My name is Nadia. Three weeks ago I took a job as a night cleaner at Halden Logistics. I mopped the floors, I kept my head down, and I ate lunch alone on the bench by the loading dock.

The person who ran the warehouse floor was called Brenda. She was loud, proud, and had decided I was her entertainment.

That Thursday she walked over while I was eating a sandwich. She stood over me with her arms folded. Her friends gathered behind her, phones out.

‘Hey, mop girl,’ she said. ‘Dry throat?’

She unscrewed her water bottle and tipped it slowly over my head. The water was ice cold. It ran down my neck and soaked my collar. Everybody laughed.

I didn’t move. I put my sandwich down, wiped the water from my eyes, and looked straight at her.

‘Brenda,’ I said quietly. ‘Please tell the director I’m here.’

Her smile slipped. ‘The director doesn’t talk to cleaners.’

‘He’ll talk to me,’ I said. ‘I’m the reason his cheque cleared this morning.’

Nobody laughed anymore.

I had spent three weeks doing something my father had taught me before he died: walk the floors of your own company as if you were nobody, and you will learn what nobody ever tells the owner.

Halden Logistics was my father’s company. After his funeral the board had asked me to step in, and I had said not yet. First I wanted to know why good workers kept quitting.

Now I knew. Brenda’s friends filmed every video. Two supervisors looked away. A night guard told me quietly that the last new cleaner had left crying.

Brenda ran after me to the office. I let her walk behind me. When the director opened his door, his face went white and he stood up so fast his chair fell over.

‘Ms. Halden,’ he said. ‘We weren’t told you would visit.’

I turned to Brenda and asked very gently, ‘Would you like to go first, or shall I?’

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events are imaginary, and the images are AI-generated.

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