Ah, the afternoon glow — that golden-hour lighting that made even tangled cables look artistic. The sunlight poured through the office windows, flexing its design skills, while outside, the city performed its daily honking opera. Inside, the usual playlist played on: rapid keyboard solos, hushed “I-know-something-you-don’t” debates, and a coffee slurp so passionate it could’ve headlined a live concert. Productivity was at its peak — or so they thought. Because in every corporate story, just before the storm, there’s always a weird calm and a suspiciously quiet Slack channel.
Chapter 1: A Promising Start
Riya, our ever-organized Talent Acquisition Lead, sat at her desk like a queen surveying her kingdom. Her desk was a Pinterest board come alive — spotless, with only a steaming cup of chai daring to fog up her perfection. On her dual monitors glowed the holy grail of her career: the résumé and details of Vinod Mehta.
Now Vinod wasn’t your average candidate who Googles “top 10 interview answers” and rehearses like he’s auditioning for a reality show. No, Vinod was the real deal. He strolled into his technical interviews with the kind of confidence that made even the interviewers check their notes twice. His coding? Razor-sharp. His solutions? Faster than instant noodles. The man solved complex algorithm problems like he was casually ordering pizza toppings. And don’t even get us started on his grasp of system architecture — the delivery team practically saw halos around his head.
But wait — Vinod wasn’t just brains wrapped in code. During HR discussions, he was the perfect cocktail of charm, humility, and just enough confidence to make everyone think, “Ah, finally someone normal!” He spoke with clarity, had all the right professional vibes, and sprinkled just the right amount of enthusiasm about the role. Basically, he was the unicorn every recruiter dream of.
So of course, the offer letter was sent faster than you can say “Ctrl+Enter,” and Vinod accepted without blinking. Monday was marked as D-Day (joining day, not doom day — at least not yet). On paper, it was flawless. Too flawless.
Meanwhile, the office machinery started rolling like a Bollywood wedding prep. IT set up his shiny new workstation, polished his chair till it squeaked, and generated more login credentials than a teenager has social media accounts. Orientation sessions were scheduled — because nothing screams “welcome” like three hours of PowerPoint. Even project briefings were lined up like dominos, ready to fall into place as soon as Vinod arrived.
The delivery team buzzed with relief. Finally, they’d gotten the cavalry. The client — a very fancy, very strict banking firm — was breathing down their necks about deadlines, and Vinod was supposed to be the knight in shining keyboard armour.
Riya sipped her chai, a rare smile tugging at her lips. “Finally, a win,” she thought, blissfully unaware that Monday was planning to give her a plot twist worthy of a Netflix cliffhanger.
Chapter 2: The Unexpected Blow
It was exactly 4:30 PM — the witching hour for email notifications. The office was still humming, everyone blissfully typing away like tiny productivity robots… until Riya’s inbox decided to drop the ultimate plot twist. Ping! Ping! Ping!
She clicked on the flashing subject line, squinting like the universe had just sent her a cryptic fortune cookie. It read: “Regret: Unable to Join as Planned.”
Her heartbeat did a little tap dance. Because nothing says “good afternoon” like a polite email that slaps your plans straight in the face.
“Dear Riya,” the email began in its oh-so-formal tone, “I regret to inform you that due to a personal family emergency, I won’t be able to join the organization as per the agreed date. I apologize for the inconvenience caused and hope you understand. Regards, Vinod Mehta.”
Riya blinked. Twice. Then a third time. Yep. That was not a hallucination. But Riya, ever the calm in the chaos (and also secretly part superhero), picked up her phone. Dialed. Click. Ring. Ring.
“Hello, Vinod? This is Riya from Talent Acquisition,” she said in her best ‘I’m totally calm but slightly panicked’ tone. “I just got your email. Can you… explain?”
There was a pause. Long enough for her to question whether she should start knitting a stress blanket right there. Then his voice came, soft but guilty: “It’s… my father has been hospitalized suddenly. I need to be with my family. I’m really sorry, Riya. I was looking forward to joining.”
