"Good morning!"
Even in the crowded elevator downstairs of the company, Zou Ming insisted on greeting everyone he knew or didn't know. This was partly due to the influence of his uncle, who was a primary school teacher. He firmly believed that showing good upbringing would inevitably bring more opportunities for success.
"Good morning!"
"Morning!"
Colleagues smiled at the greeting, but there were employees from other companies on other floors waiting for the elevator, who just looked at him curiously.
In the crowded elevator, no one spoke until they reached their floor, the door opened and rushed into the corridor, and then they could breathe a sigh of relief. Zou Ming carried his computer bag and walked to the office at the end of the corridor, said good morning to the colleagues who had already come to work, and then sat down at his workstation.
A cup of clear tea had been brewed at the workstation, which was also something he was proud of:
Although the tea was his, it was the cleaning lady of the company who insisted on brewing tea for him every day. Just because he said good morning every day, she had a particularly good impression of this polite young man. So, when the first bucket of water boiled every day, before the employees went to work, the aunt had already made tea for him with her electric kettle. While he was sipping tea, his colleagues were still waiting for the water dispenser to boil water.
He reached out to open the desktop computer, put the computer bag on his knees, took out his own laptop from it, put it on the workstation and turned it on. The desktop computer was provided by the company. At first, it was meant to be used to process documents, and the computer configuration was not high. But now, whether it is office for office use, photoshop for processing pictures, or video studio for making advertising videos, the requirements for computer hardware are very high. Therefore, when the company needs to process large documents and picture and video files, it seems to be unable to do it. Other colleagues just complained, and those with extreme personalities asked the supervisor to report to the company and ask for a replacement computer.
The supervisor was also embarrassed because everyone knew that the company had no problem except raising money.
So, after asking the boss several times, the company only asked the computer maintenance staff to add memory or replace it with a solid-state hard drive. But the advertising department needs to make large-scale color printed advertisements for recruiting students, update the website, process pictures and use PS, especially now that short videos are popular, Kuaishou and Douyin platforms need to process a large number of videos for promotion.
The company held several meetings before buying an Apple laptop and designated it for the person who does advertising. Whenever this matter is mentioned, the boss is always heartbroken. An Apple laptop costs more than 10,000 yuan, which is enough to pay four employees a month's salary.
But Zou Ming did not complain. At the beginning, when the business volume was small, he used the company's all-in-one computer and often had to wait patiently for the system to be updated. Later, when the company's business came up and a lot of copywriting needed to be written, he took his own Lenovo laptop. At first, I didn't think much about it, but I felt that the all-in-one computer that was stuck delayed my work, and the cheap keyboard was too light and would move when typing. It's not as good as my ThinkPad T480.
This laptop computer worth 10,000 yuan was left behind when he worked at his last company after his boss ran away. He was short of two months' salary, so everyone took away the company's computers and furniture to make up for the shortfall. Zou Ming took this computer, which was considered to be a surplus after offsetting his salary. As for Zou Ming, he would never spend his own money to buy such an expensive business computer, so this was his only luxury.
When the boss saw this, he was unexpectedly very moved. He praised Zou Ming at the company meeting, saying that this was a concrete manifestation of sharing weal and woe with the company, and also raised his salary by one level. Zou Ming originally wanted to put the computer on Xianyu to dispose of it, but this incident made him understand that compared to saying hello everywhere and being polite all the time, using his own computer, and a professional commercial computer, to work for the company is also a step up. So he kept the computer and insisted on carrying it to and from get off work every day. Employees had different attitudes towards this matter. Some endured it, and some followed his example and brought their own laptops to work. But the boss's headache, complaining about the old company computers, has disappeared since then.
Zou Ming's company is called Dacheng, an educational institution. A year ago, Zou Ming was recruited from the same city. The boss didn't want him at first: this newly opened company only recruited teachers and salesmen. He didn't have a teacher's qualification certificate and was unwilling to go to Suzhou for training and certification at his own expense. He didn't want to be a salesman because he was shy.
When he applied, there were only two bosses in the company and no human resources specialist, so he could talk to the boss face to face. He didn't understand why the boss finally kept him as a copywriter and planner. In the end, he explained that he was mature and prudent. In addition, because he had worked hard in the city for many years, he was familiar with many peer companies. When the business situation in the city was mentioned during the chat, the boss listened carefully.
