Chapter 4: With people like you in the company, we won't be afraid of thieves in the future 1
Chen Yiying squeezed herself between the elevator doors at the speed of a 100-meter sprint. She entered the elevator without caring about her image. She was just thinking about not being late for her first day at work, but her mind went blank the moment she looked up. And after that blank, there were thousands of thoughts.
Where have you been these two years? She looked at Qiu Zhuoping, who was still alone, and wanted to speak countless times, but her voice was stuck in her throat.
As the elevator rose, she sank little by little into the ocean of memories.
Yiying stood quietly in the elevator, not far from him.
The elevator slowly stopped at the 23rd floor. The moment the elevator door opened, it seemed as if thousands of lights and shadows pierced into his pupils. In that light and shadow, Qiu Zhuoping stepped out of the elevator door.
"Brother Zhuoping, why did you come just now?" The female voice that had been soaked in the sugar jar sounded extremely familiar.
The moment Yiying walked out of the elevator, the smile on Liu Jiaran's face gradually froze. But she quickly recovered, and with a sweet smile, she walked towards the office with her brother Zhuo Ping.
From beginning to end, Qiu Zhuoping ignored Yiying.
"Hey, are you the new marketing planner?" A handsome boy came over. He smiled very friendly and was tall but thin. He was the first person to greet Chen Yiying.
His name is Yang Zhili, he is the best-tempered male colleague in the company, helpful, and a bit gossipy. Yiying's first impression of him is - a close friend.
Yang Zhili led Chen Yiying to the marketing planner's desk, where besides the computer there were densely packed folders and sticky notes. Yang Zhili told her that because the marketing planner resigned last month, this position had been vacant, so many colleagues put their sundries here for convenience.
Chen Yiying spent a whole morning to tidy up her desk, but soon Liu Jiaran had her desk piled up again.
"These are the company's documents from past years, as well as all the notes from the previous marketing plan. Please sort them out and make a simple classification." This is what Liu Jiaran said when he threw a stack of folders on Chen Yiying's desk.
Colleagues at different desks all looked over, puzzled by the scene.
"Oh my God, did you offend Secretary Liu today?" Yang Zhili approached Yiying's desk when Liu Jiaran left in high heels. He looked at the pile of folders and sighed, how deep must the hatred be!
"Secretary Liu?" Yiying sighed, but was troubled by the three words "Secretary Liu".
Later, she learned from Yang Zhili that Liu Jiaran was the company's administrative secretary, but usually only pestered Qiu Zhuoping. At first, people in the company would privately discuss that they were a couple, but Qiu Zhuoping neither admitted nor denied it. After a long time, people in the company were too lazy to discuss it.
"There are three big guys in our company. The first is the chairman who never shows up. I have never met him. The second is the general manager Qiu Zhuoping. All matters of the company, big or small, need to be approved by him. The last one is the administrative secretary Liu Jiaran, who is a person that the company absolutely cannot offend. He will ask you to resign and get out in a minute." Yang Zhili deliberately lowered his voice when he mentioned Liu Jiaran, for fear that others would hear him if he spoke too loudly. "Let me tell you, the previous marketing planner was fired because he said her skirt was not pretty. That's why the marketing planner position in our company has been vacant."
"This is really Liu Jiaran's style of doing things." Yiying couldn't help but smile bitterly. She thought she could escape from the sea of suffering after graduation, but she didn't expect that she just jumped from one side of the sea of suffering to the other side. She couldn't help but think of a comic book she had read before, in which there was a sentence like this: The end of the sea of suffering is the other side of the dream, so people know there is a shore but are unwilling to turn back. Maybe if she resigned and left now, she would be on the shore, but was she really willing to leave like this?
"Did you know each other before?" Yang Zhili asked curiously, climbing on Yiying's desk like a monkey.
The other colleagues were busy with their own tasks and had no time to pay attention to the newcomer Yiying.