Riya exhaled. “Family comes first, Vinod. Really. Hope he gets better. And thanks for letting me know instead of ghosting like everyone else.”
And just like that, the unicorn had turned into a… well, an invisible unicorn.
Riya leaned back, took a sip of chai, and muttered under her breath: “Monday, you tricky little devil. You’re only getting started.”
Chapter 3: The Gathering Storm
The office was buzzing, but not in a “yay, productivity!” kind of way. More like “oh, we’re all juggling flaming swords and hoping no one drops anything” kind of way. Deadlines were breathing down everyone’s neck, and the coffee machines had started producing espresso shots strong enough to make your hair stand on end.
Riya, ever the fearless Talent Acquisition superhero, stared at the empty chair that Vinod Mehta should have claimed by now. Monday had come and gone, and the chair was still suspiciously empty. Somewhere between sadness and mild panic, she realized: the circus wasn’t leaving town anytime soon.
So, like any responsible adult with a sense of impending doom, she marched straight into Rahul’s office – Delivery Manager and general human stress absorber.
Rahul, buried under a mountain of Gantt charts and what looked like 47 different versions of the same project timeline, barely looked up. “Yes, Riya?” he said, his tone calm, but his eyes screamed “please don’t give me more bad news.”
“Vinod won’t be joining. Family emergency,” she said, with just the right mix of disappointment and dramatic flair.
Rahul’s expression froze for half a second — the universal “oh, fantastic” face. Then he muttered, “Not ideal at all. Which tasks was he supposed to handle?”
Riya handed him a neatly typed document. Inside, each line looked like a ticking bomb labelled “urgent, client waiting, pray for coffee.”
Rahul squinted at the list. Then, like a general planning an ambush, he called his team together. Ramesh, the senior developer with a sixth sense for problem-solving under stress (and caffeine), and Karthik, the junior who somehow seemed to absorb knowledge through osmosis, were drafted for what would soon be known as “Operation Save-The-Week.”
“We’ll manage the critical parts,” Rahul said, trying to sound confident. “It won’t be perfect but it’ll hold us together until further notice.”
Meanwhile, Priya, the QA goddess, adjusted her glasses and recalculated everything in her head faster than a spreadsheet could blink. “Critical test cases first. The rest? Can wait. Senior testers take the high-risk modules. We might just survive this,” she said with the calm precision of someone plotting the perfect escape route through a jungle gym.
And then there was Ankit from Sales — part negotiator, part client-whisperer, part chaos coordinator. “We inform the client immediately. Honestly. No sugar-coating. Trust builds over honesty or at least over believable panic.”
Riya nodded furiously, fingers flying across the keyboard like she was performing a magic trick. Email drafted, reviewed, approved, send.
The client’s response? Surprisingly sane.
“Thank you for your transparency. We understand these things happen. Please proceed with your revised plan. Let us know if further assistance is needed.”
Riya did a tiny victory shimmy at her desk. Not a full dance — she didn’t want to scare the interns — but enough to acknowledge that, for the first time in three weeks, Monday hadn’t completely eaten her soul.
Meanwhile, the team went into overdrive. Ramesh and Karthik switched tasks like caffeinated jugglers, handling Vinod’s responsibilities and more. Priya redistributed QA priorities like a strategic general, ensuring the most critical bugs were caught while dodging chaos. Even Ankit, who wasn’t technically a coder but had mastered the art of calming panicked clients, jumped in with updates and reassurances.
Through all of this, Riya couldn’t help but notice the absurdity of it all. Here they were — brilliant people with brains wired for logic and precision — fighting a project that had suddenly become part circus, part thriller. And yet, somehow, they were surviving. Barely. As the sun set, spilling golden light across the office floor, Riya leaned back and whispered to herself:
“Okay, Monday, you win the first round but the war isn’t over.”