Maybe he thought that Zou Ming was familiar with the local situation and might be useful in the future. In addition, the company really needed a copywriter and planner, so the boss kept him with a monthly salary of 1,800 yuan. During the three-month internship, he only had 800 yuan for living expenses.
At that time, Zou Ming was desperate for rising, and the speed of house price increase far exceeded his speed of making money. He was almost desperate. He came to this education company just to get by. Maybe one day the housing prices would collapse and he could get a bargain.
While waiting to refresh his mailbox, Zou Ming looked out the window. Outside the light blue UV-proof floor-to-ceiling window is the CBD of the city. Commercial buildings and office buildings with huge glass curtain walls or stone panels stand side by side. The city's horizon is cut by these towering buildings like battlements. This is not the most beautiful time. At night, the whole city becomes colorful.
Although all this seems to be within reach, for Zou Ming and most people in this company, this prosperity is out of their reach. Even the cheapest goods in this shopping mall are unaffordable. Others can ignore them, but Zou Ming feels uncomfortable. He is already 28 years old. When can he climb to the upper class of society?
"Aming!" An employee passed by him and said, "The boss is calling."
He quickly smiled and agreed, said thank you, walked out of the door, and walked towards the general manager's office.
The company is not big, and it rents five or six rooms on this floor. The boss's room is at the other end of the corridor, and the door is open. He was about to say hello and go in, but he saw the boss talking to a guest. He glanced at him and continued to talk about his project. Zou Ming stepped back and waited.
Obviously, the boss and the guest were talking happily, and it was not easy to interrupt at this time. And from this position, he could see the front desk, so he walked to the balcony on the side.
His company is an institution engaged in youth education, focusing on developing children's abstract thinking ability, attention and concentration. It is said that this is a project introduced from Hong Kong, but the promotional materials have traces of Suzhou. The company's biggest problem is cost and student source. On the one hand, in order to create a high-end image, it is necessary to rent an office building in the CBD business district for offices, teaching and research rooms and classrooms. On the other hand, with the economic downturn in the past two years, there are fewer and fewer wealthy parents, and the number of students enrolled is not large. The company is considered to be maintained, and most of the guests invited by the boss are investors. So, at this time, you must not go in and disrupt the situation.
When the guest left, the boss saw him off to the door, with a forced smile on his face. He saw him off to the elevator and said goodbye to the guest.
Zou Ming felt a chill in his heart. According to his experience, any guest that the boss saw off to the elevator would not have any good impact on the company's operations:
The boss was still frowning, and the supervisor was as strict and demanding as usual.
On the contrary, if the boss sends the guests to the parking lot downstairs, the atmosphere of the company will be obviously relaxed in the future, the boss will smile more, and more guests will be entertained every day. The supervisor will not keep a close eye on the employees and deduct money for being late for one minute. Salaries can also be paid on time. I heard from old employees that there are red envelopes during the New Year and other festivals. It seems that only those who send guests downstairs are invested guests.
Li Li, the front desk clerk, seemed to have discovered this pattern. Seeing the boss stop at the elevator entrance, she looked at the corridor of the company worriedly. The boss turned back and went into the bathroom. Li Li's eyes met Zou Ming instantly, and immediately turned to contempt and turned to the side.
Zou Ming was focused, he was about to face the boss. He was uneasy in his heart, so he didn't bother to pay attention to her at this moment.
The boss's surname is Lu, and his name is Qingyun, which means to rise to the top, which is very elegant. He is just over 40 years old, with a neat hairstyle and low-key and luxurious clothes. He wears a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his fair face. Boss Lu rarely interacts with employees. He directly instructs Supervisor Qiao to carry out the company's business and management, and Supervisor Qiao also reports the company's problems to Boss Lu. All teaching issues are handed over to the teaching and research department. Like the finance department, it is a self-contained system, and the boss rarely asks about specific matters. In Zou Ming's impression, Boss Lu is always busy receiving visitors from all walks of life. The company also has a female second boss named Mo Fang, who is about 30 years old and looks good, but I have never seen her smile, and she always looks worried.
The boss came out of the bathroom, shook the water off his hands, and complained to the front desk: "The paper towels for wiping hands are gone, and they don't know how to change them!"
Li Li was about to say something, but Supervisor Qiao rushed out of the room like a fly to explain to the boss: "I'm sorry, boss, the paper towels were used up last weekend. Huaxi Road said that we have to settle the previous payment before they can deliver the goods."
