, Don Harrison started spreading rumors. At an all-hands meeting, he publicly announced that I had taken kickbacks from our competitor, Stellar Dynamics, claiming I was a corporate spy who had intentionally sabotaged the Orion deal.
“This industry should blacklist vermin like him who have no professional ethics! He didn’t just take bribes; he stole our most valuable client strategies!” he declared, his voice full of manufactured outrage.
Amy secretly recorded it and sent it to me.
I listened, and all I could do was laugh.
Kyle, desperate to redeem himself, tried to salvage what he could from my other accounts. He logged into my old work computer, planning to contact my clients.
But he found that all my core client data was protected by a standalone encryption program.
He couldn't open a single file.
It was a personal security measure I had written myself to protect sensitive information. Only I knew the password.
Panicked, Kyle called the IT department, demanding they crack it by force.
The head of IT, sweating bullets, tried to warn him.
“Mr. Harrison, this encryption is custom-built. A brute-force attack is extremely risky. There’s a 99% chance it will cause permanent, physical damage to the entire database!”
“It would be like setting the company’s entire lifeline on fire! I can’t proceed unless you sign this waiver, accepting full responsibility!”
“Just do it! If anything happens, it’s on me!” Kyle yelled, scribbling his name on a piece of paper and shoving it at the IT director. “I need it open today! That’s an order!”
Forced, the IT department had no choice but to try.
There was a faint click. A red warning box flashed onto the screen: DATABASE FILE CORRUPTED. RECOVERY IMPOSSIBLE.
All the crucial client files, contact information, and contract histories turned into a meaningless jumble of symbols.
The data was gone. Forever.
The company’s last thread of hope had just been severed.
When the news spread, the entire office ground to a halt.
Without Orion as its anchor and with all core client data wiped, the company was, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt.
When Don Harrison heard, he nearly collapsed.
And just as their company was consumed by chaos, a major announcement lit up the industry’s social media feeds.
Our competitor, Stellar Dynamics, proudly announced it had entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Orion Enterprises.
A powerful alliance, poised for the future.
The announcement included a celebratory photo from the signing ceremony.
In the photo, Mr. Peterson from Orion and the CEO of Stellar Dynamics were shaking hands, beaming at the camera.
And standing behind them, listed under the title of Lead Representative, was my name.
In the picture, I was wearing a sharp, well-fitted suit. And I looked like I was on top of the world.
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