This floor of the office building is at least 300 square meters, and the offices are divided by partition boards. Yiying can see two figures inside through the half-open blinds not far away - Qiu Zhuoping is signing a document, and Liu Jiaran is half leaning on the desk with a cup of coffee in a seductive posture.
Yiying couldn't hear their conversation clearly, she could only see Liu Jiaran's lips opening and closing. From beginning to end, Qiu Zhuoping didn't raise his head to talk to her. He frowned slightly, seemed a little impatient, and inadvertently raised his head to glance at the desk outside.
The moment her eyes met Qiu Zhuoping's, Yiying quickly lowered her head and pretended to organize documents, while the blinds were quickly closed completely by Liu Jiaran.
"Yang Zhili, what's your position? How can you just chat with me all the time without doing anything?" When Yiying asked this question, Yang Zhili was fiddling with the folders on her desk.
"I'm in charge of the market, but there's not much to do recently as it's the off-season." Yang Zhili replied with a shrug.
Unexpectedly, just as he finished speaking, Liu Jiaran's voice suddenly rang out: "Yang Zhili, the whole office is filled with your voice. Since you are so free, go and tidy up the company's utility room." She put her hands behind her back and pointed to the room at the end of the corridor with the word "Utility Room" written on it.
Yang Zhili pursed his lips and used his fingers to make zipper-like movements on his lips.
People in the company were somewhat curious about Liu Jiaran's attitude towards Chen Yiying, but they didn't dare to say much due to his low position. However, with the precedent of Yang Zhili, other colleagues in the company avoided Chen Yiying and didn't dare to offer help. After seeing Liu Jiaran's unfriendly eyes, the colleagues who offered help also went back to their own duties and didn't dare to interfere.
Yiying, who had just stretched after organizing all the documents with great difficulty, saw several more stacks of A4 papers printed with numbers on the desk.
"This is the company's financial statements for the first half of the year. The computer has specific financial data tables. Please check them one by one to see if there are any omissions." Liu Jiaran looked down at Yiying and raised the corner of her lips. Then, she pointed to another pile of A4 papers and said, "This is a record and inventory of the company's real estate areas. Tables are made according to different areas. The sample is on the computer desktop."
"Shouldn't financial statements be the responsibility of the company's finance department? And what does the real estate report have to do with planning?" Yiying looked at the two thick piles of A4 paper in front of her in surprise. Liu Jiaran was deliberately looking for trouble!
"I think if there's a connection, then there's a connection. If you don't want to do this, you can resign today and I can ask the finance department to pay you a day's salary." Liu Jiaran snorted and laughed, "Our company is never short of people, let alone people who don't do anything."
"How can a small employee like me not do the work assigned by Secretary Liu? I will definitely work hard." Yiying raised her head and smiled without showing her teeth. Even though she knew that Liu Jiaran was deliberately making things difficult for her, she could not show weakness, let alone be caught. If she was fired on the first day of work, it would be so embarrassing to tell others!
"That's good. Oh, by the way, make me a cup of sweet coffee later." Liu Jiaran smiled proudly and turned back to his office. His giggles seemed to remind Yiying that you are just a level lower than me.
When Chen Yiying finished the form, it was already dark outside the window. She watched the busy office building become an empty building after working overtime voluntarily. There was only one dim light on the ceiling, illuminating her desk. The sound of typing echoed throughout the entire floor. When she was about to collapse, a loud noise came from a room. Such a strange sound coming from the empty office building inevitably gave her many terrifying thoughts.
The door of the utility room creaked open from the inside out, and a dim light shone through the gap in the door.
Yiying picked up a stack of paper, rolled it into a tube, and walked towards the utility room step by step.
"Ouch——" Suddenly, screams and the sound of collapse were heard from the utility room.
Before Yang Zhili fell out of the door, Yiying screamed in panic, thinking that the company was haunted.
"It's me." Yang Zhili raised his head, and the light from the phone was shining from his chin upwards, making him look even more weird. His white shirt was stained black by dust, and his left foot was in the mop bucket, as if he had tripped when he walked out of the utility room.
