Chapter 298 212: The Most Powerful Woman

Zhu Jing teased, "I'm talking about my situation, but you're always focused on him."

Xia Jie had let it slip. She couldn't help it; after thinking about him for so many days, Zhu Jing's prodding made the words tumble out. She blushed more easily than Zhu Jing, and after being teased, she quickly changed the subject. "Zhu Jing, at the end of the month, I'll cook you a feast to celebrate. And let's both work hard so we can buy houses in Qingzhou next year."

"Buy a house? Xia Jie, what are you thinking? Even in the cheapest parts of Qingzhou, property is at least ten thousand yuan per square meter, and that's after prices have been dropping for the last few years. For a 100-square-meter place, you'd need a down payment of 200,000. How many years would that take to save up?"

"I've never even considered buying a house. If my income were a little higher, I'd just rent a subsidized apartment. We're in operations management, and the retail market has been terrible the last couple of years. Expecting to buy a car and a house in this field? You can only dream about it."

Xia Jie placed a chicken drumstick in her bowl. "You should eat this. Your face was flushed when you first got back, but now you look a little pale."

"Zhu Jing, you're just like everyone else, stuck in a fixed mindset about the salaries for operations staff. Yanghe Commerce is different. I have a feeling that every single employee here can buy a house and a car with their own hard work. The manager of the NLB store at Xinyue Square is already making around 30,000 a month. By working hard, she could probably afford a down payment in about a year. Even the sales staff make over 15,000 a month; they could afford a down payment after two years. And that's not even counting the higher salaries they can earn through promotions."

She took the drumstick Xia Jie had given her and murmured her thanks. It suddenly dawned on her that she really had been measuring potential income at Yanghe Commerce with her old mindset. 'Just as Xia Jie said,' she thought, 'if the store managers and staff are earning that much, our salaries in operations management can only be higher.'

Just as she was about to ask Xia Jie about her current salary, Xia Jie spoke again. "Did you know Shen Meng did a livestream from the store a few days ago? She brought in 4.1 million in sales. Her commission bonus alone was 205,000. And the company didn't try to short her just because it was a huge amount."

Zhu Jing's first thought was to say, 'Well, she's Yang Hui's girlfriend.' But then she immediately reconsidered. 'That's not a valid argument. If it's company policy, then everyone is treated the same. If they didn't short Shen Meng, then they won't short anyone else in the future.'

"You haven't officially joined Yanghe Commerce yet, so Manager Yang probably hasn't talked to you much about how things work here."

Zhu Jing nodded. That was true. When she and Yang Hui went out on store inspections, they were mainly focused on issues with Airex. The meeting with Wang Qing today was the first time he had truly included her in Yanghe Commerce matters, and even then, he only briefly mentioned that she would be in charge of the Zen brand in the future.

"Xia Jie, what's your current salary?"

Many companies require salaries to be kept confidential, so Zhu Jing had never asked before. But now that they were living together, their relationship had grown even closer. Besides, they were both on Yang Hui's team. She figured it wouldn't be a big deal to ask, so after a moment's hesitation, she voiced her question.

Xia Jie wouldn't have brought it up herself, mainly for fear that it might create friction if Zhu Jing's compensation package turned out to be lower than her own. Of course, she knew that was almost impossible, but it was better to be safe. Now that Zhu Jing had asked, not answering would be inappropriate. So, she began to lay out Yanghe Commerce's structure of ranks and titles for Zhu Jing, explaining the corresponding base salary and benefits for each level.

Zhu Jing was so shocked that the half-eaten drumstick fell from her hand, though she didn't even notice.

How could Yanghe Commerce offer such high pay? Even the lowest-level P7 Specialist had a base salary of 10,000 yuan a month, while Xia Jie, a P10 Director, had a base of 18,000 a month. It was ridiculously high. At Futong Commerce, their base salaries had been a mere 6,000 yuan. A while back, Yang Hui had fought to get them each a 2,000 yuan raise, and the excitement from that still hadn't worn off.

Xia Jie's salary at Futong Commerce had been similar to hers. But upon joining Yanghe Commerce, her base pay had shot up to 18,000 a month. And it wasn't just about the base salary. At Yanghe Commerce, a supervisor's bonus wasn't like at Futong Commerce, where it was a 2,000 yuan performance bonus dependent on monthly KPI scores. Sometimes you'd get it, and sometimes you'd get nothing or just a fraction of it.

At Yanghe Commerce, however, the bonus was 0.2% of the total monthly sales in your supervised region. The number was terrifying. For example, Xia Jie was currently managing two stores. If they had sales of 4 million by the end of the month, her bonus alone would be 8,000 yuan. And what if she managed ten stores in the future? Zhu Jing was well aware of Yang Hui's philosophy on opening stores—he wouldn't open one that made less than 800,000 a month in sales. That meant managing ten stores would translate to at least 10 million in monthly sales, and a bonus of over 20,000 yuan from that alone.

And that wasn't even factoring in other benefits, like the year-end bonus, which was a major perk. No wonder Xia Jie was confident about buying a house within a year. With an income like that, buying property in Qingzhou would be no problem at all.

She never imagined her own compensation package would be any less than Xia Jie's. After all, her skills were proven, and she was closer to Yang Hui. She had originally only intended to follow Yang Hui; she never expected such a windfall.

And this was just the beginning. There were only a few stores now; as the number increased, they would be promoted. At the current Director level, every promotion added 4,000 yuan to the base salary. Once they made it to Manager, each promotion would add 8,000. It wasn't arrogance, but with their work ethic and management skills, becoming department managers was practically a sure thing. Her heart pounded just thinking about that future income. 'It's exactly as he said. At Yanghe Commerce, you don't need to worry about money.'