The Fingerprint on the Layoff Agreement

Zhang Yutong asked me to come by three that afternoon to discuss “the final administrative procedures.”

I’d looked it up. “Final administrative procedures” wasn’t a legal term. But in corporate speak, its lethality came in just under “let’s have a chat about your future.”

At 2:58 PM, I was standing outside her office.

I didn’t knock. Not because I was nervous — the time hadn’t arrived yet. I knew she was in there waiting. I knew the A4 paper in her briefcase was already prepared. I knew the pen’s tip was facing outward.

The moment the door opened, I caught a familiar and unpleasant smell — office, administration, formality. The kind of smell that makes you instinctively want to stand up straight, cooperate, and get everything over with as quickly as possible.

“Lin Yuan, sit.”

She gestured toward the chair across from her desk. I noticed her fingernails: trimmed short, no polish. Exactly the same as the first termination meeting.

The document was already on the desk.

When I sat down, I tried to make myself look relaxed — like I was just stopping by to drop off some paperwork, not like my next six months of livelihood were being decided. But the document was right there, white paper black ink, the “separation category” field left blank.

“Coffee? Tea? Hot water?” Zhang Yutong asked.

I shook my head.

She nodded, didn’t push. Then she slid the document forward slightly.

“Let’s begin.”

I didn’t reach for it. I just looked at her.

She flipped through the pages, looked up. “Lin Yuan, you’ve seen the compensation package, right? The company’s already completed the entire process. You just need to sign here, and we can initiate the settlement this afternoon.”

“Which process?”

“This one.” She tapped the document.

“What kind of process is this?”

She paused for a second. Brief — less than half a second. But I’d learned something from making eye contact with Maxine in the break room: people in high positions usually aren’t used to being questioned.

“Voluntary resignation application.” She said.

I leaned back in my chair.

“My voluntary resignation?”

“That’s the literal meaning, yes, but substantively—”

“Substantively, I’m being laid off, but I write ‘voluntary’?”

She didn’t respond. She just pushed the document two more centimeters toward me.

“Lin Yuan, we talked about this before. Everyone knows the company’s situation. Bankruptcy proceedings could be initiated at any moment, and the resources available are limited. If you go the voluntary route, the process moves fastest, and the compensation reaches you first.”

“First in the queue?”

She hesitated. “The document states that involuntary separation requires a longer administrative review—”

“I’m asking about the compensation.”

She looked at me. Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes tightened just a bit.

“Lin Yuan, I’m just trying to help you get this money as quickly as possible.”

“I know. But I need to confirm something. Based on my understanding, Taiwan’s Labor Standards Act specifies that severance is calculated as ‘average wage × years of service in months.’ I’ve completed three years of service. According to Article 17 of the Labor Standards Act, the severance pay is three months’ average wage. Plus the involuntary separation allowance, that’s three plus one equals four months’ wages, correct?”

She said nothing.

“This figure, calculated against my pay stubs, comes to approximately NTD ██,000.” I stated a number. “If I take voluntary separation, given the company’s current books, I might not get that much, correct?”

Her lips moved slightly.

“Lin Yuan, we’re recommending you sign this document because—”

“I need to see the detailed breakdown of the compensation.”

She went silent for three seconds.

I counted in my head. Three seconds, five seconds, seven seconds. At that moment, I remembered something: in three years, none of the accounts I’d been nurturing on my phone had ever gone this silent. They always responded. Even the bots responded.

“Fine.” She finally spoke. “I’ll send the breakdown to your email.”

She picked up her phone, tapped a few keys. Then she set it down and looked at me.

“Lin Yuan, let me say one more thing.” Her voice dropped slightly. “You know the company’s situation. At a time like this, getting the money is what matters most. Don’t complicate things.”

“I just want what I’m owed.”

“And what do you think you’re owed?”

“N+1, calculated according to the Labor Standards Act.”

Her eyes blinked. Once.

“This figure has already been verified internally, and the process has been confirmed by Legal—”

“I’ll comment after I see the breakdown.”

She turned her phone over, screen face down. Just like the first conversation. That gesture told me: recording time is over, now we’re speaking behind closed doors.

“Lin Yuan.” Her voice dropped another notch. “Let me be direct. You’ve served three years, and the company recognizes your contributions. Voluntary separation is the greatest goodwill the company can offer you.”

“Goodwill.” I repeated the word.

