Chapter 550: Daily Life

The fifty-four people in the factory gathered together. No one spoke; they all looked at the young man standing in front with his hands behind his back—their new boss. Although the previous boss had told them upon leaving that they could continue to be employed, who could say for sure how things would actually turn out?

People are, in fact, creatures of comfort. Despite suffering and toil, the power of habit and adaptation is terrifying. Once people adapt to a certain rhythm of life, even if it is bitter and tiring, they will silently endure it. They may not find it sweet as candy, but they lose their grand ambitions. They become like Ah Q, comforting themselves. Of course, they want to change, but that rhythm they have adapted to has become a habit—it is quicksand, a swamp that drags down their bodies and minds, rendering them unable to move. Parents, wives, children, houses, cars, and illnesses are layer upon layer of shackles, firmly imprisoning them; they are the cage of life.

Of course, technology hasn't advanced for nothing, and society hasn't developed in vain. Even if one leaves a job, as long as one is willing to work, finding another isn't particularly difficult; one won't starve to death. However, if one could avoid this major upheaval and keep everything as it was, without having to go through the trouble of starting over, that would be best.

This was the thinking of the grassroots employees, because no matter where they went, they would still be grassroots employees. The market rate was just like that. Regarding whether they stayed at this factory or left, they cared, yet they didn't.

What was different were the managers among these fifty-four people—the team leaders in charge of four, five, six, seven, or eight people, and the deputy factory manager in charge of the entire factory's operations. They were the ones who least wanted to move. Because if they left this place, they had no way of guaranteeing whether the next place would force them back to their original form, working as ordinary laborers. Once they had climbed up, they didn't want to go back down. After all, everyone wants to live better and better; no one wants to live worse and worse.

It was simply different people carrying different moods. Some were devil-may-care and indifferent, some had faces full of worry, and some had eyes filled with expectation...

Wang Yan swept his gaze over the unusually large crowd of workers gathered before him and spoke: "Let me introduce myself. My name is Wang Yan, and this is my wife, Wei Lan. I won't say too much, and you wouldn't want to listen anyway, so just three things. First, for everyone and every position, wages will be increased by twenty percent. The payday will change from the 20th of each month, as it was before, to the 3rd of each month."

As soon as the words fell, cheers came from below. Wang Yan's gaze shifted over; it was a young man with dyed yellow hair. He was about eighteen or nineteen years old, likely a kid who had dropped out of school, messed around for a few years without achieving anything, and ended up here in Hukou. He was exactly the type of grassroots employee who feared no one and preferred to play around.

Following the kid's lead, the others reacted as well, buzzing with applause and cheers. Not having to leave and getting a raise—no matter who came, they couldn't find fault with that.

Wang Yan reached out a hand to press down, and once the crowd quieted, he continued: "Second, I want to improve everyone's welfare and benefits. I looked yesterday when I arrived; although meals are provided, the food isn't very good. I will hire a few more head chefs. From now on, lunch and dinner must have two meat dishes, two vegetable dishes, and one soup. Breakfast must also change; we'll make more variety so everyone can eat their fill and eat well."

"Also, regarding rest time: previously, your rest time was four days a month. From now on, it will change to eight days a month, and we will strictly adhere to an eight-hour workday. Any extra work hours will be paid overtime in accordance with relevant regulations. Of course, the rest days certainly cannot be set to Saturdays and Sundays, as the factory must operate and cannot be short-handed. This requires you to adjust among yourselves to ensure the monthly rest time. Team leaders, go back and plan and coordinate well, make a schedule, and send it to Old Liu in finance."

"Don't be in a hurry to cheer. Additionally, regarding the issue of the five social insurances and one housing fund. I checked with Old Liu in finance; some of you don't have them, and some who do only have the minimum, just a few hundred yuan. Starting this month, everyone will have the five social insurances and one housing fund, and everyone will contribute according to the normal contribution ratio. As for the specifics, go back and find out for yourselves. If you feel the deductions are too high, you can choose to keep it as it was before; it's all up to you."

Although they might not understand the specifics clearly, they knew that if their deductions were higher, the boss must be paying even more than they were, and this money was all for their own benefit and could be withdrawn. Calculating it inside and out, it was equivalent to another significant raise. Immediately, another round of enthusiastic applause and cheers was sent to the generous new boss.

Waiting for this wave to pass, Wang Yan continued: "Since wages are higher and benefits are better, then work must be done seriously. This is the third point I want to make. I hope everyone will strictly abide by our factory's safety and hygiene production systems and do the work that needs to be done well, meticulously, and precisely. If anyone slacks off, messes around, or pulls any tricks, then there will be no room for sentiment; you will be let go directly. That is all I have to say. Are there any questions?"

"No questions, Boss."