"Why are you still in the utility room?" Yiying kindly helped Yang Zhili up after he fell.
He touched the back of his head awkwardly and smiled, explaining that he had just wanted to take a nap in the utility room, but he overslept and found that the light in the utility room was turned off when he woke up. Because it was pitch black and he couldn't see the way, he turned on the flashlight on his phone, but when he opened the door and came out, he stepped on the mop bucket behind the door and rolled out.
"Why didn't you leave?"
"I'm still working on the spreadsheet, and it feels like I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow."
"Tables? I'm the best at that." Yang Zhili boasted, "Let me help you. I majored in computer science, so I can make tables very quickly."
"Then why did you come to the real estate company?"
"When you are very hungry and want to eat Western food but find that there are noodle shops everywhere, will you still think about Western food?" Yang Zhili gave an example, then dusted himself off and sat down in front of Yiying's desk.
His ten fingers moved flexibly on the keyboard, making it hard to imagine that this boy who looked like a "best friend" had such talent.
"Done, time to go home." Yang Zhili spent half an hour turning all the documents on Yiying's desk into a spreadsheet without taking a breath.
Yiying took her handbag, turned off the lights and left the company with Yang Zhili.
On the street where neon lights spread like a long river, Yang Zhili felt fortunate that it was not past half past ten, otherwise the company's electronic door would have automatically locked.
"You're actually quite special." As Yiying was about to walk into the community, Yang Zhili said with his hands on the back of his head, "It's rare for a girl to work overtime so late on her first day at work, without gossiping or complaining."
"I feel so unlucky today." On the first day at work, she met her former lover and rival, and was isolated by the company's people on the first day at work. Chen Yiying could not think of any other adjective except unlucky.
"Are you glad that I'm here? Hahaha." Yang Zhili joked, then said "See you tomorrow" to Yiying, turned around and disappeared at the end of the street.
The next day at work, Yiying bought an extra breakfast to thank Yang Zhili for his help, but she didn't expect that Yang Zhili didn't come to work.
At first, she didn't think much of it, thinking that Yang Zhili had gone to the market, but she didn't see Yang Zhili in the company for the next week. Later, she heard from people in the company that Yang Zhili was fired on her first day at work. Someone told her that Yang Zhili hid in the utility room and cried that day. But no one went to comfort him. After all, being fired happens every day, and who would care about people other than themselves?
So did she fall asleep because she was tired from crying? Yiying felt a little guilty. She knew that it was probably because of her that Yang Zhili was fired.
When she angrily pushed open the door of Qiu Zhuoping's office, he was looking down to check the customer information. Hearing the sound of someone coming in, he slowly raised his head, slightly opened his lips, but returned to his cold and arrogant expression.
"Remember to knock next time you come in."
Yiying looked at Qiu Zhuoping's cold face and angrily closed the office door. The loud noise startled many colleagues who were working in the office and they all looked towards Qiu Zhuoping's office.
Yiying knocked on the door a few times, and Qiu Zhuoping replied coldly: "Come in."
"Is it true that you can fire anyone in the company as long as you are in a bad mood?" Yiying slammed her hands on Qiu Zhuoping's desk and looked at him angrily.
He paused what he was doing and looked up to meet Yiying 's gaze: "I don't know what you are talking about."
"You are so high up, how would you know? Yang Zhili is a veteran employee of the company after all. Why did you fire him? Did he do anything wrong? He just helped the new employee. Is that wrong?"
Qiu Zhuoping's expression was somewhat solemn, but it was unclear whether it was due to self-blame or displeasure.
"He flirted with a male colleague on his first day at the company, and now he has the right to confront me. Our company has never needed a lackey. If you want to stand up for him, I can also help you leave the company."
"Qiu Zhuoping, you!"
"If you don't have anything else to do, don't disturb me while I'm working." Qiu Zhuoping continued to lower his head. After a few seconds, he seemed to remember something and continued, "By the way, didn't I ask you to write a real estate development plan? There will be a meeting for the real estate development in a few days. If the plan is not ready by then, don't blame me for not reminding you."
