Chapter 927: Apology and Advanced Work System

Andy looked at Albert, his lips trembling slightly, "I..."

He opened his mouth, not knowing what else to say.

He couldn't go back.

Coming here was already the result of him and his father "burning out," just like Sydney, who burned himself out for his secretary, who was also his true biological son.

Used all the human connections that could be used to exchange for a relatively high start for Owen, a member of the State House of Representatives.

With such a starting level, it wouldn't be too difficult to continue being his representative or run for mayor of a certain region.

Andy's father was also an old politician, but the level wasn't very high, though he also had high-ranking official friends he knew.

He burned out all his personal connections to arrange for Andy to work in this unofficial international human rights investigation agency, and also sent him to Lapa.

The effort he made behind this was definitely not a little bit; it was the accumulation of a lifetime.

So Andy couldn't leave here, which was also one of the reasons why he always emphasized following Congress's decisions; he wanted to perform well.

But it was precisely the idea he wanted to express that matched an inappropriate attitude, which made everything a mess.

Albert was a very typical politician; he stared at Andy for a while, "Actually, to Lanse, you are just a small character."

He obviously knew more, "What you need to do now is to get Lanse's forgiveness and let him know that you have realized your mistake."

Andy nodded, the feeling of huge panic disappearing from his chest; he looked at Albert with gratitude, "I will go apologize to him in a while."

Albert nodded; he just gave a hint. If Andy continued to do stupid things, he wouldn't give any face at all.

"Handle the things Lanse asked you to do as soon as possible; you have to show your attitude."

"I'm not very sure why you wanted to come to Lapa; this is not a simple job and requires more ability to adapt."

"You are very lacking in this aspect, so the best thing you can do now is to treat yourself as a tool, don't think, don't question, just execute, and don't do other things you shouldn't do."

Speaking of this, Albert stood up, "Alright, that's it."

"I also have to go back to work."

Soon Lanse saw Andy again. After Andy came, his attitude became much better, apologizing for his recklessness with a low eyebrow and pleasing eyes.

Lanse knew this must be Albert's meaning; of course, he didn't have the idea of continuing to investigate.

After all, what he wanted was just a tool person, and this matter of supporting Lapa's civilian anti-government forces would never enter his hands anyway.

On one hand, Congress needed to have complete and precise control over this matter; otherwise, they wouldn't need to arrange a visiting group to come over specifically to do this, just let Lanse do it.

Arranging for special people to do it means they want to keep files, to ensure that they can trace the specific content of a certain transaction at any time, and even the content of the conversation must be recorded.

Lanse couldn't do it so meticulously.

Secondly, Lanse actually wasn't very willing to intervene in such things; this practice of funding certain organizations to subvert their country's regime would be spurned by people in any country.

Even in the Federation, if this matter were exposed, people would also spurn the people responsible for formulating the plan and the people who executed it.

He didn't want to become a "black hand behind the scenes," nor did he want to become an "executioner." He is an invisible person now; his influence is at play in almost every link, but there is no shadow of him, which is very good.

So Lanse forgave him, and Andy left soon after.

It would take three days for these things to be transferred from the Federation, and it might be a week later when they were delivered to Pedro's hands.

A little later in the evening, Rogerf took the initiative to find Lanse.

During this period, Rogerf had been busy building the factory; in 70% of his life, he was the one being exploited and oppressed.

Now that he had turned into a rich man, naturally he had become the one exploiting and oppressing others.

Although he had rich experience in being exploited and oppressed, the experience of wanting to successfully transform into exploiting and oppressing others might still need a process.

"There was a little trouble at the factory."

Lanse gave him a cigarette, "What trouble?"

"Did someone deliberately find trouble for you, or did the officials find trouble for you?"

In Lanse's view, the trouble encountered by the factory was only these two types.

Some people were jealous of their factory, so some locals gathered to find trouble for the factory; this situation exists not only in a place like Lapa, but also in the Federation.

They would say that because of the toxic air emitted by the factory, they couldn't breathe, their families couldn't breathe, and their dogs couldn't breathe, so they needed compensation.

Even if this factory was just a manual factory that didn't discharge sewage, they would say so.

What they wanted was compensation, or extra job opportunities.

There was also the situation where officials reached out indiscriminately; the money invested by Lanse and the Imperial Chamber of Commerce in these industries was real money.

The value produced by these cheap laborers was not small, and they might be targeted by some officials, who would then find trouble and try to find ways to buy shares.

This was also relatively common.

The Federation could also find prototypes, and this was also one of the reasons why the collusion between capital and politics was so deep.

On one hand, investing in politics could bring more returns to capital, and at the same time, it also increased its anti-risk ability in politics.

