The joy of possibly succeeding with the loan needed to be shared with someone. He knew his father had always been the type to sleep during the day and be active at night, and even business trips couldn’t affect his father’s lifestyle. He could also imagine what his father would do if he entered today’s private room full of escort girls, but he wouldn’t learn from that. He extremely resisted such behavior in his heart – his mother had died because of this. However, he couldn’t demand anything from his father. After entering this industry for over a year, nearly two years, he could understand his father’s corruption. In this line of work, if you wanted to continue, you were forced into prostitution. He didn’t know how far he would go in the future.
Sure enough, his father’s phone connected immediately, and as soon as it connected, he could hear the background sounds of debauchery.
Hearing Liu Jun explain the loan approval process from beginning to end, Liu Shitang quickly said, “Hurry up and prepare cash, wrap two red envelopes, send them separately. Or you can send one – ask him how much the person who can settle the entire approval process wants, and give it all to him to distribute.”
“It looks like… it seems… we might not need to give red envelopes. I had Hongming there to help me observe, and he also said that joint-stock small banks are pretty good in this regard, though unfortunately, the amount isn’t large.”
“Are you unwilling to do it? Unfortunately, I can’t return for a while and can only rush home on New Year’s Eve. That’s fine, I’ll visit them during the Spring Festival. Great, now our working capital is more active. How about this – hurry up and pay back part of the high-interest loans before the New Year, and you can save some interest.”
“I plan to take it step by step. Tomorrow I’ll go find the loan sharks, negotiate half interest during the Spring Festival holiday, and negotiate interest reduction after the Spring Festival. They’ve made enough money in these six months, we should burn bridges after crossing the river. If we can’t negotiate, we’ll switch to another loan shark, hehe, though all these loan sharks call what they do ‘financing.'” Liu Jun also reported to his father the content of conversations with the two new private financing companies that had approached them. He added afterward, “Actually, small bank loan interest rate markups aren’t small, and adding loan costs like red envelopes, private financing isn’t entirely without merit.”
Liu Shitang listened and concluded that his son refused to pay red envelopes. But Liu Shitang didn’t press further – he would intervene in this matter. Are there white crows? Certainly, but if someone goes about business with the wishful thinking that the other party is a white crow, they’ll end up gray-faced and embarrassed, like going out and running into a black crow. Liu Shitang changed the subject, “Profits have been continuously generated recently, and accumulated quite well. I still suggest you proceed steadily and pay back part of the high-interest loan money first. Carrying such high interest, what we produce is barely enough to pay interest – it’s not cost-effective, even thinking about it is uncomfortable.”
“Dad, that’s because you haven’t done rational analysis. Keeping the high-interest loans, we can use their output to offset all expenses, then the bank loan side becomes real output. Introducing 3 million in bank loans while eliminating 3 million in high-interest loans, versus introducing 3 million in bank loans while keeping 3 million in high-interest loans – the net profit value in these two situations is still higher in the latter case. Moreover, the latter also allows our production scale to increase, makes our statements look better, and makes our bank transaction records look better – loans need to look at these things.”
“But with expanded scale, hiring more people, adding equipment, can you handle it? I see you already have no time to rest.”
“When the scale is small, I have to do everything personally. When the scale is large, I can assign specific people to handle certain processes, and I just need to manage those specific people. Their salaries become affordable due to scale. From current observation, the market capacity can also handle our scale. One more thing – I plan to buy a car, which will also tie up some capital.”
“Right, right! You must buy a good car, the flashier the better, like that BMW M3 you used to drive? Anyway, you can also use the car as collateral for money after buying it, so definitely buy an expensive one. We have a factory, we’re not without money.”
Liu Jun didn’t expect his father to be so obsessed with Qian Hongming buying a BMW, and couldn’t help adding fuel to the fire, “Hongming just bought a three-bedroom, two-living-room apartment in what’s called the top luxury residential area near the city government, 150 square meters.”
“Ignore him. No matter how much he buys, it doesn’t compare to our factory. People like us – even if we drive a tractor out, no one dares disrespect us. Sleep early, don’t pay back the high-interest loans for now, and we expand.”
Liu Jun covered his mouth and smiled, quickly hanging up before his father could hear, lest his father change his mind again. But he couldn’t help thinking – in his desperate expansion of scale, wasn’t there some intention to compete with Qian Hongming in his heart?
Before Spring Festival, there were countless matters to handle. Liu Jun originally wanted to go to Yu Shanshan’s house in the morning to apologize, but a phone call from the administrative manager forced Liu Jun to abandon his apology plans and rush to the company by taxi. It turned out that several out-of-town employees, feeling especially homesick during the festival, demanded early leave. If the company didn’t agree, they would take personal leave to go home, and they also demanded that the company extend Spring Festival vacation time, because they rarely got to return home once, and after deducting travel time, there wasn’t much time left for family reunion. The administrative manager didn’t dare agree, because Liu Jun’s work schedule was very tight, and the company had everyone in their specific roles – if these several employees left, production would be nearly paralyzed. But the out-of-town employees united and insisted, showing their train tickets to the administrative manager. They had to leave whether they left or not, and if that didn’t work, they’d resign on the spot. The administrative manager could only call for reinforcements, because these employees were all well-trained, and how could the boss bear to let them resign?