The boss seemed to understand, snorted and walked towards the manager's office, and the supervisor stopped knowingly.
"Zou Ming, sorry for the long wait!"
The boss greeted Zou Ming who came over, then walked into the room and wiped his hands with a tissue in front of the tea table: "Come and sit down."
Zou Ming was flattered. He had only enjoyed the boss's tea table when he was applying for the job. Later, the boss saw that his performance was mediocre, so he was polite at first and arrogant later, and didn't take him seriously. With his position, the supervisor would have dealt with him, and there was no need for the boss to reprimand him personally. And now, the boss suddenly became polite, and he felt like a disaster was about to come.
"Sit down, sit down!" The boss comforted: "I've been busy, you've been in the company for a long time, and you don't have time to chat."
The boss' voice was apologetic, and then he shouted "Li Li" to the outside of the door. The sound was very much like calling Li Li, a little ambiguous, but Zou Ming didn't have time to think about it.
The two sat down on the solid wood sofa.
Li Li came in, cleaned the tea tray neatly, boiled water, and put Tieguanyin into the teapot. The water boiled quickly, she first scalded the cups and plates with boiling water, and then added water to continue boiling.
The boss had been looking at his phone, and suddenly asked: "Zou Ming, are you already 28 years old?"
Zou Ming nodded humbly: "Yes, I will be 29 in October, almost 30."
The boss seemed to be a little emotional: "When I was your age, I had already opened two companies."
Li Li grinned and didn't look at them. But Zou Ming knew what she meant. But the boss suddenly looked up at Li Li: "You go get busy!"
Li Li put down the tea set and turned to go out. The boss asked:
"What are you busy with recently?"
When Zou Ming heard this, his first thought was that someone was playing tricks on him. Tong Zhisheng, the company's human resources specialist, had always hated him for no reason, and he must have said something bad about him to the boss.
Zou Ming pretended to be calm: "The company has not had much to do recently, but it's almost summer vacation. We need to think of some new ways to recruit students this year, and the recruitment plan must be creative, otherwise it will be difficult to compete with our peers, who have too much advantage in price."
The boss nodded with emotion and said:
"Yes, the first time you came to the company, I knew you were a talent, an amazing talent. For the future of the company, you don't care about your own gains and losses. You have vision and a bright future!"
Zou Ming smiled. He knew that the boss said that he didn't care about gains and losses because he had never applied for a salary increase. Since the end of the internship, he has been at the level of 2,300 yuan a month. Because of using his own computer, the boss gave him an extra 200 yuan, and he can get 2,500 yuan a month.
Of course, there are many people in the company who get 2,300 yuan, but most of them are salesmen. Their 2,300 yuan is the minimum salary. Salesmen also have commissions, which are 10% of the tuition. Some salesmen perform well and earn tens of thousands of yuan a month just from commissions.
But Zou Ming is a clerk.
Generally speaking, a company's clerk is a secretary, a financial officer, and a miscellaneous worker. These jobs are done by young girls who have just graduated. The boss is happy to find a handsome man with the same salary, who can not only take on these jobs, but also take on planning and market research. Zou Ming has never complained about his salary, and has never even mentioned it.
Could it be that the boss suddenly showed mercy and planned to give him a raise? Zou Ming was puzzled.
"That's it!"
——The boss revealed the answer, "The company's business has encountered some difficulties recently. I have discussed with several other shareholders and would like to recommend you to be the company's COO and legal representative, to actually manage the company and turn your ideas into reality. Promote the company's business! Mr. Mo and I will withdraw from the company's management and join the board of directors as chairman and vice chairman!"
"COO?" Legal representative? Zou Ming was surprised. The boss nodded to prove that he heard it right.
Zou Ming thought about it. When the business was not busy, he considered some problems in the company's operations, such as training salesmen's speech skills, standardized customer guidance, finding customer pain points and other business solutions, and then wrote a proposal letter and sent it to the boss's mailbox.
He didn't know whether the boss had read these suggestions, and the boss had never replied to his email. But the company has never implemented any management measures and content related to the proposal.
Could it be that the boss had read it, and then encountered business difficulties today, and regretted not adopting Zou Ming's suggestions at the beginning? But it doesn't seem too late to adopt it now!