“If you insist on going the involuntary route, the process will drag on for a long time. After the layoff storm, Legal will be stricter, and—” She paused. “Honestly, litigation records will follow you. When background checks are done in the future, all of this shows up.”

I silently scoffed. Threatening me that filing a legitimate severance dispute would leave “litigation records”? The logic was so absurd I doubted she believed it herself. But her expression was serious, like she was genuinely looking out for my interests. If your job is “helping employees transition smoothly,” your tone would be gentle. It was a professional skill.

“I need to make a phone call.”

She frowned. “Now?”

“Five minutes.”

She glanced at me, then stood. “I’ll wait outside.”

She went out the door.

I pulled out my own phone. I didn’t have anyone to call — no lawyer, no former colleague, no one. But she didn’t know that.

I opened the photo gallery.

Over three years, I’d developed a habit: every so often, I’d save screenshots of my phone activity to the cloud. Timestamps, user growth curves, account-nurturing script version logs. At first, these were just stored “just in case.”

Now they were my trump card.

I scrolled through my phone and found the folder. “Work Records” — three words, no description. Below that, files arranged by date:

First screenshot: timestamp from three years ago, 11:47 PM. Title: “Daily active users break 80,000.” Content: a backend data curve graph. The gray section was organic traffic; the red section was traffic contributed by the sock puppet matrix. This graph later became material for countless investor meetings, except the red section was labeled “User Engagement Optimization Strategy Results.”

Ninety-seventh screenshot: three years ago. Title: “Ah Zhi account followers break 2,000.” This was the fastest-growing account of all the socks, and the one I’d invested the most in.

Four hundred and twenty-third screenshot: two years ago. Title: “Script Update Log v2.3.1.” Content: code snippets, annotated with dates for each update and feature improvements. These update logs meticulously recorded how I bypassed the platform’s risk control mechanisms each time.

Final screenshot: last night, 11:58 PM. Title: “Backup Complete.” This was all of Ah Zhi’s interaction records, compressed into a zip file and stored on my personal hard drive.

I had no criminal record. Everything I did had been assigned verbally by the boss — no written instructions. But these screenshots recorded everything.

What they could prove: everything I did was part of company decisions.

What they could also prove: the “million users” this company claimed was not organic growth, not word-of-mouth, not product strength. It was twelve phones, and one person, over three years.

I set my phone on the desk.

Then I stood up, walked to the door, and opened it.

Zhang Yutong was standing in the hallway, phone similarly screen-down. When she saw me come out, her brow creased.

“Done with the call?”

“Done.” I said. “Let’s go back in.”

For just a moment, her expression shifted. Not nervousness — a kind of resigned “it’s finally happening” expression.

I sat back down, setting my phone on the desk. Screen on, paused on the first screenshot.

“Ms. Zhang.” I said. “I just want what I’m owed. N+1, calculated according to the Labor Standards Act. Everything else, I’m not interested in.”

She looked at the screenshot on my phone.

At first, her expression was relatively calm. Then she scrolled down a bit, scrolled down again. Her lips pressed together.

“Lin Yuan, you’d better think carefully about the consequences.”

I waited for her to finish saying this.

“This industry is small.” She continued. “What you have on that phone — if it gets out—”

“What I have won’t get out.” I said. “I just want what I’m owed. N+1, calculated according to the Labor Standards Act. Everything else, I’m not interested in.”

She looked at me.

Under the fluorescent lights of this office, she didn’t look as composed as she had at our first meeting. There was a hint of tension in the corner of her eyes, barely noticeable.

“You’d better think carefully.” She repeated.

“I’ve already thought it through.”

Silence.

The light outside had dimmed a bit. Four PM light, the same as yesterday, the day before, the day before that. But I knew that by four o’clock today, the company website had already shut down. Those servers — they might already be executing the first step of data deletion.

I suddenly remembered what the CTO had said: “After thirty days, the data enters an overwriteable state.”

Thirty days.

“Let me see the breakdown.”

She froze. Then she turned her phone over, opened her email, found the message. She turned the screen toward me.

The file was detailed. I scanned the numbers — hers were slightly lower than my calculations, but not by a huge margin.

“How did you arrive at this figure?” I pointed to one line.

She frowned, leaned in to look. “This is the calculation base for average wage—”

“My base salary is 42,000. This number is 39,000.”

“Average wage includes performance bonuses, pro-rated year-end bonuses, and—”

“Performance bonuses for the past six months have been zero.”

She stopped. Looked at me.

