"Chen Jue, work until the end of this month. Starting on the first of next month, you don't need to come in anymore."
"The company isn't doing well right now. Several shareholders held a meeting until three in the morning yesterday and decided to liquidate and dissolve the company. There's nothing we can do."
In a stylish glass office, a meticulously dressed HR woman in her thirties was delivering the news with a serious expression to a chubby young man with glasses and a slightly greasy look.
"Sister Li, I've worked here for over four years, and I'm almost thirty. Where am I supposed to find another job in such a core position?" The young man with glasses looked unwilling to accept it.
Despite all the fanfare surrounding the Asian Games outside, the current job market was tough, and layoffs happened all the time.
Even in Binjiang High-Tech Industrial Park in Hang City, all sorts of small and medium-sized businesses were struggling on the brink of bankruptcy.
In the same building as Huaye Building, where Chen Jue worked, he could see all kinds of small and medium-sized companies moving in and clearing out every day.
As the saying went, even a single coin could stump a hero. Without money to support you, you couldn't get anywhere in society!
That applied not only to individuals but to running a business as well.
"General Manager Liu and General Manager Zhou introduced you to some other company owners, didn't they?"
"You haven't heard back?" Sister Li, the HR woman standing before him, asked in surprise.
"No!"
"It's not the post-Spring Festival job-hunting season. Where are there any core positions available? I've sent out a ton of résumés lately, and nothing's come of it. Besides, the overall economy is so bad right now, and companies are laying people off everywhere. How could I find a suitable job right away?" Chen Jue was so agitated he was almost shouting in the office.
"Then there's nothing I can do. I'm leaving next month too, to look for a job."
"The company's already doing us a great kindness by compensating us for several months' wages. If you have any other demands, you'll have to find some bosses and negotiate with them yourself!" Sister Li shook her head, looking helpless.
With things put that plainly, Chen Jue could only purse his lips bitterly.
After all, she was just an employee too.
Why make life difficult for another working stiff?
They were all adults. Making a scene wouldn't solve anything, so Chen Jue could only get up and leave the HR office.
As he left the HR office and passed the company's conference room, Chen Jue could faintly hear voices arguing through two heavy wooden doors.
A few company executives and shareholders were tearing into one another over the last scraps of profit.
So the tree falls, and the monkeys scatter? Chen Jue sighed inwardly.
Back at his desk, he found several employees openly discussing where they would go next.
When an avalanche comes, not a single snowflake is innocent.
With the company about to dissolve, it wasn't just the executives and shareholders fighting over their interests. Employees like Chen Jue were also looking out for the best way forward.
Who could focus on work at a time like this?
"Jue, how'd it go? Is the severance still N+1?" A skinny young man with glasses leaned his head over from the next workstation.
The young man was called Jiang Lin. Chen Jue had taken him on as an apprentice a year ago, and he currently worked under him. He usually handled support tasks for Chen Jue, doing mechanical jobs like checking data.
The work was easy, and with the housing allowance, his monthly pay came to 7,000 yuan.
But with the company about to liquidate and dissolve, Jiang Lin—a college senior who had only just found an internship related to his field a year ago—was also worried he'd be unemployed as soon as he graduated.
"It's still N+1 for now. For a small company like ours, getting severance at all is already pretty good." Chen Jue shook his head. Seeing his young apprentice looking at him with hopeful eyes, he could only respond with a helpless expression.
He'd joined this auto finance and guarantee company in 2019 and worked there for over four years, making him one of the old hands.
Thanks to his expertise in risk-control data, he'd managed to become a junior supervisor, with three people under him. His monthly base pay was 12,000 yuan, not including other allowances.
That wasn't enough to make Chen Jue rich, but it was enough to get by in an expensive city like Hang City.
Losing this stable job meant all his hard work over the past four years had gone down the drain.
Finding another job with a similar salary and benefits would be incredibly difficult!
For one thing, Chen Jue's associate degree was holding him back. He couldn't get past the education requirements for major companies or banks.
For another, the entire industry was in a slump, especially finance and guarantee companies, which had been on a downward trend for years.
Mid-level technical positions like risk-control data analyst were extremely scarce on the job market. There was basically one person for each opening, and employees rarely moved around.
He'd paid for VIP memberships on various job-hunting apps, which claimed they'd give his résumé more exposure.
But after sending out a pile of résumés and getting no response, Chen Jue realized he'd been thoroughly played by a job market controlled by capital. He was instantly at a loss.
Over the past few years, he'd occasionally seen online news about the difficult job market. He'd never imagined it would be his turn before he knew it.
Sitting at his desk, Chen Jue felt miserable. He had more than ten workdays left before he'd be forced to leave, and he didn't feel like working anymore.
He hastily finished reviewing the client files uploaded by the backend risk-control system, then used a bathroom break as an excuse to hand his remaining work over to his three subordinates, telling them to call him if anything came up.
After taking care of those odds and ends, Chen Jue walked through the long office area, left the company, and took the elevator alone to the rooftop.
Land prices in Hang City had skyrocketed. The ground around office buildings had basically all been turned into parking lots.
Commuters drove through the barrier and paid twenty yuan to park for the workday, both when they entered and when they left.
With hundreds or even thousands of parking spaces, the daily parking fees alone could bring in tens of thousands of yuan. Over a year, the profits were staggering.
Faced with such profits, no property developer was willing to build parks for leisure and relaxation at ground level. They'd all moved them to the rooftops instead. It was downright absurd.
Chen Jue usually went up to the little rooftop garden during his lunch break to get some air. He'd look at the greenery, the pond, and the rockery, then swing on the swings and smoke a few cigarettes to relieve stress.
There were still more than three hours until the end of the workday. Only a few people dressed like managers were chatting in the distance. Not many employees dared to come up here and slack off so openly during work hours.
"Click~"
He walked over to the pond, took out a lighter, and lit a cigarette.
"Hiss~ Hoo~"
Chen Jue took a deep drag, using the nicotine entering his body to stimulate his brain to release more dopamine.
He wanted to feel energized.
But the pressure of life and work was too much. In a fast-paced city like Hang City, even after working hard until almost thirty, he still hadn't achieved the good life he wanted.
Rent and daily expenses were weighing him down until he could barely breathe.
Now he was about to lose the job he relied on to make a living. After a few cigarettes, Chen Jue didn't feel any less stressed. If anything, he felt more and more downcast.
In today's fashionable slang, he was feeling emo.
After finishing the rest of his cigarette, he nudged the pebbles underfoot, then crouched down and picked up a fairly smooth one. He weighed it in his hand, then shouted at the artificial pond in front of him, "Damn it~"
Then he sent the stone skipping across the surface with a flat throw. It made several sharp splashes, and rings of ripples spread in a straight line across the smooth pond.
But as soon as he threw the stone, Chen Jue froze!
A semi-transparent, pixelated box had appeared out of nowhere in his field of vision. A few lines of text were scrolling downward inside it:
[ Ding~ ] [Action meets requirements] [Skill acquired: Stone Skipping]
My new book is up! I hope you'll show it lots of support!
If you have votes, please cast them. If you like it, please add it to your favorites and follow me~
Please give it a triple boost—Pianfeng is counting on you!
This is a sister story to Adding Points to Cultivation in the Real World, and it'll be a different kind of fun story (wry grin)
Before you continue