Chapter 4: The Race Against Time
If the last crisis felt like patching a leaking boat with duct tape, this one was more like bailing water out with a coffee mug while the ship’s band played “Don’t Stop Believing’.”
Sure, Rahul and the delivery team had pulled off their temporary miracle, but Riya knew the truth: shifting resources around wasn’t a solution, it was a caffeine-fuelled illusion. Someone permanent needed to take the wheel — and fast. So, she did what any HR warrior would do: dove headfirst back into the glorious jungle called “candidate pipeline.”
Resumes flew across her desk like confetti at a badly organized wedding. Calls went out, Zoom interviews filled the calendar, and assessment rounds were fast-tracked at lightning speed. It was less “structured hiring” and more “recruitment Hunger Games.”
And then — like a hero stepping out of the mist — one candidate stood out. Rajiv Kumar. Solid technical chops. Impressive earlier interviews. Confident smile. A resume that didn’t look like it was copy-pasted from Stack Overflow answers. The only reason he hadn’t joined earlier? Some minor paperwork hiccup. This time, though, Rajiv was radiating determination.
“I’m ready to join immediately,” he declared during the final HR round, his voice echoing with heroic certainty. “If selected, I’ll be in the office by Monday. No issues.”
Riya practically heard angels singing. She scribbled a giant mental FINALLY! across her brain. Offer letter sent. Offer letter signed. Everyone exhaled like it was the season finale of a thriller.
Then came Monday. The office was buzzing, the workstation was all polished, login credentials were activated, and the IT team had even managed to spell his name correctly on the email ID (a miracle in itself).
9:00 AM — the chair was empty. 9:30 AM — still empty. 10:00 AM — emptier than the last season of Game of Thrones. By 10:30, the team started side-eyeing Riya. She forced a confident smile. “He’s probably stuck in traffic. You know how it is.” By 11:00, she was dialing his number. Once. Twice. Thrice. Straight to voicemail. By noon, she was firing off emails: “Hi Rajiv, just checking if you’re on your way. Please confirm.”
Silence. The workstation sat untouched. His credentials logged no activity. Even the coffee mug that HR had carefully placed for him looked abandoned, as if mourning the career that never began.
By 2:00 PM, the truth hit harder than a missed appraisal hike: Rajiv had pulled the ultimate disappearing act. No texts. No calls. No “sorry, can’t join.” Just pure, unfiltered ghosting.
Riya slumped into her chair, muttering, “I didn’t sign up for a recruitment version of hide-and-seek.” Rahul, hearing the news, “Another one?” he sighed. “Fine. We’ll reshuffle tasks. Again.”
Chapter 5: The Disappearing Act
Just when it felt like the storm clouds were parting and the sun was peeking through, life decided to throw the team a curveball. Not a gentle one — more like a cricket ball hurled by Bumrah at full pace.
After weeks of chaos, HR finally pulled off a small miracle. Enter: Mehul Joshi.
A neatly dressed, polite, well-qualified software engineer. He walked in on Day 1 with the confidence of a man who’d read all the onboarding manuals and actually remembered the Wi-Fi password on the first try. His first day went swimmingly.
Riya finally exhaled. “This is it,” she thought, sipping her chai like a victor. “We’ve turned the corner.”
Then came Day 2. The office hummed with usual chaos: developers arguing about code indentation, QA testers dissecting bugs like detectives, managers trying to look busy on Excel. But one desk stood out.
Mehul’s. Empty. Lonely. Abandoned. Like an orphaned workstation in a corporate horror story.
Riya, ever the optimist, thought, “Maybe he’s running late. Traffic, perhaps. Or maybe he lost his way inside the building.” So, until 12 PM: Not even a ghost of Mehul.
Riya checked the attendance log. Blank. Not even a typo. Calls were made — no answer. Messages were sent — blue ticks avoided. Emails? Oh, those went into the Bermuda Triangle of the internet, never to return. By afternoon, the silence was deafening. Even the coffee machine seemed to hiss in sympathy.