"Boss, don't worry, we will definitely do the work well."

"Yeah, our factory is actually pretty good; it's just that there are too few orders."

A crowd of people spoke up in a hubbub. Wang Yan waved his hand: "Alright, since there are no questions, let's get to work. Isn't there still one order not finished? Hurry up and get that order delivered. After that, our factory will stop production for a period of time to improve the production line. However, everyone don't worry; the wages that should be paid will be paid in full, counting as a full month. Alright, everyone disperse."

Wang Yan turned and left, with Wei Lan carrying her small bag following on one side, and two men in their forties on the other.

"Old Zhao."

"Boss!"

The one who replied was a slightly chubby man wearing glasses named Zhao Changchun, the deputy factory manager of this factory. The factory was small, so the work was inevitably miscellaneous. Old Zhao was responsible for managing production and going out to solicit business together with the previous boss.

His attitude toward Wang Yan was quite respectful, without the slightest bit of rudeness despite his seniority and familiarity with the factory. With a salary of over ten thousand a month, at his age, if he left this place, he basically wouldn't find another job. The pressure was too great, so he had to play the role of a grandson to others.

Wang Yan, of course, didn't think he was superior to others, nor did he have any intention of driving people away, as long as the work was done cleanly. He said: "From now on, you will be responsible for managing the factory's production; you don't need to worry about sales. Recently, you need to do three things. One is to finish the current order as soon as possible, and then dispose of the raw materials piled up in the warehouse; we are making traditional Chinese medicine, and those things are useless. Another is to organize the workers to clean the factory inside and out, top to bottom; the current hygiene conditions are still a bit poor."

"Especially over at the dormitory building. Only twenty people in our factory live there, one person to a room. Look at how those rooms are being ruined; tell them all to clean up. Also, the factory grounds need to be leveled again, the roads need to be repaired, and other corners and edges, as well as fire safety and such, all need to be looked after and handled."

"Third point, handle what I just said. Contact vegetable vendors who are high-quality, fresh, and stable to supply vegetables, and hire two more head chefs. Additionally, I will install our own management system for you; everything is interconnected. Warehouses, orders, logistics, and such are all inside. There is a set of standard procedures; familiarize yourself with the operations."

The rice bowl was secured... Zhao Changchun let out a breath and nodded: "Good."

"This time, our production stoppage will last at least a month. The employees cannot just sit idle and collect wages for nothing. How about this: let's conduct military training; when production resumes, it stops. Tomorrow, I will send you the new management and production systems; during the military training, make sure they memorize them all. Additionally, I will find a TCM practitioner to come over and teach those responsible for quality inspection how to distinguish the quality of medicinal materials. During this time, let them all study."

"Paid military training, also with normal working hours; I think they shouldn't have any objections. They can complain, they can curse me, the boss, for having no brains, but whoever messes around, has an unserious attitude, and repeatedly refuses to change, then don't tell me—just let them go directly."

Feeling internally that young people nowadays were truly direct, Zhao Changchun nodded in agreement and said: "Boss, we have no money left in the account. Should we..."

Wang Yan nodded and looked at Old Liu in finance: "Old Liu, you are still responsible for the factory's financial work. After finishing the procedures at the company, first take two hundred thousand to support the factory for a period of time. Also, touch base with finance to determine how future financial work will be conducted, and then report to me."

"Good, I understand."

"Alright, that's it, I'm leaving."

Wang Yan came and went like the wind, directly taking Wei Lan to the car and leaving.

Wei Lan, who had been silent the whole time, spoke up: "Is this what you meant by using money to talk?"

"Isn't it direct enough?"

"It's a bit too direct." Wei Lan let out a long breath, sat in the passenger seat, took out her phone, opened the calculator, and started calculating: "The average salary of these employees was five thousand five hundred. You increased it by twenty percent, which is six thousand six hundred. With fifty-four people in the whole factory, the monthly wage is three hundred fifty-six thousand four hundred, nearly three hundred sixty thousand. Then, according to the welfare and benefits you mentioned—five social insurances and one housing fund, four dishes and one soup—adding it all up, it's heading toward five hundred thousand. And to keep them like this for a month without working, doing some paid military training—aren't we losing a fortune? It would be better to wait until we've saved enough money before buying; that would be much more appropriate."

"Money isn't worth much; time is the most important thing. As long as the factory is set up well and the assembly line is running, that's all money. And what do you think I'm doing this for?" Wang Yan explained with a smile: "Giving them a raise and improving benefits is to increase their enthusiasm. During this period of time, when they are idle, doing military training is to make them obedient, to let them know I'm not easy to deal with, and to improve their obedience. In this way, the future factory environment will be relatively pure. It's not like you didn't see what the previous boss was like, and what state these workers were in before. Helping them adjust now will save a lot of worry later. It's only five hundred thousand; this money is well spent."

