After returning to his residence, Pei Qian first sent a message to Assistant Xin, asking her to take some time after work on Monday to learn about the situation in Jingzhou’s old industrial zone, inquire about prices for a larger factory building, and roughly estimate the investment needed for this haunted house.

Afterward, Pei Qian checked the messages Tang Yishu had sent him.

Today was Saturday, and quite a few people had gone to work overtime.

Tang Yishu had ostensibly gone to scoop poop for Yintang, but she was monitoring these overtime workers for Pei Qian, checking if they had any boundary-crossing behaviors.

Pei Qian looked at this message and compared it with the overtime list submitted by Li Yada.

“The girl with glasses, that should be Li Yada.”

“The one with a mole on his face, that should be Xiao Li.”

“The tall one with a crew cut… hmm?”

Pei Qian compared Tang Yishu’s message with Li Yada’s submitted list and immediately discovered a problem.

There was an extra person working overtime!

The reported overtime quota was for 5 people, but Tang Yishu had recorded 6 actual design team members working overtime!

This tall person with a crew cut should be Chen Kangtuo from the design team, who wasn’t on Li Yada’s submitted overtime list.

Pei Qian sneered, hmph, I knew it!

Sure enough, there were always people in the design team who couldn’t give up working overtime.

Caught the dog.

Pei Qian pondered how to deal with this die-hard who repeatedly ignored warnings and was still secretly working overtime.

Should he send him off to Enjoyment on the spot, letting him showcase his talents on a bigger stage, killing the chicken to scare the monkeys?

Not appropriate.

Because this approach would treat the symptoms but not the root cause, satisfying a momentary impulse but causing endless harm.

Pei Qian hadn’t asked Tang Yishu exactly who came to work overtime on the weekend, nor had he thought about installing surveillance in the office, for the same considerations.

Suppose Pei Qian used the first-out elimination system to reassign Chen Kangtuo to another department. That would undoubtedly imply to all employees that working overtime would get them eliminated first.

Those looking for promotion would deliberately come to work overtime when they saw this situation, while those who originally wanted to work overtime would become even more excessive. The situation would then spiral out of control.

Pei Qian would completely lose the ability to distinguish which employees were slackers and which were true workaholics.

Or should Pei Qian warn Chen Kangtuo against overtime and strictly prohibit such behavior?

On the surface, this might deter those who wanted to work overtime, but they would certainly move underground, all secretly working overtime at home.

With everyone working overtime at home, Mr. Pei would still be unable to distinguish which of his employees were slackers and which were workaholics.

So, this approach wouldn’t work either!

As the saying goes, water too clear has no fish; people too scrutinized have no followers.

Whether strictly checking attendance or installing surveillance in the office, such measures would not only subconsciously make many employees work diligently and reduce slacking off, but would also prevent Mr. Pei from seeing those workaholics hiding in the shadows.

Pei Qian’s ultimate goal was to create a Slack-friendly environment for all employees while making them feel that Mr. Pei wouldn’t care about secret overtime work.

This way, slackers would feel at ease slacking off, while workaholics would secretly work overtime, allowing the two groups to be distinguished.

Afterward, Pei Qian could compile a list of these workaholics and deal with them without anyone noticing.

No scaring the snake by beating the grass.

So Pei Qian wasn’t hasty but quietly noted down Chen Kangtuo’s name, planning to settle accounts after the autumn harvest, silently delivering a knockout blow.

Meanwhile, he also waited for more fish to enter the net.

……

December 6, Monday.

Pei Qian arrived at the company at 10 o’clock as usual, only to notice there seemed to be fewer people in the office today.

After a moment of confusion, he remembered that today was Tenda’s recruitment examination day.

Many employees from the Human Resources Department and Administration had gone out to maintain order at the examination sites.

Although many graduate students from Handong University had come to help, these students could only assist, requiring Hao Yun and others to lead them.

Pei Qian planned to sit in the office for a while before visiting the examination site.

Recruitment was a major event after all, and whether they could screen out more slackers was related to the company’s future development, so Pei Qian didn’t dare to neglect it.

Shortly after sitting down, Assistant Xin came to report her work.

“Mr. Pei, I’ve gathered information about the factory buildings.”

“The abandoned factory buildings in the old industrial zone are planned for centralized development under the banner of a creative industry park, so they’re not for sale. But the good news is that the rent is very cheap because nobody wants them.”

“These factory buildings cost only eight to nine yuan per square meter per month, a cost that can be ignored.”

“If you plan to convert these factory buildings into a haunted house, you’ll need to carefully plan the scale and how many factory areas to occupy.”

“This will help calculate the initial investment.”

Pei Qian nodded; the price was much cheaper than he had imagined.

Only eight to nine yuan per square meter per month—at this rate, renting a 10,000-square-meter space with several large factory buildings would cost just over a million yuan in rent per year, a world apart from office building prices.

Of course, whether rent was expensive or not ultimately depended on location.

These factory buildings were in remote locations, and if they couldn’t make money after being rented, then the annual million-plus yuan would be purely wasted, which was why most people were unwilling to take them on.

Assistant Xin continued: “There’s a second matter, Mr. Pei. Should we hold an annual meeting this year?”

“If we are, it’s about time to start preparing.”

Pei Qian was startled, then said: “Yes, of course we should!”