Liu Jun could understand the workers’ homesickness, and besides, the company had many out-of-town employees – his company couldn’t withstand so many resignations. He could only compromise, agreeing that the originally planned seven-day holiday would remain unchanged, but after the festival, they could take personal leave until the tenth day of the new year, and before the festival, they could take personal leave until the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. This made the administrative manager very embarrassed, as if he had played the villain.
But Liu Jun’s decision only satisfied some people, not others. Three people raised further demands, saying their hometown customs forbade leaving home before the Lantern Festival, so they had to take leave until after the Lantern Festival before returning to work. Liu Jun was furious at this point. He told these three people to do whatever they wanted – anyway, he wouldn’t approve leave until the Lantern Festival. Absence for more than three days would result in dismissal according to regulations, with no discussion. Only then did everyone return to work.
Liu Jun asked the administrative manager to his office and closed the door to soothe emotions. The administrative manager said angrily, “Our company treasures employees enough – how can they have no conscience, using the little skills we taught them to actually turn around and pressure us? They should try switching companies and see where they can find such good treatment and easy-going bosses.”
Liu Jun said, “Sorry, I didn’t consider thoroughly beforehand. People like them generally can’t bear to take planes, and even taking trains to the nearest place like Anhui takes two days on the road. Seven days isn’t enough for a reunion. But are there customs forbidding leaving home before the Lantern Festival?”
“There certainly are, but how many young people nowadays strictly follow old customs? It’s nothing more than seeing that General Manager Liu is easy to talk to, so they’re pushing their luck.”
“Now treating it as absence without leave, will they still not return after New Year?”
The administrative manager coughed dryly and said cautiously, “I have some experience, though it’s rather underhanded – please consider it, General Manager Liu. Generally, to prevent employee turnover after Spring Festival, enterprises take the measure of paying part of the year-end bonus, with most of it delayed until after Spring Festival. And it’s best to wait until after April – before April is peak recruitment season, after April, there are fewer job openings and people’s hearts settle down, then pay it.”
Liu Jun shook his head, “That might not work. Look, we haven’t even given year-end bonuses yet, and they’ve already proposed resigning just to go home.”
“I don’t believe at all that they would leave before year-end bonuses are distributed. Why do people come to work? For money. If not for money, they’d stay home as masters of their households – why suffer working away from home? So they value immediate money most. Just tell them there’s a sum of money ahead they can get, and they’ll agree to any condition, as long as it’s somewhat reasonable…”
“But wait, I provide various insurances for each of them – don’t they think about future retirement benefits? How many surrounding companies provide insurance so properly? As long as they stay with the company, their prospects are excellent – don’t they think about this?”
“General Manager Liu, there’s a big problem here. Their household registration isn’t here, and according to talent policies, they can’t get residency permits from the local police bureau. Without residency, they can’t enjoy medical insurance after retirement, nor receive monthly pensions after retirement. According to policy, they can only get a very small one-time compensation. I mentioned this to General Manager Liu before, showed you materials, reminding you that out-of-town employees don’t need insurance – we pay so much money, but it’s useless for out-of-town employees. General Manager Liu rejected this. So out-of-town employees don’t care much about our insurance payments, but visible year-end bonuses can better constrain them.”
“The materials you gave me – I was busy at the time and didn’t read them, thinking I’d look later, but forgot. Sorry.” While Liu Jun apologized verbally, he muttered inwardly, but from behind the administrative manager’s words, he saw that employees had taken advantage of his sincerity and goodwill. Because he was moved by the opposition between employees and his father when he first entered the factory, and moved by the opposition between Shi Yiji employees and their boss, he originally wanted to create an atmosphere of cooperation and sincerity. He first treated workers with reasonable and legal regulations, but the result was that kindness was taken for weakness – he had been too utopian. He thought of Yang Xun cursing loudly at the Shi Yiji branch to meet deadlines – did he also have to do this?
But thinking of the scene just now, thinking of the employees’ intentions behind the scene, plus the employee who stole blueprints, and Sun Gong and Liao Gong, whose rights and wrongs were still unclear, plus the family of the deceased worker, Liu Jun’s heart grew cold while anger flared up. He wouldn’t bring up the leave issue he’d already agreed to, but for year-end bonuses, he would only give each person one thousand yuan, with the rest to be paid after they returned from the New Year, together with April wages. When in Rome, do as the Romans do – otherwise, he’d be a fool in the employees’ eyes. If employees wanted to curse, let them curse. He had figured it out.
After a busy day, especially being held up by new product development, when he thought of Yu Shanshan during lunch and called to apologize, she still didn’t answer. Liu Jun was extremely frustrated – why did his goodwill and sincerity always hit walls? Wasn’t he even given a chance to explain? He got angry. Since Yu Shanshan refused to answer the phone, he tried using text messages. Finding Chinese characters cumbersome, he sent a message in English, roughly explaining what he had done last night – at the time everyone was waiting for him to start the meal so it wasn’t convenient to say much, and it wasn’t appropriate to discuss too much private business in front of those two people to avoid misunderstandings. Liu Jun typed until his fingers cramped before finishing everything that needed explaining and sending it. Furiously thinking, if Yu Shanshan didn’t call back, this would be the end. He picked up a vulgar phrase in his mind: “There are plenty of fish in the sea.”
Soon, Yu Shanshan replied: “Yes, your work is most important.”
Liu Jun looked at it, speechless, and deleted the message. Wasn’t work important?