Wei Lan rolled her eyes: "If you say it's worth it, then it's worth it."

"You, you just haven't kept up with development in your thinking; you're still stuck at the level of ten or twenty thousand. I've wasted my breath these past two days. Now, your main contradiction is the contradiction between high income and backward money concepts. So, your task from now on is to strengthen ideological construction and improve; you have to work hard."

"Don't say that, you really do look like a leader."

"Can't help it, who told you we are dragons and phoenixes among men, with such talent and appearance."

"Always bragging all day long..."

Chatting and laughing all the way, the two returned to the company and started working.

They were already busy now. Wei Lan had to find an office building, look at office supplies, contact TCM suppliers, and conduct recruitment interviews. One reason was that Wang Yan wanted to develop a game engine to make games, and another was that now that they had a factory, production would inevitably explode, so they needed to hire a few more people to make calls, preparing to make calls across the country.

And all of this required money to be realized; this was Wang Yan's business.

He returned to the company, found a mature set of factory rules and regulations he had long possessed on the hard drive, and then directly took out a relatively less complex management system—PC version, mobile version, and even a partner client version. It didn't have a very beautiful UI design, it was standard, but it excelled in having complete functions and running smoothly, stably, and efficiently.

This was also something he had long possessed. According to his ability, the man-hours were about one hundred twenty hours, half a month's workload. So, taking this out directly wasn't a big problem. He also had various subsequent iterative versions; his Long Teng Empire had always used this stuff, and after countless improvements, it could be called perfect.

After debugging, Wang Yan operated to apply for the record, then issued account names and passwords to the employees, and ran over to Wei Lan's side, migrated the previous sales and customer data, connected it to the financial system, and it was considered a job well done.

After doing all this, Wang Yan went to make money, locking himself in the rental house and frantically rolling "Great Strength Pills." The factory equipment modification required two hundred thousand, customizing new equipment required about two million, labor expenses added up to over six hundred thousand, and renting an office building and purchasing office equipment required six or seven hundred thousand. Adding all these together, that was three point five million. He was busy.

Of course, that was just a way of saying it; in fact, making the goods for this amount of money only took four or five days. Due to long-term purchasing, some medicinal materials that needed further processing had already been handled by the suppliers—it just cost a bit more money, and he could just make them directly. Again, the speed was quite sufficient.

As for expanding cooperation, this supplier wouldn't do; the scale was too small, they were considered a second-tier distributor. If they wanted to find someone, they had to find those large TCM bases at the source...

Everything progressed very smoothly. They completed the change of factory procedures, and at the same time, the factory finished that last order which could only break even and began a vigorous "Great Cleanup" activity. The hired chefs also arrived. Wang Yan and Wei Lan went to have a meal; it was third-tier level, not bad.

After finishing the procedures, Wang Yan followed the previous intermediary to the factory that produced the equipment. This time, the intermediary didn't charge a fee; it was just showing the way. After all, this matter was far less difficult than finding a factory.

Wang Yan had detailed equipment blueprints in his hands, which greatly saved the factory's workload; after all, this kind of back-and-forth communication was the most troublesome. But at the same time, they also earned much less money because, compared to processing, the added value of design was higher. Without this procedure, after some haggling, it was finally settled for 1.8 million, with delivery within thirty days.

Custom equipment with special requirements like this basically couldn't be sold. If the buyer stopped halfway, wouldn't the manufacturer be stuck with it? So, this kind of business required full payment. But coincidentally, Wang Mou, who was always "Number Five," had no money in hand. So, after some discussion, they finally took out a deposit of three hundred thousand, paid another seven hundred thousand half a month later, and settled the balance in one lump sum after delivery. Of course, Wang Yan spoke with conviction, not looking like he had no money at all, relying entirely on his silver tongue to bluff.

Having settled this matter, the next step was to modify the original production line. It was also this company; they got a few technicians and brought equipment to the factory to inspect and modify.

Wang Yan was a player of high technology. Now, what kind of automated production lines and intelligent factories were there? If he, a guy doing artificial intelligence, didn't configure them, it wouldn't be justifiable.

It sounded high-end, but in fact, it was just adding some detection modules to some key links, or getting a robotic arm or something; they were all small jobs. The main thing was that Wang Yan had no equipment and no components; otherwise, he would have done it himself.

After finishing these things, Wang Yan continued to roll "Great Strength Pills." This time, he wanted to get more goods. According to the current situation, the progress of things far exceeded his expectations; next month, they could have assembly line production. So, he had to prepare more money, preparing to purchase medicinal materials in large quantities later...

