The fallout was immediate and catastrophic for him. Corporate compliance officers had to step in, the audit was delayed, and the company incurred a hefty financial penalty for the missed deadline. When David finally slithered back into the office the next morning, looking exhausted and disheveled, he was greeted not by a compliant assistant, but by two corporate HR representatives waiting inside his office.

They revoked his security badge on the spot. Because he had walked out without notifying upper management or logging a formal leave request, corporate classified his actions as job abandonment and a severe breach of fiduciary duty during a critical operational window. They didn’t care about whatever family emergency he had; they treated him with the exact same cold, metric-driven apathy that he had shown me three months prior.

As David packed his personal belongings into a cardboard box under the watchful eye of security, he had to walk right past my cubicle. He stopped for a brief second, looking at me with a mixture of intense betrayal and realization. I leaned back in my chair, looked him dead in the eye, and allowed a tiny, calm smile to appear on my face.

“Don’t worry, David,” I said softly, making sure only he could hear me. “The company has plenty of other directors. What were you going to do if you stayed anyway, heal the department yourself?” The look of absolute defeat on his face was worth every single tear I had cried in that cubicle.

He was escorted out of the building by security, completely ruined, while I was officially asked by the VP to step up as the interim department head—with a massive salary increase. Karma doesn’t miss a door, and it always delivers its package right on time.