Episode 49 Little Jianghu
After reading through the email sent by Lin Ying, Xu Yiwei quickly registered his employee information, linked his salary card, and immediately made an Excel questionnaire - comparing it with the information of the gallery's employees, and sent it to fifteen colleagues including Lin Ying to solicit everyone's opinions on the taste of lunch.
However, an hour passed and no one was interested in her questionnaire.
Recently, various booths and agency orders have been popping up one after another. Some agents haven’t even shown up at the gallery. They are either working on exhibitions outside or negotiating deals with artists.
The people who came to work were busy with their own things, and even if they weren't busy, they ignored her email questionnaire. Sister Zhang was the biggest example - her workstation was not close to hers, which must have been deliberately arranged by Lin Ying.
Before Xu Yiwei could take the initiative to ask for advice, her advice came uninvited -
"Xiao Xu, please help me put this together into a PPT when you have time. I'll need it for my mid-year performance review for my boss, so be careful."
The partition in front of the workstation was knocked, and the person who came in condescendingly handed over a stack of documents. As soon as she finished speaking, she turned around and went to the tea room, not even giving Xu Yiwei the opportunity to answer yes or no.
Xu Yiwei flipped through the materials. Apart from the account overview and detailed expenses of the gallery over the past six months, there were also some performance reports that she had pieced together from some unknown website. Not only was the content seriously watered down, but even the names of the company projects were not changed. It was a blatant perfunctory act.
These were all the contents of her personal performance report, but she actually entrusted them to a new employee. It seems that Xiao Xie's resignation was not entirely due to the low salary.
Xu Yiwei internally complained, her chin propped up on her elbow, staring at the web search engine for a long time without moving. Since fate had arranged for her to take over this job, and she had to rely on her direct superior's "verbal instructions", then there was no reason for her to work in vain... So, she thought, she decided to make Sister Zhang owe this favor.
An hour later, she compiled two versions of the "performance report", sent them to Sister Zhang with one click, and took the initiative to walk up to her to remind her -
"Sister Zhang, I've prepared the things you requested and sent them to you. Would you like to check them out?"
Monday morning, with no urgent work assigned, was the perfect time to slack off. Seeing her efficiency, Sister Zhang was genuinely surprised. She slowly straightened up from her recliner and opened her email. A neatly organized set of PowerPoint presentations, sleek and beautiful, had even been polished for her.
"Oh my, you are so smart and efficient!"
"It's okay, it's all thanks to AI. I just helped you organize and polish it. There are ready-made PPT templates."
"Well, AI is all the rage these days, but I'm hesitant to use it. I'm afraid it won't work...it often gives me irrelevant answers."
"AI technology isn't perfect yet, so there are bound to be some minor glitches. But if you can just edit it yourself after it's generated, you can still save a lot of time. If you're bothered by the hassle, Sister Zhang... I can teach you how to use it when I have time."
Seeing how perceptive this new girl was, Sister Zhang naturally smiled and once again admired her cleverness. Xu Yiwei took advantage of the situation and said:
"Sister Zhang, do you have any thoughts on the questionnaire I gave you this morning?"
Upon hearing this, Sister Zhang had a look on her face that said, "You don't understand this," and she was determined to have something to say to her—
"You're still young. If you keep doing this, you won't be able to finish it in two weeks. Look, you're just going to re-order a group meal. The money is spent by the company, and the food is for everyone to eat. And everyone comes to work every day just to eat this meal, right?"
Xu Yiwei looked at the scattered workstations of the people and shook his head.
"Everyone's busy dealing with emergency cases, so how can they have time to help you fill out a questionnaire? Besides, it's hard to satisfy everyone, and there are so many restaurants to choose from. Since this matter has been handed over to you, just pick the most suitable one and talk to it, and then just hand it over!"
Although Sister Zhang's words were long-winded, they did enlighten Xu Yiwei. As a veteran in the workplace, she fully understood that the key was to complete the work in the shortest time possible.
She nodded heavily, "I understand. Thank you, Sister Zhang, for your advice!"
After she finished speaking, she was about to go back to her workstation, but Sister Zhang blocked her way with another shout.
"Hey wait, why did you copy this report to General Manager Lin?"
Her eyes fell on the CC of the email - it clearly read: Lin Ying.
Sister Zhang complained, but her tone was a little weak. Xu Yiwei pretended to be ignorant:
"Ah? Can't I CC her? Boss Lin just told me this morning that she would be my direct supervisor from now on, and that I had to CC her on everything I did, so mine."
Seeing the newcomer's innocent face, Sister Zhang felt frustrated and had to swallow her bitterness. She pursed her lips and wanted to say something but couldn't utter a word. Fortunately, Xu Yiwei seemed to realize his "mistake" and took the initiative to take responsibility.
"It's okay, Sister Zhang. If Mr. Lin asks, I'll just say... you taught me how to write a mid-year performance report. I'll be asking you for advice sooner or later anyway."
Sister Zhang's expression softened slightly, and she said helplessly, "Alright, that's all we can do. I'll review it and revise it later, then send a copy to Mr. Lin myself."
