Chapter 51: A Good Opportunity to Escalate the Conflict

The Airex supervisors were all busy coordinating with department store managers, briefing the store managers, and entering the group purchase sales figures. They were bustling about, happy to be so occupied.

These struggling supervisors, who hadn’t received a bonus in months, finally saw a glimmer of hope for the future. They realized that if they worked hard under their new leader, they would have a promising career ahead of them.

Team morale surged, and the way they looked at Yang Hui changed. They had gone from merely observing him to truly accepting him as their leader.

At 5:05 PM, Yang Hui received a message from Chen Yu!

[Chen Yu: President Yang, the payment process is complete. Our finance department is transferring the funds now. It will definitely be in your account before 5:30!]

[Yang Hui: Thanks!]

He breathed a sigh of relief. ’Finally, it’s done. It would’ve been so embarrassing to get penalized right after joining the company!’

HR Manager Wang Xiao reached out and answered the internal line.

It was a call from Cai Miao!

[Cai Miao: Wang Xiao, I just checked with Finance. That payment from the High-tech Zone Yida Department Store still hasn’t arrived. Typically, if it’s not in by 5:00 PM, it’s not coming today. Why haven’t you sent out the penalty email yet?]

[Wang Xiao: President Cai, it’s not the end of the business day yet. What if I send out the penalty email, and then the payment arrives before closing? Wouldn’t that make us a laughingstock to the entire company?]

[Cai Miao: So my words don’t carry any weight, is that it? Do you need an order from President Li himself?]

Wang Xiao felt helpless. She knew she had made an enemy of Cai Miao, but as an HR manager, she had her own principles to uphold.

’This morning, when I was trying to put her off, I figured she wouldn’t take it so seriously. Who knew she’d stay fixated on it? So vindictive over the smallest things. It’s true what they say: women and petty people are the most difficult to handle!’

[Cai Miao: Fine, I’ll go ask President Li!]

When Wang Xiao didn’t respond after a long moment, Cai Miao, in a fit of pique, prepared to go find Li Yang herself.

Wang Xiao, on the other hand, wasn’t bothered. ’Li Yang is the boss. If he gives the order, of course I can send it.’

’An order from Cai Miao doesn’t count. If something goes wrong later, she won’t step up and admit she was the one who demanded it. Besides, she has no authority over me. Following her orders would just show that I have no principles myself.’

’Compared to offending Cai Miao, I’m more afraid of being accused of being unprincipled. And how can an unprincipled HR manager be fit for the job?’

「General Manager’s Office」

Cai Miao stood beside Li Yang. After making a show of reporting on a few other matters, she finally got to her point.

"Boss, that payment from the High-tech Zone Yida Department Store still hasn’t arrived. I don’t think it’s coming. Should we have HR send out the penalty email now?"

Li Yang raised his wrist to check the time. It was 5:20 PM. ’The payment hasn’t arrived by now. It’s not going to come in the last ten minutes.’

"Send it."

He didn’t give it a second thought. A promise hadn’t been kept, so a penalty was due. You can’t maintain order without rules.

Cai Miao’s eyes darted slyly as she added, "Boss, are you planning to sit in on the Operations Department’s all-hands meeting tomorrow?"

Li Yang didn’t attend every one of the Operations Department’s meetings, but he would sometimes sit in if he had time.

"If nothing else comes up, I’ll sit in. Sales performance has been terrible lately. It’s time to put some pressure on them."

Cai Miao was ecstatic. She immediately went out to make the arrangements, sending a message to Wang Xiao that President Li had ordered the penalty email to be sent out to the entire company. She also notified Dan Biao that President Li would be sitting in on the Operations Department meeting the next morning.

5:25 PM

Zhu Jing suddenly stood up and looked in his direction.

Yang Hui looked up, and she hurried over. "Manager Yang, HR just sent out the penalty email!"

Hmm?

Yang Hui had been waiting for confirmation that the Yida Department Store payment had arrived. Chen Yu had promised to notify him the moment the transfer was complete, so he’d been keeping an eye on his WeChat messages instead of refreshing his email.

As he heard Zhu Jing’s words and was about to open his inbox, a WeChat notification popped up. Sure enough, Chen Yu was a man of his word. The payment had been transferred, and he even included proof of the transaction!

He let out a cold sneer. ’This email from the HR department is odd. The business day isn’t even over, and they’ve already sent out the penalty notice!’

He forwarded the proof of transfer to Zhu Jing. "Go to Finance and have them verify the transaction. I’ll deal with HR."

Yang Hui had a decent impression of Wang Xiao, so after a moment’s thought, he dialed her internal line.

"Manager Wang, why was the penalty email sent so early?"

She had been the one to recruit Yang Hui, and she knew she should be more lenient with a new employee. But she couldn’t defy an order from President Li, which Cai Miao had brought to her.

She could only sigh. "Cai Miao went to President Li for instructions, and he was the one who ordered it sent. My hands were tied."

"Alright, I understand."

Wang Xiao listened to the dial tone on the other end of the line and thought, ’This new guy is probably going to be really discouraged by this whole affair.’

What she didn’t know was that when this "new guy" heard it was Cai Miao and President Li’s doing, his eyes lit up. ’What a perfect opportunity to show them up and deepen their animosity!’

’So the email went out to the entire company? Perfect!’

He opened his email:

[Dear All, In light of the Airex Operations Department’s failure to adhere to company policy and fulfill its commitment to collect the 1.2 million RMB payment by May 31st as per the signed memo, the company has issued the following disciplinary action according to management regulations: Department Head Yang Hui and payment supervisor Zhu Jing will each receive one minor demerit and a fine of 200 RMB. Furthermore, their salaries will be suspended until the aforementioned payment is collected.]

This email was sent to several hundred office employees across the company, as well as all frontline staff in over 500 stores.

He finished composing a reply. At 5:28 PM, Zhu Jing confirmed with the Finance Department that the 1.2 million had indeed arrived in the account and reported back to him immediately.

Yang Hui immediately hit "Send."

The entire staff of Futong Commerce instantly grabbed their popcorn to watch the show.

At 5:22 PM, the HR department had penalized the new Airex manager and Supervisor Zhu Jing. People were still feeling sorry for the new department head, with some even joking, "He got a demerit on his second day on the job. He’s probably not going to last long."

It wasn’t just the main office that was buzzing; the gossip had spread to the retail stores as well.

At the High-tech Zone Yida Department Store, the Airex and Erke counters were right next to each other.

The Erke store manager hurried over to the Airex counter and said to Chen Lele, "Did you see the email? Your new boss got hit with a penalty!"

Chen Lele, who normally loved to joke around, joined her store’s sales associate in glaring at the Erke manager. "Isn’t this whole mess because your Erke supervisor was incompetent and couldn’t even get the accounts straight?"

"What’s with the attitude?"

Rebuffed, the Erke manager muttered a few words and retreated to her own counter. She had no idea how grateful Chen Lele and the other sales associates were to Yang Hui now.

Just a short while ago, Zhu Jing had allocated nearly 120,000 in group purchase sales to their store. In fact, Chen Lele was in the middle of contacting the mall’s Manager Zhao to get those sales figures officially recorded.

Thanks to that group purchase, she and her sales associates went from getting no bonus to being practically buried in bonus money. Zhu Jing had told them it was all from a deal Manager Yang negotiated himself, specifically to look out for them.

How could they not be grateful to him?