Chapter 48: Still in the Mood to Eat Out

At 11:50, Ji Kun ran over and said ingratiatingly, "Boss, should I bring lunch up for you, or will you be going down to eat?"

The young man was quite sharp and knew how to curry favor with his superiors.

"How about this? There must be a restaurant nearby. Book a small private room. I’ll treat everyone to a casual lunch!"

"Ah, Boss, a team lunch?"

"It’s not really a team gathering, just a working lunch with everyone."

He was planning to find time for a proper team-building activity to bring them closer together more quickly.

But considering it was the end of the month and there was a lot of work to wrap up, the team dinner would have to be postponed.

They had to eat lunch anyway, so he decided to join them to get to know them better.

"Boss, isn’t that too much? We can’t let you treat. I’ll tell the others, and the five of us will split the bill to treat you!"

He waved his hand. "Remember my first rule: when you eat with me, you are not allowed to pay. I’m the boss, so I pay!"

’I’m not short on money right now. How could I let people who don’t even make 5,000 a month treat me? Isn’t that just exploiting the working class?’

Ji Kun was skeptical. ’Is this boss for real, or is it all just talk?’

But he knew Yang Hui was definitely treating today, so he set about finding a restaurant that offered good value for the money.

He came back and sent a message to their private group chat: "The boss is treating us to lunch, so don’t order takeout!"

They had an official work group chat that Yang Hui was in.

In addition, they had a private one for discussing things they couldn’t let Yang Hui know about.

"Is the new boss a gift from God, sent to save us? He saw we were about to starve! Smileyface.jpg"

"I like a boss like that!"

"Zhu Jing likes him too. The boss really went to bat for her yesterday~!"

"Han Ya, you’re asking for it! I’ll deal with you when I get back!"

"Zhu Jing, just admit it. With the boss backing you up like that, aren’t you happy?"

It seemed women in sales tended to have feistier, more uninhibited personalities; many of them were natural comedians.

At noon, the supervisors from the Airex Operations Department went to the restaurant first to wait.

Since it would be a while before the food was served, Yang Hui stayed at the office to continue studying the reports.

Zhao Family Kitchen was a small restaurant, only 120 square meters, with just two small private rooms.

Inside the private room, all the supervisors had arrived.

"The new boss is pretty nice, treating us to a working lunch on his first day!"

This was Xiang Ling’s observation.

Zhu Jing hummed in agreement, thinking about how Yang Hui had helped her handle the payment collection from Yida Department Store, even getting into a dispute with Cai Miao over it.

’He’s a leader who’s willing to stand up for his subordinates. He isn’t afraid of trouble and knows how to handle it.’ After this incident, Zhu Jing’s impression of Yang Hui was excellent.

Ji Kun finished ordering the food. "What do you guys think of this?"

He had ordered three vegetarian dishes and three stir-fries with a little meat.

It was always hardest when the boss treated you to a meal but had his subordinates do the ordering. Order too much, and you feared the boss would be unhappy. Order too little, and you feared the boss would be unhappy and think you didn’t know how to order.

’So difficult!’

"This has to be over 100 yuan, right? Maybe we should cut one dish? As long as there’s enough to eat with rice, it’s fine."

Although Han Ya liked to joke around, she was usually a frugal person.

As a member of the Airex team, they had to be. With a monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan, they had to count every penny for every meal.

The women on the team also had to buy cosmetics, which made their lives even more pinched.

"Is the food ordered?"

His voice preceded him.

’This Ji Kun... I ask him to find a restaurant, and he picks a shabby little place like this? I wonder what the food even tastes like.’

"Boss!"

"The boss is here!"

He raised a hand, gesturing for them to remain seated. "Stay seated, everyone."

He walked to the head of the table and sat down, just as Ji Kun said, "Boss, we just ordered. Would you like to take a look and see if it’s okay?"

No longer in a bind, Ji Kun quickly handed the menu to Yang Hui.

He glanced at it. "Let me order."

He knew his subordinates were just being overly cautious, so he didn’t criticize Ji Kun, but ’this order is a complete disaster!’

It was a Sichuan restaurant that served home-style dishes.

He ordered the boiled fish in chili oil, spicy diced chicken, braised prawns, and stir-fried beef, then added two cold appetizers, two vegetable dishes, and a West Lake Beef Soup.

’In a small restaurant like this, these are the only things worth ordering.’

"Alright, we won’t drink during work hours. Let’s get some juice or soft drinks—Ji Kun, you can decide. Take the menu to the front, and tell them to hurry. We don’t want to be late for work this afternoon."

They had to be back at work by 1:30 PM, so their lunch break wasn’t long. When Ji Kun took the menu and glanced at it, his eyes lit up like a starving wolf that hadn’t found food in days.

With the dishes Yang Hui had ordered, the meal would cost close to 300 yuan. For someone like him, who earned less than 5,000 yuan a month, this was a luxury—it was just a working lunch, after all.

Just as he stepped out, a group of people came in. They were colleagues from Futong Commerce, from the Erke brand team.

The Operations Manager, Zhang Li, was swaggering arrogantly at the front. He saw Ji Kun but acted as if he hadn’t, heading straight for a private room with seven or eight people trailing behind him.

The Erke brand had more stores than Airex—nearly fifty—and each store’s performance exceeded 250,000. As a result, their team was larger than the Airex team.

The supervisors from different teams sometimes inspected stores together and would chat. A male supervisor from Erke, Xia Jin, joked to him, "Your numbers were so bad this month. You’re still in the mood to eat out?"

Ji Kun waved the menu in his hand. "Our new boss arrived. He insisted on taking us out for a meal."

"Oh? We get bonuses every month, and we’re the ones splitting the bill to treat our boss. You guys don’t get paid, and your boss has the heart to fleece you?"

The others followed Zhang Li into their private room, but Xia Jin stayed behind to chat with Ji Kun for a moment. The stores they were responsible for were often in the same shopping malls, so they frequently went on inspection rounds together and were quite familiar with each other.

He handed the menu to the owner, then grabbed a large bottle of Coke. As he walked back, he said to Xia Jin, "Our boss said that when we eat with him, we’re not allowed to pay."

Hearing this, Xia Jin glanced toward the private room Yang Hui was in. "Trying to buy loyalty?"

Ji Kun pursed his lips. "If he treated me to a meal every day, I wouldn’t mind giving him my loyalty. Besides, it’s better than a boss who never pays, right?"

Xia Jin knew the "boss who never pays" was a jab at Zhang Li. He clapped Ji Kun on the shoulder and headed back to his own room. "You guys are in for it at the operations meeting tomorrow."

Futong Commerce had a tradition: at the beginning of each month, there was a large operations department meeting hosted by President Shan. All brand operations managers and supervisors had to attend. The meeting was a review of the previous month’s performance, where poor performers were criticized and good teams were praised.

In the past, the Airex team’s year-on-year growth and achievement rates were always last in the company, making them the target of criticism every time.