Rahul raised an eyebrow at Priya. “Strange. He seemed committed yesterday.”
Priya nodded gravely, like she was analysing a cold case. “He even stayed back after induction. Who does that if they’re planning to vanish?”
Exactly. Who?
Riya sat frozen, staring at the empty chair. Her brain screamed: Did we just onboard a hologram? Was he even real? By evening, the truth was undeniable. Mehul had performed the greatest disappearing act since Harry Houdini. One day, there. Next day, gone. No goodbyes, no explanations, not even a lazy WhatsApp “Can’t join, soz.”
Rahul muttered under his breath, “At this rate, we should stop calling it ‘onboarding’ and start calling it ‘speed dating.’”
Ankit from Sales, never one to miss a punchline, added, “Nah, this is worse. At least on dating apps, people ghost after a few conversations, not right after meeting your parents.”
And so, another desk sat empty. Another promise dissolved into thin air. Another week wasted. The project deadline loomed closer, and the team? The team just rolled up its sleeves and trudged forward, muttering under their breath, “Well, at least he didn’t take the office mouse with him.”
Because in IT, hope dies last but humour keeps it alive.
Chapter 6: The Breaking Point
After weeks of playing recruitment roulette, the team finally thought they had cracked the code. Enter Sameer Deshmukh — the newest shining star. He walked in looking like he had just stepped out of a corporate advertisement: crisp shirt, neat hair, and the kind of smile that said “Don’t worry, I’m here to save the day.”
For the first two weeks, he was every manager’s dream. Showed up on time, didn’t complain about the coffee machine, nodded at stand-ups like he was solving world hunger, and actually delivered tasks on schedule. The team, battered from earlier disasters, started to relax. Riya even allowed herself to think, “Maybe, just maybe, this is the one.”
Then came Week Three. Also known as: Pressure Cooker Week.
Suddenly, bugs were popping up like uninvited relatives during wedding season. Clients were sending “urgent” feedback faster than popcorn pops in a hot pan. The project timeline shrank so much it felt like it had been through a dryer.
And that’s when Sameer’s cracks started to show. First, his emails. What used to be detailed responses turned into mysterious one-liners like: “Noted.” or the ever-famous “Will check.” Meetings saw him nodding but with the glazed look of someone mentally scrolling through vacation packages. Deadlines slipped by like butter on a hot pan.
Then came 1 Tuesday. No Sameer.
“Traffic maybe?” Riya guessed, sipping her coffee.
Wednesday. Still no Sameer.
“Maybe his phone’s battery died and his charger and the backup charger and his entire Wi-Fi connection?” Priya offered optimistically.
Thursday. Ghost town. Sameer had pulled a full Abracadabra Exit. No calls, no emails, not even a cryptic WhatsApp status update.
Rahul stared at his screen and muttered, “When the real pressure hits, people don’t crack. They just evaporate.”
Priya shook her head. “It’s like every candidate comes with a trial version. Free for two weeks. Then — poof — subscription expired.”
The empty desk sat there mocking everyone like the office’s own haunted relic. By now, the team wasn’t even shocked. They just sighed, updated the “Disappeared Employees List” which was growing faster than the bug tracker, and carried on.
Chapter 7: The Background Check Bombshell
Just when the office thought they had seen it all — candidates ghosting like exes, disappearing like magicians, or melting under pressure like ice cream in May — fate decided to add a brand-new twist to the drama.
This time, it wasn’t about someone refusing to show up. Nope. This candidate did show up. He did log in. He even did write code. For two glorious weeks, the team thought, “Finally, a normal human being!”
His name was Arvind. Smart, sharp, polite — the kind of guy who brought his own coffee mug on Day 1 and asked intelligent questions in stand-ups. Rahul was already planning which modules to hand over, and Priya was cautiously optimistic that QA wouldn’t have to play whack-a-mole with bugs for once.
But lurking in the shadows was the silent killer of IT hiring: Background Verification.
