Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 144

This Cart Is Worth It

Su Ruixi didn’t want to squeeze into the elevator in the morning, so she had been coming in early recently. When she arrived at the company, she found that there were already a few people at their workstations. Su Ruixi pursed her lips and, waiting until no one was looking, stuffed the contents of her lunch bag into the refrigerator.

Seeing the glass jar that Sun Miao had personally made, which even had her name taped on it, placed in a small corner of the fridge, and then using her lunch box to hide it, Su Ruixi finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Immediately after, she began messaging her assistant, telling her to purchase a mini-fridge for her today and have it placed in her office.

The assistant replied that the message was received; a true working stiff is one who replies to their boss even on the way to work.

After the assistant arrived, she organized the relevant documents and went to Su Ruixi’s office. She had important matters to report to Su Ruixi. But the moment she entered, she was asked by Su Ruixi, “Where’s the mini-fridge?”

“…It’s on its way.”

Only then did Su Ruixi nod.

The assistant then began her report: “Recently, the frequency of overtime at our company has significantly decreased. Although work is generally being completed, some employees hope we can allow voluntary overtime. I feel this is also quite necessary, CEO Su…”

For Su Ruixi, this matter was non-negotiable, because: the current her had absolutely no desire to work overtime.

Su Ruixi raised a hand, interrupting her assistant. “For employees to have this kind of demand, it’s generally due to two situations. One, their company salary hasn’t met their expectations, and they hope to increase it through overtime. Two, their workload is genuinely excessive and cannot be completed. Which situation do you think it is?”

Cold sweat instantly slid down the assistant’s forehead. Although Su Ruixi occasionally acted incredibly secretive¹ when it came to food and her girlfriend, with all the years she had spent working her way up, her management of the company was no joke; she immediately sniffed out the most critical issue.

The assistant swallowed hard before answering, “Based on my observations, it’s both. But for the current situation of our company’s employees, it was originally mostly the latter. Work that could have been completed during overtime has been compressed, causing a sharp increase in pressure on their salaries, which is why they hope for voluntary overtime.”

Su Ruixi nodded, agreeing with her assistant’s assessment.

The assistant was no slouch, either; after all, having followed Su Ruixi for so many years, she had also become the most king amongst the kings of involution.

If it were the Su Ruixi of the past, she probably would have agreed without hesitation. She was competitive, and her employees were competitive; in a wolf culture², everyone would have a better future—wouldn’t that make everyone happy? But as she spent more time with Sun Miao, the always high-and-mighty Su Ruixi gained the perspective of an ordinary person and came to understand more of what ordinary people thought.

So much so that the current her was moving closer and closer to the words “ordinary person.”

Who wanted to be so competitive, who on earth wanted that? The reason everyone was willing to compete so fiercely was that there was money to be made from it, which was already much better than many other companies in this city. The assistant was saying what she believed, but Su Ruixi now knew—while people might want voluntary overtime for the latter reason, it was mostly because of the former.

“We should make some changes to the employee job structure.”

Su Ruixi spoke.

The assistant froze… To be honest, no HR person or assistant would want to hear their boss say something like that. Because most of the time, this sentence meant: the company is going to have layoffs. And the boss would definitely hope to reduce severance pay by having employees resign “voluntarily.”

A trace of pity flashed in the assistant’s eyes. Sixty to seventy percent of their company’s employees were women. Because the boss, Su Ruixi, was a woman and treated female employees with complete fairness, it had attracted more female candidates to apply. Over time, this had led to the current staff composition.

Once layoffs began, it meant their company would let go of a portion of its staff, and due to the personnel structure, the number of female employees dismissed would certainly not be small.

The world had not yet achieved complete equality between men and women, and women were at a deeper disadvantage in the workplace. The assistant didn’t want her colleagues to be laid off either. But this was Su Ruixi’s order, and she had to obey.

As the assistant struggled internally, she heard Su Ruixi speak. She thought the hammer was about to fall, but what she heard was music to her ears.

“First, salaries should be raised again. Two raises a year is still too little. Let’s first adjust it to three times a year, with further adjustments if the company’s profits increase. The raise each time will be between 3% and 5%.” Su Ruixi calmly stated things that sounded somewhat unbelievable to the assistant.

“Second, we still don’t have enough employees. Go and coordinate with each department and report the number of additional staff each department needs to HR. We’ll add some positions as appropriate each quarter. The reason people feel stressed and that things are urgent is still because there are too few employees, and department managers haven’t done a good job of coordinating their staff. This matter is quite important, so take good notes.”

“Finally, regarding employee benefits, I feel what we had before was still lacking, whether it’s bonuses or other things like afternoon tea… Oh, right, our company has a relatively large number of female employees. We also need to add humanistic care and corresponding benefits for them.”

“I saw online that some companies add ‘help corners’ in their restrooms, providing some feminine hygiene products for free, to prevent employees from having to borrow sanitary napkins in group chats because they don’t have any.”