How could he almost forget about this?

How could he miss such a good opportunity to spend money at an annual meeting?

Last year, they didn’t hold an annual meeting because Tenda was still too small then, making an annual meeting impractical.

But this year, Tenda already had so many employees, making an annual meeting perfectly reasonable!

With some big prizes at the annual meeting, plus participation awards for everyone, wouldn’t that be another large sum of money spent?

Thank goodness Assistant Xin reminded him!

Assistant Xin nodded: “Very well, Mr. Pei. I’ll notify them to start preparing. If you have any requirements for the annual meeting, please feel free to let me know at any time.”

Pei Qian said: “No other requirements, just make sure it embodies the Tenda spirit, understand?”

Assistant Xin: “Understood, the prizes must be high-quality.”

Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction.

After Assistant Xin left, Pei Qian planned to watch a drama for a while, then visit the examination site after lunch.

However, just as he opened the AiLiDao website, he received a message on his phone.

It was from Lin Wan.

“Mr. Pei, ‘BE QUIET’ already has an initial demo. On the phone side, the first version of the system also has a basic framework.”

“If you have time in the next few days, would you like to take a look?”

Pei Qian thought for a moment and began typing: “Alright, I’ll go to Shangyang Games tomorrow, then to OTTO Technology the day after…”

However, halfway through writing this message, Pei Qian felt it was inappropriate and deleted it all.

He shouldn’t go there himself; he should have them come over.

At this stage of evaluating phased research results, Tang Yishu, his nuclear weapon, definitely needed to be deployed.

But if Pei Qian brought Tang Yishu to the Shangyang Games or OTTO Technology to inspect the results, it would seem somewhat strange.

After all, Tang Yishu’s current position was only “the poop scooper for the motivator,” and taking her around everywhere would seem somewhat improper and might arouse suspicion.

So, it would be better to have everyone come to Tenda Games, where they would be unknowingly influenced by Tang Yishu’s aura effect.

With this in mind, Pei Qian typed a new reply: “Then come to Tenda for the demonstration over the next two days.”

Not long after, Lin Wan responded: “Understood, Mr. Pei.”

……

Noon.

Tenda recruitment examination site.

Wu Bin ate the meal set delivered by Slackin’ Takeout, inwardly full of praise.

He was the HR person from Hengtu Games who had previously tried to poach Hao Qiong but ended up being schooled. He had been closely following Tenda’s recruitment.

Having finally waited for the recruitment examination, he naturally wouldn’t miss this opportunity.

One subject had already been completed in the morning, and now it was lunchtime.

Wu Bin had many impressions about this recruitment examination.

His first feeling was: strange!

The timing was strange, the process was strange, and even the examination questions were strange.

Regarding the timing, it was remarkably odd that it was scheduled for Monday.

Many companies held meetings on Monday, making it extremely difficult to take time off.

Deliberately scheduling the exam on Monday—were they afraid that employed candidates would be able to get time off?

As for the process, many inexplicable steps seemed completely unnecessary.

Wu Bin himself was an HR professional and was very familiar with similar processes.

In his view, although Tenda had grown to a considerable size, conducting such a large-scale unified examination was completely unnecessary—a waste of money and effort. It would have been better to follow conventional recruitment methods.

Most perplexing was that the recruitment process included a “Tenda Spirit Compatibility Test.” Failing this test meant not being able to secure a permanent position, which was quite absurd.

Moreover, the questions were truly difficult!

Wu Bin had previously participated in civil service examinations and similar written tests, having prepared for such questions before.

He had originally thought that since Tenda was just a private enterprise, the written test questions should be much simpler.

However, he was completely mistaken.

The difficulty of these questions was unprecedented!

The morning session had nearly driven Wu Bin to break down. He had thought he was thoroughly prepared, yet these highly difficult questions had ground him into the dust.

But there was nothing to be done about it.

Who could blame Tenda for offering such good treatment?

This was evident from the lunch alone.

There were at least several hundred job seekers in this hotel venue, and Tenda provided meals for everyone, an expense that must have cost tens of thousands of yuan at a minimum.

And this wasn’t even the only examination site.

Hiring these university graduate students to proctor and grade papers probably costs another substantial sum.

Ah, how nice it is to have money!

Wu Bin ate his Slackin’ Takeout meal set while fantasizing about how wonderful it would be to work at Tenda someday.

After finishing lunch, Wu Bin noticed many people leaving the venue.

For those job seekers from other cities, Tenda had arranged accommodation, so they could return to their rooms for a brief rest before coming back for the afternoon examination.

Wu Bin lived locally in Jingzhou, so he didn’t have this benefit.

He could have gone home to rest, but it would have been troublesome to go back and forth, so there was no need to bother.

With nothing to do, Wu Bin’s gaze swept across the hall, observing these examinees—his competitors.

Young people made up the vast majority, and many of them appeared to be local university students from Jingzhou.

This was normal, as final-year university students were in the midst of frantically job hunting and would certainly not miss such an examination opportunity.

As for employed individuals of Wu Bin’s age, they either couldn’t bear to give up their year-end bonuses or couldn’t easily take time off on Monday, so many had given up.

“It seems Tenda prefers younger employees.”

“I wonder if an old slacker like me can pass the exam.”

Wu Bin felt somewhat melancholic.