Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883
Page 27
Take Huang Sibo for example. His base salary was at 4,000 per month. Based on a 20 day month and an eight hour working day, his hourly rate would be at 25 yuan and his overtime pay would be at 37.5 yuan per hour.
Thereafter, based on Huang Sibo’s number of overtime hours, the total sum would then deduct for insurance, rental allowance and tax, resulting in the figure he received.
It was open and bright!
Huang Sibo had never come across a company with this much heart. No, he had never even heard of any companies as such!
When he returned to his desk, Huang Sibo took a long time to calm down.
‘So, Boss Pei knew about everything!’
‘He knew that we were doing overtime! Despite the fact that I went against his orders, he did not blame us and instead just added the overtime pay to our salary’
Huang Sibo felt his heart warm up and his eyes brim with tears.
He was touched!
This was truly the best boss in the world!
…
As for Pei Qian, he did not know of the immense gratitude his employees felt towards him for the overtime pay.
He was having a headache of his own.
Why couldn’t he empty out the System Funds completely?!
The reason why he chose to hand out salaries at the end of the month was because the system did its settlement at the start of the month.
Pei Qian had to ensure that he paid out the salaries before each settlement or he would have accumulated a sum of money for no reason and that would not help his cause of wanting to lose money for the System Funds!
Chapter 48
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
This month, Pei Qian was already trying his best to splurge the money.
He divided the purchase of art resources into two portions where the first part was spent the previous week and the other part was spent this week.
He had also paid for the rental of the office space.
The salaries and overtime pay of the employees were paid out too.
There were still other casual expenditures.
Furiously, Pei Qian had managed to spend most of the System Funds.
However, everything was not over yet.
There were still two more months to go before the next settlement!
During these two months, Ghost General would still pump money continuously into the System Funds. Other than the fixed expenses of the office space rental and employee salaries, Pei Qian had to think up other ways to lose all that money!
He was a little worried.
“It truly requires knowledge to conduct a budget flush.”
“What’s the best way for a budget flush?”
“Hmms… cohesion events?”
“That’s right, cohesion events!”
Pei Qian suddenly thought of a brilliant idea.
There shouldn’t be an issue to use the System Funds for cohesion events, right?
They could casually look for a high end restaurant for a meal. For 30 over people and an estimated spending of 100 per person, that would be a few thousand yuan gone instantly!
No, that wasn’t right.
A few thousand was too little.
Pei Qian thought about it and felt that he was still being too conservative – he should let Assistant Xin handle the issue.
He called Xin Hailu to his office.
“We’ll arrange for a cohesion activity at the end of this month. You’ll plan for the schedule,” Pei Qian instructed.
“Alright, please elaborate.”
Assistant Xin was a smart person; she would never doubt Pei Qian’s instructions, merely asking to obtain his desired outcome.
Pei Qian thought for a moment. “I’m planning to bring our employees to… yes, Guangzhou! We’ll tour the place and go for a learning exchange! We won’t have to go for too long. Around five days will do.”
Pei Qian was initially undecided on where to go.
If they wanted to go abroad, they would have to apply for visas and it would be really troublesome since they would be foreign to the place.
Domestically, most of the gaming companies were gathered in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Pei Qian thought about it and decided that since Guangzhou was the furthest, the air tickets to that place would be the most expensive!
The system did not ring any warnings.
Pei Qian could not help but cheer up internally – he was getting better at reading the system’s temperament!
His excuse was a cohesion activity to visit, exchange and learn – everything sounded logical and reasonable.
As to what there was to visit, exchange and learn about from a bunch of gaming companies…? Don’t ask! The answer would be that they were there to learn from the experience of the successful gaming companies there!
“Five days. We’ll visit a company each day. Assistant Xin, remember to liaise with them beforehand. At that time, we can treat the designers or the bosses of the companies to a meal as well. That won’t be an issue.”
“It’ll be best if we can find companies that deal with creating large scale games. Companies that create FPS games would be beneficial to us too.”
“The rest of the time will be free and easy for everyone so that they can appreciate the culture and food of the place while relaxing their minds. That will help them to work better.”
“Air tickets, accommodation and group meals would all be paid for by the company!”
“Do up a schedule and let me know the rough estimate.”
Pei Qian instructed everything quickly.
“Sure thing, Boss Pei. I’ll get back to you soon,” Assistant Xin was reliable as always.
Pei Qian did not dare to have them go for too long. It was in part because he was afraid he might be issued a warning by the system if they had too much fun – after all, this was a learning exchange. At the same time, he was worried that the game’s progress might be affected. If he could not announce the game in time and that resulted in a postponement of the settlement date, it would be an extremely awkward situation.