During lunch break, Xu Yiwei took the opportunity to get close to other colleagues and gather suggestions. Although Sister Zhang's suggestions at that time were reasonable, if she accepted them all, wouldn't that go against Lin Ying's warning? She wanted to take this first task seriously.
The five people planning the publicity weren't as aggressive as Sister Zhang, but they weren't approachable either. What's more, some of them had some complaints about Lin Ying...
"This money would be better converted into meal allowance and mixed in with our monthly wages. She has to make it count...it's just a formality."
"Why? She's no longer cooperating with the owner of the barbecue restaurant next door. I heard that when she first took office, she applied for this meal subsidy just to attract business for them."
"It's hard to say whether she's a capable leader, but she's a top-notch face-saver. I guess she was caught flirting with that guy before, and she's trying to make amends..."
The two colleagues chatted for a long time, and inexplicably turned to gossip. Xu Yiwei couldn't help but be curious.
"Who are you flirting with?"
"That intern before you came. Oh, you don't know yet. That guy interned for three months, bought her breakfast every day, and flirted with her all the time. That's not the most explosive thing, you know? She and our big boss Wang Duo are also very ambiguous. He gave her resources and wanted to promote her. Maybe they did everything in private. And now she got together with the intern this time. Don't be too bitchy. I guess Boss Wang was caught cheating, and when the affair was exposed, he directly persuaded the intern to quit... I really don't know what the charm is in a woman who is remarried and has a child..."
“Ahem!”
She was suddenly bumped on the arm by another person and her words were interrupted.
Seeing that the two men were deliberately trying to avoid her, Xu Yiwei could only walk away tactfully. But before leaving, she still heard the man mutter:
"You're stupid! Didn't you hear that she was recruited by Lin Ying herself? You said those things in front of her..."
That night, Xu Yiwei returned home and even while showering and washing her hair, she was still thinking about her communication strategy. She added several nearby restaurant owners on WeChat. Since she was willing to approve such a large budget, she obviously had to make the most of it, otherwise the cost would make her colleagues laugh. But as she thought about it, she couldn't help but be curious about Lin Ying herself...
Before joining the company, they had only met three times in total.
The first time, at that Michelin-starred restaurant on the Bund, they hadn't even met. The second time, at the cashier's counter at a private hospital, she witnessed two men secretly flirting with each other. The looks they gave her were clearly not innocent. And what about Lin Ying herself? She couldn't read minds, but she knew her expression at the time was definitely not one of pride. She even left the scene in a hurry, anxious. Later, when Wang Duo told her about her condition, she handed over that insignificant thermos cup without hesitation...
If those colleagues knew that Lin Ying even had a complicated relationship with her stepbrother, their gossip drama would be further embellished.
The third time was when she went for the interview. It was their first real meeting. She did not mention a word about her experiences, education, and background - those experiences that once made her feel ashamed. She was almost certain that Jiang Shu would explain his background to her, otherwise this interview opportunity would not have fallen on her head at all.
She didn't pity her, nor did she comfort her, nor did she even over-encourage her. She simply laid out her needs and guided her to show her own unique characteristics. Her relaxed and unconventional attitude inexplicably made her feel a long-lost sense of trust and equality. Even after the interview, she changed her seriousness and asked her for the link to the thermos cup...
She's so gentle and cute.
But after today, she could feel very strongly that the gallery staff had great malice towards Lin Ying.
Ten people in a small western-style building have become a world of their own. In this world, there are old-timers who line their pockets, onlookers who stay out of the matter, and traitors who like to gossip...
She obviously didn't know a lot about her boss Lin Ying, but she wouldn't easily believe the gossip and anecdotes from others.
It wasn't because she was particularly noble, but because she herself had once been called a "bitch," and still is. As a child, she was singled out and bullied for her status. Later, when she went to college, she chose to indulge in pleasure, and being called a "bitch" and a "slut" became a daily occurrence.
Men and women have different opinions on her, but she knows clearly in her mind that she is an outlier in everyone's eyes. Men call her "slutty" because they need a little different stimulation, while women call her "cheap" to prove that they are different.
But to her, it was all the same after hearing this kind of talk over and over again.
Xu Yiwei finished his shower while thinking about it, put on a bath towel, and with water dripping from the ends of his hair, he just opened the bathroom door and bumped into Cen Shuo who had just returned home...
She was startled and subconsciously hugged the bath towel tightly.
However, Cen Shuo ignored her. He threw his bag onto the bed, turned on his computer, and checked his email documents. Xu Yiwei took a curious look and vaguely saw a brand logo...
"Found a job? Which company?"
Cen Shuo closed the webpage at the right moment and said indifferently, "What does it have to do with you? You didn't tell me what you were doing."
Xu Yiwei rolled his eyes and stopped asking questions. He went to the bedside table and took out an old hair dryer that he had bought when they were dating.
But she wasn't touched at all. Instead, she thought he was sloppy and stingy. This hair dryer was a cheap buy back then, and it should have been discarded long ago. Every time she used it, she could almost smell the rust from the aging hardware inside...
Unfortunately, she has no choice now, so she has to use it for now.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she connected the plug to the socket, she saw sparks flying when the two collided, followed by a snap -
The whole room was instantly dark.
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