The Employee Files: I Opened Every Personnel Folder in My Company
CLASSIFIED · NADIM INDUSTRIES · HUMAN RESOURCES · 27 OCT 2026
Yesterday at 14:00 UTC the job market died and NPCs moved into my factories. Nine companies, eight employees, and one manager I keep meaning to fire.
So I did what any responsible boss would do. I opened every personnel file. Some of them should not be read before breakfast.
FILE 001 · ESTHER PEREIRA
Brazil · 38 · Iron mine (Ironic SDF)
VERDICT: STAR EMPLOYEE
"I dig iron. I don't do steel. Don't ask me to do steel."
Esther carries the Laborer trait: +3 production on raw resources, −1 on anything manufactured. I put her in an iron mine by pure luck, and that luck turns into 50 points a day for a 2.88 wage. Daily profit +2.22, the best in the building.
Move her to my steel plant and that +3 turns into a −1. Same woman, wrong door.
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FILE 002 · ALICE OLIVEIRA
Brazil · 35 · Iron mine (Ironic SDF)
VERDICT: THE BARGAIN
"No trait. No drama. Just pay me less."
Alice has no trait at all. The interesting part is the two little chips under her name: her wage sits 17.6% below normal while her production bonus is +10.9%.
When the bonus chip beats the wage chip, a worker makes you money even without a superpower. +0.69 a day, quietly, every day.
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FILE 003 · ABDULLAH AL-SAYED
Tunisia · 37 · Steel plant (Ironic 6)
VERDICT: UNDERPAID GENIUS
"Happiness 58. I'm fine. Really."
Wage −23.9%, bonus +26.9%: a 50-point gap in my favour. On top of that he sits at 58 happiness, and every point above 50 is 1% more output.
Not the strongest worker on paper, but the cheapest strong one I have. +1.24 a day.
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FILE 004 · JAMILA ASHOUR
Tunisia · 33 · Steel plant (Ironic 6)
VERDICT: MISCAST
"Girl Power, they said. My only coworker is Abdullah."
Girl Power gives +15% per female coworker, up to +30%. I paired her with the only man in the company. Trait wasted, profit +0.12.
The fix is sitting in my iron mine: two women, both doing great. The day a third chair opens there (80 steel buys the next Break Room level), Jamila moves. She'll sulk for a week, because a move costs happiness, but +30% pays for a lot of sulking.
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FILE 005 · SHAHD BENABDALLAH
Tunisia · 44 · Steel plant (Shamshi land)
VERDICT: BAD LUCK
"I find treasure. Sometimes. Rarely. Okay, almost never."
Scavenger doubles the chance of finding toolboxes, and their cap, but costs 25% production. The chance itself comes from Luck: 0.1% per Luck point for every hour worked.
Shahd has Luck 1. Double of almost nothing is still almost nothing. Profit +0.01. A Scavenger needs real Luck before that doubling means anything.
She is also 44, and employees age one year per day. Her retirement letter lands in about three weeks.
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FILE 006 · MIKADO
Manager · Steel plant (Ironic 6)
VERDICT: UNDER REVIEW
"I am management."
Mikado brings 4 Management points: +8% for the two workers he looks after. About 4 of their 51.6 points a day come from him.
His price: 0.039 an hour, about 0.94 a day. Four extra points of steel are worth far less than that. A manager pays off in a company full of strong workers, not in a two-person plant. His file is on my desk, next to the shredder.
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FILE 007 · THE NEXT APPLICANTS
"Hire me. Trust me."
Every candidate shows exactly one clue: a stat, a trait, or their Potential. Jumana asks 2.59 a day and only reveals Potential 9. Bashar asks 0.67 with Potential 3.
A new list costs 10 energy, then 20, then 40, then 80. A cheap wage usually hides a weak worker, so I read the wage against the one clue I get, and I reroll once at most.
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CASE CLOSED?
Eight employees bring in +4.52 a day together. My star was a lucky match. My three weakest are not bad people, they are in the wrong rooms: a Girl Power with no girls, a treasure hunter with no luck, and a manager with nobody to manage.
Your office has a Jamila or a Mikado too. Tell me about them in the comments, and the best one gets its own file in Part 2.
If reading other people's mail was fun, a vc keeps the shredder away.
— NADiM
Head of HR (also the only human in the building)