In truth, Su Ruixi had never had these experiences. If she ever encountered such a situation, she would just have her assistant bring them to her. But Sun Miao had encountered it, and when they chatted occasionally, she would talk about embarrassing things that had happened to her.

But she didn’t find it shameful; instead, she thought it was great that so many colleagues would respond when she mentioned it in the group chat. Especially since sometimes, if no one in their small department group of women had one, everyone would enthusiastically go to other departments to borrow one for her.

Of course, this kind of thing could definitely not be known by the boss. Sun Miao’s boss at the time was an annoying middle-aged man who, if he found out, would most likely say things like “you women are so troublesome” or “how much work did you delay for such a small matter.”

Su Ruixi actually wouldn’t think this kind of thing interfered with work, but thinking about how some people were thin-skinned, they might be too embarrassed to ask. Sun Miao had sounded quite carefree when she talked about it, but when she mentioned being helpless and alone in the restroom, she was still a little embarrassed.

It was because of this that Su Ruixi wanted to set up such a help corner.

The assistant suddenly became excited, her stylus flying across the tablet in her hand as she recorded everything. After Su Ruixi waited for her to finish writing, she brought up her last point: “Also, help me keep an eye on the refrigerator. Make sure no one takes my things. As soon as the mini-fridge arrives, go get my stuff immediately.”

“?” The little assistant was full of big question marks, but she still agreed.

The assistant’s work efficiency was high. In one morning, she not only had to implement all of Su Ruixi’s instructions and coordinate previous work, but also had to get the mini-fridge arranged for Su Ruixi. Despite all this, she still brought staff to install the mini-fridge at ten-thirty in the morning.

Unfortunately, even a mini-fridge had to be left on for 24 hours first to ensure there were no problems before things could be put inside.

Su Ruixi could only give up for now.

The assistant, however, sensed that something was off. She had known for a while that Su Ruixi had been bringing her own lunch every day these days. If it were just the same as usual, she shouldn’t have needed to buy a fridge. She volunteered to help Su Ruixi heat up her lunch at noon.

When noon arrived, she went over to the refrigerator and, sure enough, saw something unusual. The glass jar with the note “Su Ruixi’s” on it contained what looked like an incredibly delicious crab sauce. Without even tasting it, its brilliant golden color told you it definitely wouldn’t be bad.

But that handwriting was not Su Ruixi’s. Having been Su Ruixi’s assistant for so long, if she couldn’t even recognize her own boss’s handwriting, she might as well quit.

“Tsk tsk tsk, a young couple in love.”

Sun Miao sneezed. She had just arrived at the entrance of Yuanfu Lou to begin her last day of running her food stall. Before Sun Miao had even arrived, she noticed from a distance that something was wrong—there were way too many people.

The number of people had already gone down yesterday, but today it had increased by a lot. They were packed so densely that Sun Miao had to get off her vehicle before even reaching her spot and slowly push her cart to its place.

That’s not right, she thought, didn’t they say yesterday that many people went to eat the free Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe? How come the number of people waiting for me here has increased so much today?

Before she even got close, someone grabbed onto Sun Miao’s cart and began to pour out their grievances: “Little Boss Sun, I naively thought that the new head chef at Yuanfu Lou would be so much better than Chef Qian, but I never expected this! She’s still not as good as you!”

“If I hadn’t eaten your Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe, I would have thought that Chef Jiang Ping’s were especially delicious, but who let me eat yours first! There’s just no comparison between Chef Jiang Ping’s and yours!”

Sun Miao didn’t feel happy hearing this; instead, she said, “No, let go of my cart first, let me park it in its spot.”

“I won’t let go! Today is your last day with the stall, right?! Don’t try to fool me, I know everything. If I let go, I definitely won’t be able to beat them to it! I should have just stayed here and guarded you, wuwuwu, how can there be such delicious Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe in the world? I shouldn’t have gone to Yuanfu Lou yesterday just for something new, I missed out on a day of eating! I came here super early today, but who would have thought, that group of people! They’re simply not human! They got here even earlier than me!”

There was more than one person grabbing onto Sun Miao’s cart; she was like a string of chili peppers, with a whole bunch of people dangling behind her. Sun Miao was stunned. These customers were all respectable and influential figures, all rather powerful and wealthy people, yet here they were, grabbing her cart—how improper!

But in the face of delicious food, they had already thrown their dignity away. After realizing that today was the last day for Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe, they were determined to get their hands on a portion no matter what!

Sun Miao was completely dumbfounded.

Fortunately, the customers quickly realized that Sun Miao wouldn’t be able to do business like this, so one by one, they all helped push. Sun Miao didn’t even need to use any strength; she just rested her hands lightly on the handlebars to steer, and the cart was automatically pushed to its designated spot.

This group of wealthy people had probably rarely done something like this before. One by one, dressed in expensive clothes, they enthusiastically pushed an electric tricycle.

【But this cart is worth it! It’s a product of the System!】 the System shouted again.

---

---