You see, while Arvind was happily typing away on his laptop, HR’s mode was in full swing — cross-checking documents, calling past employers, and verifying education certificates like they were decoding the Da Vinci Code.
Then came the email. Subject: “Discrepancy Found in Candidate Background Verification”
Riya read it once. Then twice. Then out loud, hoping the words would magically rearrange themselves. Nope. The conclusion was clear: Arvind’s “previous company experience” was about as real as a unicorn with a LinkedIn profile.
The next morning, HR swooped in like secret agents. Arvind was politely called into a meeting room, offered a chair, and within ten minutes, politely escorted out. Just like that. Poof.
Back at the delivery bay, Rahul looked up from his code, confused. “Wait, where’s Arvind?”
Priya deadpanned: “Apparently, his last company was more fictional than Hogwarts.”
The office erupted in nervous laughter. Because what else can you do when your much-awaited saviour turns out to be a character from a fantasy novel?
Riya just sighed, sipping her now perpetually cold chai. “Background verification: the plot twist nobody ever asks for, but always gets.”
The lesson? Sometimes candidates don’t ghost you, sometimes they’re ghosts themselves. And with that, the project’s streak of bad luck hit a new milestone: even Sherlock Holmes couldn’t save them from HR-approved heartbreaks.
Chapter 8: The Ultimate Setback (The Titanic Project, But with More Laptops)
By now, the office didn’t need a clock to measure time. It was measured in candidates lost. Week 1: Rajiv. Week 2: Mehul. Week 3: Sameer. And then Arvind. The running joke was that HR should just print “Employee Missing Posters” and paste them at the cafeteria.
Riya sat at her desk, staring at the candidate list like it was the last slice of pizza at a party — tempting but disappointing. At this point, caffeine was just emotional support in a cup.
Her phone buzzed. Ankit from Sales. And if there’s one department that never runs out of energy (or demands), it’s Sales.
“Riya, the client just sent another follow-up,” he exclaimed out, voice as dramatic as a soap opera twist. “They want progress on the core modules. We promised delivery this week.”
Riya pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course they want updates. Of course it’s this week. Of course, the universe hates me.
“Ankit, we’re doing everything we can,” she replied, sounding like every IT manager in history. “I’ll update you in an hour.” (Translation: I have no update, but I’ll think of something in sixty minutes.)
Meanwhile, Rahul’s team was basically starring in their own version of Kaun Banega Multi-Tasker. Ramesh was doing backend work one minute. Karthik was switching roles so often he might as well update his LinkedIn headline to “Full-time Everything Engineer.”
Priya’s QA team? Heroes without capes. They were testing so many scenarios that even Netflix would envy their backlog. Still, bugs kept popping up faster than popcorn kernels in hot oil.
Priya discovered one particularly nasty bug Sameer had left behind before pulling his magic disappearing act. She stared at it, sighed, and muttered: “Every day we fix one leak, and two more show up. This isn’t software development; this is plumbing actually.”
The truth was clear. The ultimate setback wasn’t the code, the bugs, or even the deadlines. And so, the team carried on — patching leaks, juggling roles, and silently wondering if the client’s next milestone call would be their season finale.
Chapter 9: A Ray of Hope or Just Another Mirage?
After weeks of ghost employees and vanishing acts, the universe finally decided to throw Riya a bone.
Enter Priyansh Agarwal — ten years of experience, glowing recommendations, and a resume so polished it practically sparkled. The man looked like he’d been born in a server room, raised by compilers, and baptized by Agile methodology.
The interview was smooth. Too smooth. Priyansh was calm, confident, and even dropped the golden line: “I can join immediately and hit the ground running.”
HR’s collective sigh of relief was so loud it nearly shook the Wi-Fi. And join he did. Day 1 — firm handshake, crisp shirt, punctual arrival. By Day 3, he was cracking Jira tickets like walnuts. By the end of Week 2, he was coding, testing, collaborating, and even laughing at Rahul’s terrible puns. For the first time in months, Riya dared to think, “Maybe this is the one.”