Rogerf and the others hadn't officially contacted the local management and ruling group yet, so it was possible that someone came to force him to allow those people to buy shares.

However, his guess fell through, because none of these constituted trouble.

The trouble was caused by those ordinary workers!

"Some workers... their work attitude is very bad, always trying to find ways to be lazy."

"At first it was only a small part of the people, but soon the number of people doing this became larger, and this behavior would 'infect' others."

"I originally thought that these workers would work very hard after getting a high-income job."

"But after a short period of freshness, their work efficiency obviously decreased a lot."

"I asked them to speed up the work, and they deliberately damaged some raw materials, forcing me to slow down the production speed."

"I'm not very sure what to do now, or whether to fire them?"

"The proportion of locals in the factory is too large, and I'm a bit worried about whether they will make trouble, so I haven't done so yet; I want to hear your thoughts and opinions."

Saying he wanted to hear Lanse's thoughts and opinions, actually, in the end, he came for help.

"Is it a certain factory, or a universal phenomenon?"

Rogerf replied, "Currently, the situation is more serious in the cigar factory, and other factories have also begun to have such signs, which are not easy to handle in management."

"We can't keep an eye on any of them all the time; as long as our attention isn't on them, they will be lazy immediately."

Lanse built a cigar factory here because of the special climate of the Yalan continent, which made this place a natural paradise for plants!

There are many production areas for the world's top plants here, and they are widely distributed with a large area.

Lapa has a large area very suitable for planting tobacco, and now tobacco has been planted.

Lanse bought large tracts of land and then cleared the ordinary tobacco on them; he bought some top tobacco from other places and transplanted it here.

This needs to wait until after July to carry out the first harvest.

But a brand cannot only have top tobacco; not everyone can afford cigars that cost a few dollars, ten dollars, or more.

So Lanse is also acquiring some tobacco from local tobacco farmers to manufacture cigars.

Tobacco and alcohol will never be separated, and the profit of tobacco is also very large; the cost of a cigar might only be a few cents.

But as long as it is packaged well, the story is told well, and it is placed in an exquisite box with a cost far higher than it, placed in the most conspicuous position on the counter, its price will turn hundreds of times, thousands of times!

A cigar with a production cost of about 20 or 30 cents, after being crowned with the name of "top," selling for more than ten dollars a piece is not very difficult. Even if it sells for more than one hundred dollars, I'm afraid it's not an impossible thing.

There is never a shortage of top tycoons in the world who are willing to take out unimaginable wealth in the eyes of ordinary people to improve their personal enjoyment.

This is a realm, a realm that ordinary people can never reach in their lifetime.

It's not that ordinary people's ideological awareness is not enough, it's just that they simply don't have money.

The Federation also has top tobacco production areas, and the area is not small, but this part of the place is firmly controlled by the Federation's tobacco group, and outsiders cannot intervene.

Lapa happens to have excellent soil and environment, as well as all the necessary conditions suitable for the growth of top tobacco leaves, so Lanse had such an idea.

The cost of trial and error is very low.

Produce some low-end cigars to increase the proficiency of the workers, and at the same time test the market situation.

Lanse has strong confidence in the sales of cigars because the sales of Gold Standard Whiskey are very good; they can be bundled and sold together, and then using some operational means, opening the market is just a matter of time.

The plan is good, but the workers don't seem to be very cooperative, at least because the workers' idling affects production, which was not among the many "possibilities" he considered before.

This is an unforgivable problem; it's not that he has any dissatisfied views on the workers, but that they took this money, so they should do their part well!

His fingers tapped on the desktop, "Then change to a 'transaction' method, change to piece-rate statistics for remuneration."

"In our current production plan, how many cigars do they need to make every day?"

Rogerf said almost immediately, "Our plan is for everyone to produce one hundred, but in fact, they can only produce thirty or forty."

"Then stipulate that if you produce one hundred every day, you can get a remuneration of forty cents (Federal Sol)."

"For those who produce less than one hundred, the quantity produced will be accumulated to the next day."

"If you accumulate one hundred in two days, you will be paid forty cents; if it's still not enough, continue to accumulate."

"If you don't meet the standard every month, and don't reach a certain quantity, let them get out."

Listening to these changes by Lanse, Rogerf asked softly, "If they make trouble..."

Lanse looked at him, "The whip given to the supervisor is not for them to hold and look good; let the supervisors swing the whips, and I will let the factory's security guards cooperate with you."

Rogerf nodded and agreed.

The piece-rate wage system does exist in the Federation, but the scope of application is not large, because there is the existence of unions in the Federation.