Chen Yiying couldn't win the argument with Qiu Zhuoping, so she slammed the door and left angrily.
After she left, Qiu Zhuoping flipped through his notebook and called Yang Zhili.
"It's me. Bring your resume tomorrow and report to ×× Company. Also, don't contact Chen Yiying again if you still want to have a good job." Before the other party could ask any questions, Qiu Zhuoping had already hung up the phone.
Yiying's interpersonal relationships were average to begin with, and with Yang Zhili being fired and Liu Jiaran targeting and contradicting Qiu Zhuoping, she no longer had any interpersonal relationships in the company. Only occasionally would a colleague tell her about some work matters.
During the first half month of work, Yiying felt that she had taken on all the work of the company. Whether it was physical or mental work, she was responsible for it.
In addition to writing plans, Liu Jiaran would also ask her and the male colleagues in the marketing department to distribute flyers downstairs in the company. After a few days at noon, Yiying felt that she could compete with African blacks.
"It's a meeting."
Yiying walked out of the elevator with the leftover flyers, while other colleagues were heading to the meeting room with their meeting books. At this moment, she remembered that the company was going to hold a sales meeting for the new property development today.
She hurriedly threw the flyer in her hand on the desk, took the folder containing the planning documents, and squeezed into the conference room with her colleagues.
In the conference room, everyone sat around a long dark wooden table, with the projection screen on the wall in front of the table. Qiu Zhuoping was wearing a clean white shirt, with his long hair smeared with hairspray and slightly pushed back to fix it, making his originally soft face more contoured. At this moment, he was sorting out the drawings and materials of the building, and his serious look made him look even more handsome.
"Don't block the way here." Yiying was pushed away by a colleague behind her because she was standing at the door of the conference room, blocking the colleagues coming in from behind.
When Yiying came to her senses, Qiu Zhuoping just looked up at her. Perhaps what he meant by "looking at each other in silence" was this situation?
"Brother Zhuoping, look, are the documents I organized for you neat?" Liu Jiaran separated their sight lines and handed the documents held in a pink clip to Qiu Zhuoping. Her nails were also painted with tender pink glitter nail polish, and the corners were inlaid with dazzling diamonds.
Yiying couldn't learn her sexiness, charm and delicacy, but Yiying didn't like it either.
"Everyone is here, let's start the meeting." Qiu Zhuoping didn't pay attention to these small details, but just glanced at the meeting room.
Yiying sat on the right side of the conference table. She watched Qiu Zhuoping turn on the projector. A bird's-eye view of a newly built community gradually appeared on the projection screen.
After showing several pictures of the community buildings from different angles, Qiu Zhuoping said: "What you are seeing now is the new real estate in District C. This area is a certain distance from the city center, but the transportation is convenient, and many people prefer such areas. Because it is far from the city center, the price of the real estate will be relatively lower. The advantage is that it may sell better and faster, but there are also disadvantages."
Qiu Zhuoping quickly switched the images on the projection screen and continued, "There is a residential area behind our newly opened property, but it is not owned by our company. This situation is very likely to lead to vicious competition among peers, and at the same time, it will also cause our recycling profits to decline. So the focus of today's meeting is how to avoid vicious competition and maximize profits."
The employees began to discuss among themselves.
After a while, Qiu Zhuoping set his sights on Chen Yiying: "Marketing planner, tell me about your plan."
"Okay..." Yiying was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly opened the folder to look for the completed planning document. But she looked through the entire folder, but could not find the planning document that was previously inserted in it.
"What's going on? Where's my planning copy?"
"It seems that the new marketing planner is not reliable at all. Fortunately, I also wrote a detailed planning proposal, otherwise today's meeting would not be able to continue." Liu Jiaran took out a planning document from his folder and started to do market analysis and sales analysis in a logical manner.
Only Yiying knew that she had spent several nights researching and thinking about the copy, but she didn't expect that it was taken away by Liu Jiaran.