Because the scheduled progress for the next month wasn’t so tight, Pei Qian felt that it was a good idea to take five days out for everyone to have some fun and spend some System Funds at the same time.
They could definitely spend at least a couple hundreds of thousands through it!
Even though it still felt like he was using a cup of water to salvage the forest fire, the fact that they could spend that much for a mere cohesion activity was something rather sweet!
…
Assistant Xin’s was extremely efficient and by afternoon, the schedule was prepared.
Pei Qian was delighted as he took it over and checked out the price.
“It’s not even 150,000?!” He was somewhat stumped.
That was much less than what he had expected.
Assistant Xin smiled gently. “Everything’s calculated based on the current standards.”
Pei Qian looked through everything carefully.
Assistant Xin had arranged for only 30 people – there might be some employees who did not want to travel all the way to Guangzhou.
For those people, Pei Qian would not force them. After all, it was just a fun, no, learning exchange – it was voluntary.
Return air tickets ranged around 2,000 per person.
Based on 300 per person, the accommodation cost 600 per two person room.
Coupled with the expenses for group meals, traffic and other additional costs as well as some extra budget for employees (If more than 30 people wanted to go, they would make use of the extra budget), the total sum was less than 150,000.
Even after Pei Qian’s calculation, the sum did not increase!
‘Can’t we fly first class?’
The moment that thought surfaced, he was warned by the system.
Of course not!
This was a normal exchange cohesion activity. Allowing every employee to take a first class seat would be crossing the line –
the system would not allow that.
At the same time, allocating 300 yuan for each person for accommodation was more than enough. He could forget about playing punk with something like assigning each person a single presidential suite or the likes.
Pei Qian looked through the entire schedule and honestly could not find any place he could top up money for…
That had him feeling a little depressed.
‘It only takes 150,000 to bring 30 over employees for a trip to Guangzhou?’
That was much less than Pei Qian had imagined…
Of course, Pei Qian’s judgment of it being cheap was based on the state of the System Funds.
If he were to average it out, that would be around 5,000 yuan per person.
If Pei Qian was the one who had to whisk out 5,000 yuan for a couple of days in Guangzhou, he would find it to be extremely expensive instead!
“Forget it, 150,000 then. We’ll go with that estimate. Let’s prepare beforehand,” Pei Qian handed the schedule back to Assistant Xin.
He did not dare to cross the line. Even though he found it to be too little, the fact that the system did not deny it was already something to be thankful about.
…
Pei Qian’s planned period was during the end of December.
It was partly because the weather would be turning colder and they could seek warmth by heading to Guangzhou.
At the same time, Guangzhou had many gaming companies with a great ecosystem and environment. It would be perfectly logical for him to claim that they were heading there for a learning exchange.
But of course, he had to prepare beforehand for things such as booking of air tickets and liaison with the gaming companies there.
Even though Pei Qian did not intend to make a big deal out of it, he required his employees’ identifications for the booking of air tickets and thus, news of it eventually leaked out through the company.
Within the inner circle of the design team, many people could not contain their excitement and were discussing it.
“Are we really headed to Guangzhou for a learning exchange?”
“I think it’s for real! I’ve heard that Assistant Xin is already preparing to book the air tickets!”
“Aren’t the benefits for this company way too awesome? I’ve never heard of any other gaming company that would bring their employees for a learning exchange…”
“Indeed, neither have I…”
“I think a trip like this is going to cost quite a bit of money. I’d definitely not be willing to spend on something like this myself!”
“What are the companies that we’re going to visit? I suppose Sun Strike Studios will be one of them?”
“I think so? Sun Strike Studios is so famous and they specialize in FPS games. That’s suitable for us.”
“Man, I’ve dreamt of visiting Sun Strike Studios before I even joined the industry.”
“Aren’t you going to do it now? We’ll get to learn how a top-end studio functions as well!”
The entire design team was thoroughly hyped.
As for the other rest such as the arts and administrative team, their interest laid elsewhere.
They were deciding on what they should eat and where they should visit, taking it as a free trip entirely.
That was only normal. After all, most of the people in the design team were young internet addicts who had a passion for the well known domestic studios and gaming companies.
As for the rest, they were less bothered and interested in Sun Strike Studios and whatnot.
But at the end of the day, all of them were equally excited about the free company trip!
Chapter 49
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Guangzhou.
Sun Strike Studios.
“Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd.?”
“They want to come to our studios for a learning exchange?”
Zhou Muyan was befuddled.
This was the first time that he had heard of a gaming company wanting to conduct a learning exchange with another!
Something as such was typically done by university students for experiential learning to prepare themselves for working life post school.
Yet, there was never a gaming company that would organize something as such for its employees!
At least not domestically.
