That's exactly why UniPrime was willing to pay top dollar to get me on board.

Almost all those deals Sunrise stole were ones I'd personally closed.

Mr. Mitchell arranged quite the welcome ceremony. In front of everyone, he patted my shoulder and announced, "Madeline, bear with the entry position for now. Once you're familiar with our operation, you'll be promoted to manager. You'll report directly to me - no middle management!"

I politely declined his offer.

Generally, sales departments are cutthroat, with people constantly undermining each other for resources.

Sunrise had been the exception.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down - I don't want to draw too much attention to myself when I'm just starting out.

As a former industry leader, UniPrime Company had clear internal processes and structures, totally different from Sunrise's family-business chaos.

It didn't take me long to get the hang of how things worked at UniPrime. And that's when that Labor Day client Felix had assigned me reached out.

He wanted his team to discuss partnership details with me, and was surprised to hear I'd switched companies.

I didn't try to push him toward UniPrime - just laid out the pros and cons of both companies and let him choose.

He decided to give Sunrise another shot.

This time, Sunrise sent Riley to handle the client.

I was just about to go to bed when Riley called.

I picked up to hear her screaming on the other end. "Maddie, you have no idea how frustrated I am right now!"

"Your leaving was so sudden, I still can't get over it! Do you know how hard it is to find a new lunch buddy at work? This is worse than a breakup!"

"And Felix is acting crazy again, making me meet with that out-of-town client tomorrow. What's the point? You've already handled everything with them - anything I do is just going through the motions. Such a waste of my weekend! Ugh, this is so annoying!"

I cut off her with a critical question. "Ry, did you guys get your paychecks and quarterly bonuses?"

Riley paused, then exploded even more angrily.

"No! Felix said we'd get paid after Labor Day, but now he's using Nina being in jail as an excuse, saying HR hasn't signed off on it."