I Got Paid 18 Million Dong for a Job That Does Not Exist

The word Seen appeared under my message, and every part of me went cold.

It was 9:47 on a Thursday night in my rented room in Bình Thạnh, Ho Chi Minh City. A bowl of Hảo Hảo noodles was going soft beside my laptop. I had meant to send the message to my best friend Trâm. I had sent it to my boss.

On Zalo, I keep Trâm and anh Dũng pinned one above the other, because I once missed a work message and he barely spoke to me for two days. My thumb was tired. It picked wrong.

The message was long, and I read it back, which is the worst thing you can do.

Trâm I am so done. 14 million and he wants us in on Saturdays AGAIN with no extra pay. I have an offer in Hanoi, 20 million, I am taking it. Do not tell anyone until I sign.

I pressed recall so fast I nearly dropped the phone. Zalo swapped my message for a small grey line saying it had been withdrawn, which was somehow worse. A withdrawn message is a door slammed on someone who has already seen you inside the room.

Eleven minutes later, Dũng answered.

Ok.

Then a thumbs up.

I did not sleep. I ate the noodles cold, standing at the window, and watched a woman on TikTok carve soap into roses until past one. I tried to write out my own message from memory, over and over, and every version sounded worse than the last.

Nobody could have made me explain the next part at that hour. There was no offer in Hanoi. A recruiter on LinkedIn had written to me in August, and I never replied. The 20 million was a number I had said out loud to my bathroom mirror, twice, to see how it felt. I typed it to Trâm because 14 million sounds sad when you say it plainly, and I wanted one night of sounding like a woman with options.

Friday started badly. The hot water ran out when my hair was full of shampoo. I rode my Honda Vision down Điện Biên Phủ with wet hair under the helmet, and the last rains of the season had left the road shiny and slow.

I stopped at the bánh mì stall on the corner, 25,000 dong for the egg one. The woman gave me extra pâté without being asked. I was not hungry, but I ate it standing up beside my bike, because I needed something to do with my hands.

At 10:15, Dũng leaned out of his glass office.

Linh, come in. Close the door.

I closed it. I sat down. The air conditioner was dripping into a plastic bucket behind his chair, the way it had for three months.

I was thinking last night, he said. Saturdays are optional from now on. Your salary goes to 18 million from next month.

I said nothing. My mouth had forgotten how.

I do not want to lose someone who understands the customs system, he said. Is it a serious company, the one in Hanoi?

I would rather not say, anh, I said.

He nodded slowly, like a man hearing the answer he wanted. I could have told him the truth right there. I said thank you instead. Two words, and I walked out of that glass room 4 million richer every month.

My desk is next to Hoa‘s. She is forty-one and has worked here nine years, and she earns 13 million. Her son Minh is in grade nine at a private school that costs 3 million a month. She told me that once while peeling a mango, in the tone people use for the weather. When my mother was in the hospital in Đà Lạt, Hoa covered my files for a week and never mentioned it again.

At lunch, a bag of sliced green mango with chili salt appeared on my desk. I did not see who put it there. I knew.

In the pantry that afternoon, Hoa was rinsing her flask when she spoke without turning around.

Whatever you said to him, it worked.

I did not say anything, I said.

Technically true, and I hated how true it was.

Hoa laughed, a small sound, like someone dropping a plate in another room. Nine years I never asked him for anything, she said. I thought he would notice by himself.

She screwed the lid on her flask. Remember Tuấn?

I remembered. Tuấn drove the company van and told Dũng, two years ago, that he would resign unless he got a raise. Dũng shook his hand and wished him luck. The van was sold a month later.

Maybe I should have threatened, Hoa said. Maybe that is the only language he hears.

After work I met Trâm at a Highlands Coffee near Lê Văn Sỹ and told her everything. She laughed so hard she snorted iced tea onto her sleeve.

You got a raise for a job that does not exist, she said.

He offered it. I never asked, I said.

Sure. She wiped her sleeve with a napkin and stopped laughing, slowly, the way a ceiling fan stops. Does Hoa know?

Know what?

That all it took was one wrong chat and one made-up number.

I stirred my coffee. The ice had already melted into it.

The weekend was quiet. I washed clothes, called my mother, and sent a voice note to my cousin and then worried I had spoken too fast. I checked my bank app twice, though nothing could have changed before the first of the month. I kept opening the Zalo chat with Dũng and looking at the grey line where my message used to be.

On Monday morning Hoa was at her desk before me. Her annual review was the next day, Tuesday at two, in the glass room. She had ironed her blouse. I could see the crease down each sleeve.

She waited until the others went to the pantry for the delivery of rice boxes. Then she rolled her chair over to mine.

I want to ask you something, she said. You do not have to answer.

Okay.

The company in Hanoi. Or any recruiter you spoke to. She kept her eyes on her phone as she talked. Maybe you have a name I could contact. I only want to be able to say I am talking to people. You understand. Just the name.

Her thumb was shaking against the edge of the screen.

I have the recruiter’s name. It is sitting in my LinkedIn messages, unanswered since August, and he is a real person who really does place logistics staff in Hanoi. I could give it to her in four seconds. She might walk into that glass room tomorrow with a spine she has never had, and Dũng might finally see her.

Or she might say the word resign the way Tuấn did, and he might shake her hand.

I also have the other sentence. The offer was never real. He only paid me because he read something he was never supposed to read. That one is shorter. It would also cost me Hoa‘s mango, and probably the way she looks at me across the desks.

Linh? Hoa said. Is it a good company? Was the offer real?

I took out my phone and opened the chat. I typed one answer and deleted it. I typed the other and deleted that too. The cursor blinked in the empty box while the rice boxes arrived, and somebody laughed in the pantry, and Hoa waited with her ironed sleeves and her shaking thumb.

Nobody pays you for what you are worth. They pay you for what they fear someone else will pay.