Three seconds, five seconds, seven seconds.

“Lin Yuan.” Her voice changed. No longer that professional warmth — it was the tone of “we’re both wasting time here.” “I can tell you directly: the company’s cash on hand is running low. If we go the involuntary route, when that money actually gets to you, I can’t guarantee.”

“That’s the company’s problem, not mine.”

The corner of her mouth twitched.

I knew that expression well. It was the side I hadn’t gotten to see when I’d made eye contact with Maxine in the break room. Turns out everyone, beneath their mask, had someone who got nervous.

“I’m giving you two options.” Her voice returned to professional. “First, voluntary separation — we can initiate the settlement process this afternoon, funds arrive within three days. Second, involuntary process — I forward your application as regulations require, but I can’t give you a timeline. Could be a month, could be three months.”

“Then let’s go the involuntary route.”

She paused.

“Lin Yuan, are you sure?”

“Sure.”

She looked at me. I looked at her.

At this moment, I should have been nervous. I should have been scared. But I wasn’t. In that moment, what I suddenly thought about was Ah Zhi’s account — over three years, it had accumulated 237 posts, 27,000 likes, 2,300 comments on this platform. Its existence had never been questioned by anyone.

Just like me.

“Fine.” She finally spoke. “I’ll forward your application.”

She picked up the pen, wrote something on the document. She closed it, tucked it into her briefcase.

“Lin Yuan.” She spoke up suddenly. “Those things — you’d better decide what to do with them within thirty days.”

I waited for her to continue.

“Once the company bankruptcy proceedings begin and all systems go offline—” Her voice was soft. “If you want to back anything up, you won’t be able to.”

I stood up.

“I know.” I said. “Thank you.”

She didn’t respond.

I opened the door, walked into the hallway.

When I reached the elevator, I looked back. Her office door was closed. The window at the end of the corridor let in four o’clock light — not four o’clock anymore, it was 4:03. The system shutdown had been over for three minutes.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out — a notification from my cloud photo gallery. A new screenshot had been added. Not one I saved. System-generated.

Timestamp: 4:03:07 PM.

Title: “Account Data Entering Read-Only State.”

I put the phone back in my pocket and stepped into the elevator.

As the elevator doors closed, I thought about my mother’s message: “Come home next weekend.”

When was the last time I’d been home? I thought for a long time and remembered — last Chinese New Year. A full year and a half.

The elevator reached the ground floor. I walked out, through the lobby, out onto the street.

People streamed past on the sidewalk. No one knew me. In this world, I was just an ordinary person who’d just been laid off. I was holding a severance package, had no idea where my next job was, didn’t know how long those accounts would last, didn’t know what questions my mom would ask when she saw me.

But as I walked out of that building, there was a strange thought in my mind.

The fuck I actually won this layoff battle.

Just by a little.

But fuck — I won.

My phone buzzed again. It was a work group message from the CTO.

I opened it.

“Everyone, the system has entered maintenance mode. If you need to back up any personal data, please complete it by midnight tonight. After that time, the system will enter the data archival process.”

Data archival.

I suddenly thought about Ah Zhi.

Three years ago, late one night, I was sitting in my room, watching the sixth phone’s screen, writing Ah Zhi’s first post. It was an article about coffee, introducing a coffee shop in Taipei. I wrote it for half an hour, revised it three times.

Now, that post was still on the platform.

But the platform was gone.

My phone buzzed again. This time it was a private message.

From Xiao Zhen.

“Ah Zhi, interested in coming by the shop next week? We still owe you that visit.”

I stood on the side of the road, looking at this message.

I didn’t know how to reply.

At 3:27 AM, I’d used Ah Zhi’s account to reply “not yet.” In that moment, I knew I wasn’t Ah Zhi, but Ah Zhi’s coffee shop, Ah Zhi’s articles, all of Ah Zhi’s interactions — they had existed. They were real. Not fake.

Just like my three years of work.

My phone was still lit. Xiao Zhen’s message still unreplied. I was still standing on the side of the road, the evening light coating everything in gold.

What should I do?

I took a deep breath, turned around, and walked toward home.

My phone buzzed again.

This time it was Mom.

“What’s for dinner tonight? Want me to make braised pork?”

I stood at a crosswalk, waiting for the light.

I pulled out my phone, typed three words.

“I’m coming home.”

I thought about it, then added another line.

“Arriving tonight.”

I hit send.

The light turned green.

I stepped forward, walking toward home.