The water in the teapot was boiling. The boss picked up the kettle and scalded the purple clay teapot again, then put in tea leaves, poured in boiling water, covered the teapot lid, and poured the boiling water down the lid.
The room was immediately filled with the unique aroma of Tieguanyin tea. Zou Ming said, "Good tea."
The boss poured the tea into the fair cup with a filter, poured two cups of tea from the fair cup, and placed one cup in front of Zou Ming: "Authentic Fujian Anxi Tieguanyin, this year's new tea, try it."
Zou Ming hurriedly thanked him, picked up the teacup and tasted it. It was indeed rich in tea fragrance, with a unique clear and fragrant taste.
"What a good tea!" Zou Ming said, "This is the first time I've had such good tea!"
The boss quickly filled his cup: "You should drink Tieguanyin while it's hot."
While Zou Ming was drinking tea, Boss Lu asked: "How do you feel about being the COO of the company?"
"Thank you, boss!" Zou Ming said gratefully, "But I've never been a COO, so I don't know what to do."
Boss Lu said: "This is easy. I'll open an office for you and assign you an assistant. You can give your plan to the assistant, have the assistant write it down, and give it to the supervisor for implementation. The human resources department will be responsible for reporting to you the implementation of the measures and the assessment results. Just do it!"
Zou Ming was thinking about the process the boss had said, and Boss Lu comforted him:
"You are still young, and people always have to move forward, right? You haven't done it before, and it's the same now. You are familiar with the business. Whether you have done well or not, use numbers to speak, it's very simple."
Zou Ming was relieved, thinking secretly in his heart that this was a good opportunity. At least, when he applies for a job at another company in the future, the COO resume on his resume can add a lot of points to himself. Even in this company, there are still opportunities. In the current economic downturn, parents feel that they are not capable enough and can only put their hopes on their children. As long as the publicity is done well, parents are still willing to pay.
"We should strengthen the assessment of salesmen and the training of salesmen themselves!" said Zou Ming.
Boss Lu sighed: "The ancients said that righteousness does not talk about business. I am too concerned about face and can't bring myself to strengthen the assessment. It's hot recently, but since the salesmen come to work, they should at least go out and hand out flyers at the school gate, right? But they, after clocking in, hide in the company to enjoy the air conditioning, drink tea and chat. They are not ruthless enough!"
Zou Ming smiled. Everyone in the company knew about this problem. He also proposed an assessment and reward and punishment plan for salesmen through email, but the boss ignored it.
"I'll give instructions later to arrange an office, an assistant, and salary. I'll say hello to the shareholders and take time to meet with them. Let's have a meal together and get to know each other." Boss Lu said: "Our generation is old and our ideas are outdated. We can't keep up with the times now. We must use young people like you who have ideas and can do things." Seeing that Zou Ming was still hesitating, the boss added: "The reason I recommended you is that you are hardworking and even use your own computer to work for the company. Unlike them, they always nitpick the company. I think the suggestions you made are good, but I don't know where to start, so I and the shareholders suggest that you do it yourself." As he was speaking, the second female boss Mo Fang entered the company and walked towards the manager's office. Zou Ming was not familiar with the second boss, so the boss introduced her to Zou Ming:
"Mr. Mo, this is the Zou Ming I mentioned to you many times, a young man with great ideas!"
The female boss smiled and shook hands with Zou Ming who stood up hastily: "You are Zou Ming, there are too many people in the company, I know the name, but I can't match the person."
"Well, Mr. Mo came at the right time to meet the new COO." Boss Lu said: "The directors have basically agreed to my recommendation, Zou Ming - no, from now on, you have to call him Mr. Zou. Mr. Zou will serve as the company's COO and legal representative."
The second female boss smiled and said, "Yesterday, Mr. Lu showed me your emails, suggestions and plans, and I scolded him on the spot. Why didn't he use such a talent earlier? He had to wait until the company's operation ran into problems before he remembered it!" Zou Ming smiled modestly, lowered his head and dared not look at Mo Fang. Mo Fang was thirty-five or thirty-six years old, a woman with a dignified appearance and a beautiful complexion. She was well-dressed, dressed appropriately, and behaved dignifiedly. It was easy for him to have wild thoughts. "Then tonight," Mo Fang quickly walked into the inner room and said, "I have something else to do. I'll take a taxi to the club later!" Zou Ming was a little disappointed that he couldn't ride in the same car with the female boss and get close to her.