Shen Lin started working at the company where her former subordinate, Hu Haili, worked. She earned about six thousand yuan a month after tax—a fraction of what she'd made as a human resources director at a big company. Even so, she'd only gotten the job and salary because she'd treated Hu Haili well back then, and Hu Haili had gone to bat for her.
It wasn't that no one had been willing to hire her before. The problem was that the market was sluggish, and many companies offered monthly salaries of just 3,500 yuan before tax. She couldn't bring herself to accept that.
So Shen Lin was very grateful to Hu Haili. What she hadn't expected was that Hu Haili had given up her own plans to get her this job.
On Shen Lin's first day, the administrative manager, Old Jia, came over. Right in front of Shen Lin, he bluntly said to Hu Haili, "Shen Lin's pretty, but she's too old!" That was when Shen Lin understood how Hu Haili had managed to secure a six-thousand-yuan salary after tax.
After hearing that, Shen Lin immediately understood why it had been so hard to hire a human resources specialist at that salary.
Old Jia was in his forties and divorced. He was the boss's brother-in-law. The boss had created an administrative manager position at a company with just over fifty employees simply to give this unreliable brother-in-law somewhere to work, splitting administration off from human resources.
Relying on that connection, Old Jia often harassed his female subordinates. Hu Haili, the prettiest woman in the company, was naturally one of his targets.
Shen Lin hadn't expected the company's environment to be so awful. Now she understood that Hu Haili had probably wanted to hire someone to take the heat off her.