Then came Week 3. The Client Demo. Now, client demos are where good developers become nervous wrecks. And Priyansh, who had been a picture of calm, suddenly looked like a deer that just realized it was standing on a six-lane highway. The first five minutes were fine. He explained data flows, system logic, even threw in some technical jargon that made the client nod approvingly. But halfway through? Oh boy. His voice cracked, he started fumbling with his screen share, and when the client asked a tricky question, he stared at the screen like it had just proposed marriage.
After the demo, Priyansh walked up to Riya’s desk, looking like someone who had aged ten years in 30 minutes.
“Riya… I don’t think I can do this. The pressure, the deadlines, the spotlight — I’m not built for this. I think I should quit before I become a bigger disaster.”
Riya blinked. She was so used to people vanishing without warning that an actual resignation conversation felt like a luxury. At least this guy wasn’t Houdini-ing his way out of the building.
“Thank you for being honest, Priyansh,” she said, half-relieved, half-exhausted.
When Rahul heard the news, he groaned. “Great. First people disappear like ghosts, now we’ve got someone handing in resignation letters like thank-you notes. What’s next, someone quitting by singing it in karaoke night?”
Priya, ever the realist, muttered, “At least he didn’t vanish mid-sprint. Small mercies.”
Ankit from Sales summed it up with the grace of a doomsday prophet: “Client deadlines don’t care if your people quit, vanish, or explode. Delivery goes on.”
And so, the saga continued. Priyansh left with dignity. The gap remained. The project clock kept ticking.
Riya just sipped her now-stone-cold chai and thought, “At least this one had the courtesy to quit like a gentleman. That’s progress right?”
Chapter 10: The Question That Remains
The following weeks felt like an episode of “Project Survivors: Office Edition.” Every day, new plot twists. Missing resources, client panic calls, deadlines doing the cha-cha on the calendar — it was chaos dressed in business casual.
The office, once full of chatter and caffeine-fuelled optimism, now looked like a set from a post-apocalyptic movie — empty desks, half-eaten snack packets, and sticky notes that read “Back in 5 mins” (they never came back).
Riya stared at her cold chai — the official beverage of despair — and muttered, “Maybe we should start doing background checks on commitment levels instead of technical skills.” Rahul replied from his desk without looking up, “Or maybe just ask candidates upfront — ‘Will you ghost us or stay till the next sprint?’”
Every bug in the codebase now felt personal. The system logs looked like they were mocking them. QA had become an extreme sport, and caffeine was the only reliable team member who hadn’t quit yet.
Riya finally leaned back and said, “You know what? Maybe we don’t just need developers. We need emotional support engineers — people who can handle the heartbreak of sudden resignations.”
Because at this point, survival wasn’t about code, it was about coping. And that’s when the big thought hit her: How do you build a company where people don’t just log in, but buy in? How do you design a team that doesn’t vanish when the real storm hits — one that doesn’t treat commitment like a trial subscription?
The silence that followed had more weight than any project report.
Riya looked around the office, sighed, and whispered to herself,
“Maybe the real KPI is finding people who stay past the pilot episode.”
And that remains the great unanswered mystery we’re all left chasing.
So, we’ll leave you with this little brain teaser
If you were in our shoes — constantly prepping shiny new workstations for employees who vanish faster than the last slice of pizza at a team lunch — what would you do?
Would you build foolproof hiring processes? Run psychological endurance tests? Maybe sneak a GPS chip into the offer letter? Or would you aim for a cultural revolution so strong that even thinking about ghosting HR feels like a horror story?
Whatever your survival strategy, we’d genuinely love to hear it.
Connect with BriskWinIT Solutions — let’s trade our corporate war stories, laugh at the madness, mourn the missed deadlines, and who knows, maybe together we’ll find a way to turn these “ghost stories” into real success stories (and finally let our sanity take a coffee break).
contactus@briskwinit.com