A couple of years ago my family agreed to keep birthdays and Christmas pretty simple because money was getting tight for everyone. Nobody complained because we all understood but it definitely changed the feeling around holidays. Instead of trying to surprise each other with something special we mostly bought practical gifts or small things people actually needed. It made sense but it felt like the excitement disappeared. Last Christmas my dad mentioned that he had wanted a PS5 but could never bring himself to spend that much on one. The reason being why my dad wanted is because me growing up we used to play together all the time and we had to eventually give our PS3 away. He laughed it off and changed the subject but I could tell he meant it. He works hard and almost never buys anything for himself so that comment stayed in my head. I spent the next few weeks looking everywhere for a decent deal. I checked Facebook Marketplace almost every day but the prices were still high and some ...
I work for a medium sized company. Nothing exciting. A few months ago, HR sent out a company directory update. I noticed a name I didn’t recognize. Daniel Carter. Operations department. The weird thing was that everyone’s profile had a photo except his. I asked my manager. He looked confused. “Daniel? He’s been here forever.” That bothered me because I had worked there for four years and had never seen him. I asked around. Everyone had a different memory. One person said he sat near the old printers. Someone else said he transferred to another building. Another person said he worked remotely. Nobody could describe what he looked like. Eventually, I searched the company database. Daniel had a full employee record. Start date. Salary. Performance reviews. Everything. Except no emails. No meetings. No access logs. No security badge scans. Nothing. I brought it to HR. They looked uncomfortable. They told me there must have been a mistake. The next day, Daniel disappeared from the director...