A Fish Mingling in the Crowd

"Good morning, Director Ye."

"Good morning, Director Ye."

"Hello, Director Ye!"

In the elevator, many employees greeted Ye Shuang, stealing curious glances at him. He was the only executive who didn't use the dedicated leadership elevator. He seemed unconcerned with such formalities and even enjoyed chatting about various departmental matters in the elevator, including gossip.

"Di-Director Ye, can I report a certain leader?" Just as Ye Shuang was chatting casually, a petite bespectacled girl beside him gathered her courage and spoke up.

"Hmm? Report?" Hearing this, Ye Shuang smiled slightly. "Why are you telling me this?"

The girl with glasses blushed and said softly, "You are a fair leader. Everyone says you're the Chief Elder of the Enforcement Hall, someone who can correct the unhealthy practices within the group."

"Chief Elder of the Enforcement Hall?" Ye Shuang couldn't help but stroke his chin. Didn't they used to call him the Golden Horn and Silver Horn Kings? These folks are quite quick at coming up with nicknames.

Ye Shuang looked at the young girl and asked meaningfully, "Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid!"

Ye Shuang gave Jiang Xinxin an approving glance and then said, "Come with me to my office."

"O-okay!"

After getting off the elevator, the bespectacled girl seemed a bit timid, following behind Ye Shuang hesitantly. People from various departments who noticed this thought she had done something wrong and was about to be disciplined by Ye Shuang.

"Phew."

Upon arriving at his office, Ye Shuang put his things away. The bespectacled girl looked around curiously.

[Character: Jiang Xinxin

A girl with some quirks, but a strong sense of justice. Although timid, she is willing to stand up for others.]

Withdrawing his gaze, Ye Shuang sat in his armchair. "Come, have a seat and tell me about it."

"That's alright, I'll stand."

"Fine. Who do you want to report?" Ye Shuang asked.

"Lan Tian from the HR department!"

Ye Shuang thought for a moment and said, "I don't know him. What's his position?"

"He's... he's a division head in Human Resources. He's been laying off our people arbitrarily!" Jiang Xinxin clenched her fists. "We're from the program maintenance department. He colluded with the new executive in our department to force our team lead out!"

Hearing this, Ye Shuang raised an eyebrow. "Optimization?"

"Yes, 'optimized'." Jiang Xinxin hesitated. "I know big companies often 'optimize' older programmers... but our team lead shouldn't have gone. He worked diligently in the group for twenty years and was the absolute soul of our team."

Perhaps seeing that Ye Shuang remained silent, just watching her quietly, she quickly continued,

"The servers we maintain were always our team lead's responsibility. They rarely had issues. But Lan Tian used our 'low workload' as a reason to 'optimize' our team lead."

"How could he do that? Lan Tian doesn't understand at all. The fact that the servers and data we maintain have no problems shows our capability. Who decides a programmer's fate based on workload? As long as there are no bugs and development proceeds smoothly, isn't that enough?" Jiang Xinxin continued,

"Moreover, the projects we're responsible for have never had any issues. Our clients are satisfied with us."

"And then, our team lead came back from vacation and was called into his office and 'optimized' as soon as he returned."

After listening to the whole story, Ye Shuang roughly understood what had happened.

But with so many departments under his purview, he didn't have the energy to handle every single matter personally.

"Where is your team lead now?" Ye Shuang asked one more question.

"He's already left... and then..." Jiang Xinxin now seemed hesitant. "A few days ago, the servers happened to have some problems."

"Coincidentally, no one could maintain them. Lan Tian hired two new programmers to fix it, but they still couldn't resolve it..."

"Several major clients we've been working with for a long time directly terminated their contracts."

"This matter has been suppressed."

Ye Shuang twitched the corner of his mouth. There really were a lot of fools under his command. Did they just cut into a major artery with this layoff?

"I understand the situation. You can go back to work now."

"Okay."

After Jiang Xinxin left, Ye Shuang called Zhang Kui, the Human Resources Director, since that guy named Lan Tian was under her. There was no need for him to summon that person directly.

"Director Ye, go ahead." Zhang Kui's voice came from the other end of the line. This CHO, who was usually unyielding, was surprisingly obedient in front of Ye Shuang.

"A young lady just came to see me..."

Ye Shuang recounted the entire incident from start to finish. Zhang Kui was taken aback for a moment, but this wasn't the first time something like this had happened. Previously, an HR person had "optimized" a programmer, causing the servers for a game project's launch to crash for a full day and night with no one able to fix it, leading to a massive loss of users.

"I will investigate this thoroughly later. Please give me some time... Director Ye, I'm currently interviewing new candidates, you see..."

"Alright, thank you for your hard work. I'll hang up now." Before Ye Shuang finished, he paused.

"You're interviewing candidates?"

"Yes, I dedicate one-third of my time to talent recruitment. Only by collaborating with smart people can the group go further." Zhang Kui paused and continued,

"Most companies spend 2% of their effort on recruiting talent and then 75% of their effort dealing with the mistakes made from those poor hires."

"I hope to minimize hiring errors to avoid wasting the group's resources."

Zhang Kui was indeed quite responsible, making Ye Shuang nod in agreement. "I'll come too."

"Director Ye, you're coming too?"

"Yes, I happen to have time now." Ye Shuang didn't have much to do this morning. After all, tasks like external negotiations for cooperation were handled by Chen Qin and various departments. His main job was essentially maintaining the smooth operation of the group.

It felt a bit like Chen Qin was the emperor managing state affairs, while he was the empress managing the inner palace.

Zhang Kui quickly sent Ye Shuang the address and floor for the interviews.

Ye Shuang, accompanied by his assistant Kou Kou, took the elevator to that office.

The first round of interviews was already underway. Many people sat on chairs outside, all having passed the resume screening for the initial interview.

However, among those waiting in line, Ye Shuang spotted a familiar face—

A short-haired girl dressed in professional attire, wearing frameless glasses, a professional pleated skirt, and black pantyhose underneath.

Ye Shuang exclaimed in surprise, "An Shiyu?"

The short-haired girl, who had been sitting with her legs crossed playing on her phone, looked up. Noticing it was Ye Shuang, she pushed up her glasses and spoke in a strange tone, "Oh, sir, you've mistaken me for someone else."

"I am An Siyi. Konnichiwa."

Ye Shuang: "..."

Many other candidates cast curious glances their way. Ye Shuang withdrew his gaze from An Shiyu, pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache, and walked into the office.

No wonder Zhang Kui was conducting the interviews personally.