That was because most of the domestic gaming companies were in pursuit of profits. A long distance learning exchange would be a costly expenditure!
With an estimated 30 men group’s air tickets, hotel and other expenses and taking into the account that they would not be working for those days, that would add up to be quite a sum.
Furthermore, it wasn’t as though doing something as such would actually reap in much benefits for the company – it was a pure loss of money.
Even though they termed it as a learning exchange, what was there to learn about?
Which company would be so stupid…?
Zhou Muyan’s first instinct was to reject them.
He was the producer of Sun Strike Studios and was quite reputable within the industry.
Of course, technically speaking, it was more of being infamous. Since there were many people who flamed Sun Strike Studios, he could not avoid being associated with the insults since he was the producer.
Zhou Muyan was merely his nickname, not his real name. In the South, many companies had nicknames as it was the trend there and Sun Strike Studios was no different.
Recently, Sun Strike Studios was in the midst of creating an online FPS and they had been in production for more than a year with internal beta testing about to commence.
Under such a critical period, Zhou Muyan truly could not be bothered to entertain employees of a gaming company from a far Handong Province.
“Boss Zhou, this is a famous company! They were the ones that created Ghost General! I suggest we take some time to meet with them. If you don’t have the time, we can let Brother Sun go meet them. It won’t take much effort for him to bring them around the company,” The administrative girl who was in contact with Xin Hailu reminded.
“They made Ghost General?!”
Zhou Muyan was stunned and instantly felt that the girl’s words made sense.
As the saying went, the more friends you have the more options you have in life.
Even though they were competitors, rejecting their kind intentions of traveling such a long way just to visit and exchange thoughts would seem rather heartless.
Furthermore, Zhou Muyan knew of Ghost General – that was a mobile game that was extremely hot recently. It was clear that the creator of it was no fool.
Perhaps it would be quite a good idea to meet and get to know someone like that as well.
In any case, it would just take a single day at most and they would not really disrupt work by taking a spin around the office as well.
At that thought, Zhou Muyan nodded. “Alright, agree to it then. Set a date with them first. I’ll greet them personally.”
“Sure thing, Boss Zhou. Also, the elimination list of the newcomers is out. Please take a look at it.”
Zhou Muyan scanned through the list.
“Other than Lin Wan, fire the rest according to procedures.”
“Sure thing,” The girl did not probe further as she left with the list.
The lowest elimination system was commonplace in many gaming companies, especially those that hired more people from school.
It was the same for Sun Strike Studios as well. They would hire graduates and conduct an evaluation a few months into the job where the lowest ranked 15% would be fired.
For those fired graduates, they would be in an extremely awkward situation.
Firstly, they would no longer be incumbent graduates and they would not be able to take part in another company’s school recruitment drive. Secondly, they only had a couple of months worth of working experience and they were already fired from their previous company – that would be un
helpful for their future job searches.
In other words, Zhou Muyan’s single statement had just planted a huge obstacle in the career path of the fired graduates!
However, Zhou Muyan did not see anything wrong with it. Even though he knew that the fired graduates would definitely curse him and his family, it did not bother him.
To Zhou Muyan, the gaming industry was just a survival of the fittest jungle!
In such a cruel environment, there was no sympathy to speak of.
But of course, there was an exception to the list – Lin Wan.
She was a girl and just like the rest, was recruited from a famous university in Beijing with high qualifications.
Based on the elimination list’s grading, she was part of the bottom 15% as well.
Just like many other youths, Lin Wan had the same mistake of being naive and overly optimistic.
To Zhou Muyan, the games were but a business.
However, for Lin Wan and the other youths, they saw it as an art or a passionate dream. Because of that, the way they went about things went against the judging criteria of the elimination system.
In other words, she was just not the sort of talent that Sun Strike Studios required.
However, there was a reason why Zhou Muyan had left her out of the elimination list.
Everything aside, her background was simply way too horrifying…
Her father was the President of the largest communication and smart hardware distributor, Shenhua Corporation! Zhou Muyan could not afford to offend someone like that.
In fact, he could not wish for more than to be able to make connections with someone like that!
Of course, Lin Wan did not know that her identity had already been revealed because she had joined Sun Strike Studios through the usual school recruitment drives.
But clearly, Lin Wan had underestimated her father’s care and concern for her…
The second day that Lin Wan joined Sun Strike Studios, Zhou Muyan received a call from the president’s office of Shenhua Corporation.
There were two demands:
First, he hoped that Zhou Muyan and Sun Strike Studios could help to take care of Lin Wan so that she would not overexert herself and fall sick.
Second, he hoped that Zhou Muyan could destroy Lin Wan’s dreams towards the gaming industry as quickly as possible so that she would give up on wanting to build a career there!