Some unions believe that the piece-rate wage system is a more cruel way of exploiting labor, so most formal employees in factories don't participate in the piece-rate wage system; only some temporary workers participate in it.

For example, the common fruit picking workers in orchards, they need to pick the mature fruits in a short time and concentrate them for processing.

Perhaps there is only one picking opportunity in a year in an orchard, and they don't need so many picking workers at ordinary times, so these workers are temporary.

The orchard will issue piece-rate wages to them according to different varieties of fruits; for some fruits that are smaller and more troublesome to pick, they might get a little more.

For example, two cents a pound.

For some fruits that are huge and easy to pick, it might take two or three pounds or more to give one cent, and there are also those calculated by the number of fruits.

In formal work, there are very few such calculation methods.

In Lanse's factory, on the assembly line, the movements of the workers all look very slow, and a process takes a long time to do.

Several workers occasionally squeeze their eyes at each other, and their faces are full of smiles.

This is indeed a good job, the wages are high enough, and they have indeed worked hard.

But after working seriously for a few days, they couldn't work seriously anymore.

Mainly because high-repetition work makes people very tired, not physically tired, mainly mentally.

This made them do a few cigars and couldn't help but do other things, or stop and be in a daze for a while, and then continue to work.

If they sit there in a daze, or do other things, the supervisor will target them.

To avoid trouble, and not to repeat these simple movements all the time, some people began to take the initiative to slow down their movements.

At first, one person could produce eight to ten cigars an hour, now each of them can only produce three or four, and the output is obviously less than half or even more!

The supervisor also talked to them, and they said they were more focused on making a good cigar, rather than dealing with it, which didn't seem to be any problem.

Rogerf also came twice, and when he came, people started to work hard again, but as long as he left, the workers' speed slowed down again, and there was no way at all.

Seeing that it was almost time to get off work in the evening, the speed of the workers in the workshop making cigars was even slower.

When the supervisor looked over, they were working, and when the supervisor's gaze moved away, they started chatting.

Not many people felt that they would lose their jobs because of being lazy, and of course, it also had a certain relationship with their internal unity.

"I heard that the situation outside Zhuolan is very bad now, and there are situations where people starve to death in many places."

A worker kept repeating the rubbing and rolling movements in his hand while chatting with everyone.

His words attracted the attention and discussion of other workers, "Why don't people go into the jungle to find food?"

"I have always heard that the jungle is rich in materials and has many wild animals; I don't believe people can catch all those wild animals."

"And there are fish in the sea and water, why don't they eat fish?"

These questions also became the center of people's discussion, it seems that people who can eat their fill always have such confusion—

Those people who are hungry, who are starved to death, are they really starved to death because there is no food to eat.

Or is it because they are too lazy, so they would rather starve to death than move.

People soon discussed again, as if chatting, also became a part of their work.

When the bell for getting off work rang, the workers stood up with satisfied smiles on their faces, some people made some strange sounds in their mouths, while stretching their waists.

Some people were yawning while wiping the water stains from the corners of their eyes.

This job is good in every way, high income, not hard, and doesn't need to be exposed to wind and rain, only one day is not good—too easy to get sleepy!

The workers began to tidy up the things on their desks, put the different tobacco leaves in categories, put them into special bags and tied them tightly, before leaving here.

As for the cigars that had already been made, someone would come to collect them from the cigar rack specially later.

The workers left in groups, and when they arrived at the factory gate, they found that many people were gathered here, in front of the bulletin board.

Watching the fun has always been a hobby that exists in people's bones, more and more people gathered around, and soon under the propaganda of some good people, more and more people knew what happened.

The factory is about to change the company's calculation method.

Before, their wages until now would be settled according to the monthly salary system.

Starting tomorrow, the factory will adopt the piece-rate wage system, and after the quantity of one hundred per day was read out, the faces of many workers changed!

Now most workers take about seven or eight minutes to make a cigar, some with flexible brains and hands that can cooperate, can make one in six minutes, or even five minutes.

But even so, at most, they can only make seven or eight in an hour, and after ten hours of uninterrupted work, they can only make seventy or eighty.

To make one hundred, it takes at least twelve hours or more, and it's the kind of continuous work!

Just thinking about it makes people feel unbearable!

Some workers immediately shouted "This is unreasonable," hoping that the factory side could give them an explanation.

The local manager stood in front of the bulletin board and told them loudly that this was the company's decision!

At least two thousand five hundred cigars need to be made every month; if it is lower than this quantity, they will be fired.

People became more dissatisfied, originally thinking they had found a job for retirement, suddenly it turned into "hell difficulty," how could they accept it?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 928 =====