"Sure enough, we have to move to a high-end office building to attract talent. Recently, I sent out interviews to others, and when they saw how remote we were, they didn't pay any attention to us at all. Even if the salary offered was high, they thought it was written to deceive them; they didn't believe it."

It was another busy day. Wei Lan adjusted the backrest of the passenger seat, comfortably stretched her legs and waist, squinted her eyes, and muttered.

She had already started interviews and had newly hired five customer service representatives to make calls, and also hired some administrative staff. They were all people "riding a donkey to find a horse," and it would take some time before they could resign. By the time they came to work, it would be just in time to work at the new company.

"For ordinary positions, you can just look around. Those technical talents aren't so easy to recruit. It's best to find a headhunting company; they are professionals, aren't they?"

"I was just thinking of trying my luck. What if I find one?"

Wang Yan shook his head: "It won't be that simple. You are an internet practitioner, and you also know that many people still value stock options and dividends. We can't possibly go public, and learning from Huawei's model is useless. Because for a long time in the future, our company will be spending more than it earns. And although our company is somewhat famous in the industry, that's in terms of our artificial intelligence. Now we want to develop a brand-new engine, and in many people's eyes, this is highly likely to end in nothing. After all, we haven't even figured out artificial intelligence yet, haven't found a profit point, and people have no way of believing that we can have long-term guarantees."

"Then in that case, finding a headhunter is useless?"

"No, no, no. Our target isn't those industry-famous R&D masters with annual salaries of millions. What we want are those with annual salaries of three or four hundred thousand, aged thirty or forty, whose technical level is sufficient, but who are facing a crisis with no way to rise. Because I have already built the overall framework, what I need is this kind of ability to build a house."

"With them leading the team, and cooperating with those with less experience and average levels, similar to Chen Yang's level, this project can move forward steadily, and the house can be built. As for those R&D talents, that's what we'll need when we have more money later."

"Alright, stop thinking about it. I see there is a surplus of money in the account. After helping your good sister settle down these two days, we'll go look at office buildings, striving to move there this month."

Everything went smoothly, and many tasks were faster than expected. This, of course, also had to do with Wang Yan being relatively conservative, because achieving goals ahead of schedule makes people happy.

"You said next month before, and now it's the end of the month." Just like Wei Lan at this moment, thinking of the recent changes, she said with a smile: "You also said the factory wouldn't be in production until before the New Year, but it turns out we can start work next month. I've discovered now that our company seems to have suddenly grown stronger."

"It's all an illusion; it's just that there are more employees. Counting those who haven't started, there are seventy-eight people now; that's when it feels like it's grown stronger. If we move to the office building in Binjiang and look at the Qiantang River from the building, maybe you'll feel that life is enough."

"Don't underestimate me. I am now deeply implementing and carrying out the improvement of ideological construction, solving the main contradiction between my backward money concept and high income."

Wang Yan, with his left hand propping his head on the car window and his right hand controlling the steering wheel, turned his head to look at Wei Lan, who was lying diagonally in the passenger seat, feeling somewhat lazy.

The couple looked at each other and suddenly burst into laughter...

At the exit of Xiaoshan Airport, the couple didn't wait long before they saw a group of people walking out of the passage. Wei Lan stood beside Wang Yan, stood on tiptoe to look closely, suddenly raised her arm and waved, and said to Wang Yan: "They're out, they're out."

Wang Yan put his phone into his pocket and looked up.

The person was easy to recognize; one could see her at a glance in the crowd. That was a woman with a standard melon-shaped face, heavy makeup, and brown wavy hair. Her figure was already tall, and she was wearing high heels, so she could be about 1.75 or 1.76 meters tall, wearing a black woolen coat. Such a woman, walking in the crowd, was hard for people to ignore.

Pretty, handsome, ugly, short, tall—anyway, as long as there was a feature, it always made people notice quickly. Coincidentally, this woman was pretty.

This, of course, was the good sister from Wei Lan's university mentioned before, the one named Sun Yi.

Obviously, Sun Yi also saw Wei Lan. Her face, which had no expression before, suddenly bloomed with a smile, showing her small white teeth as she waved back, and then dragged her small suitcase and quickened her pace to walk over.

"Long time no see, Lan Lan..."

Sun Yi came over, not feeling estranged, and directly gave Wei Lan a big hug.

Wei Lan had a look of helplessness: "That's about enough, we only saw each other half a month ago, and besides, we video-chatted last night, really..."

Sun Yi laughed, let go of Wei Lan, and slapped Wang Yan on the arm: "Old Wang, still as handsome as ever. Lan Lan, he hasn't bullied you, has he?"

"How would I dare to bully her." Wang Yan smiled and dragged the small suitcase from the side: "Alright, beautiful, let's go quickly. We two are still hungry, just waiting to welcome you. Let's talk as we walk..." ===== CHAPTER 551 =====