84 posts tagged with "workplace"

Li Xiaoming, an ordinary screenwriter at a well-known animation film company, spends his days in front of a computer screen, racking his brains to write all sorts of bizarre plots. Originally, his dream was to become an animation master like Hayao Miyazaki, creating works that touched people's hearts. However, the reality is that he is busy every day with various projects like "IP adaptation" and "traffic first," and has long forgotten his original dream.

Until the movie called Ne Zha was released.

Li Ming felt like an ant trapped in a giant gear. Every morning at 7:30 am sharp, he would wake up, squeeze onto the crowded subway, and then begin his unchanging workday. His job was to review the answers of the artificial intelligence, DeepSeek, ensuring they aligned with the company's values. Li Ming always found this work a bit absurd—having a human review an AI’s answers was like having an elementary school student grade a university professor's thesis, but this was what he needed to do.

The advertising screen in the elevator was once again replaying the promotional video for the "Worry-Free Office" app. Zhang Qiang stared at the stiffly smiling office elite on the screen, feeling a wave of nausea. He had to use this app every day to clock in, submit expenses, apply for leave, and even book a toilet stall.

Zhang Qiang was an ordinary technician, functioning like a cog set in a fixed orbit within the vast corporate machine. He disliked the "continuous monthly subscription" services on various apps on his phone the most, always feeling it was a disguised form of exploitation. A few days ago, he had seen news that a celebrity had also immediately canceled a continuous monthly subscription on an app, and he had felt quite relieved about it.

Lao Wang pushed open the office door, and a wave of heat hit him. It wasn't that the air conditioner was broken, but that everyone was red-faced, as if they had just come out of a steamer. Today was the first day of the company's "absolute fairness" system.

The cause was a while ago, when actor Yu Shi's statement "We just want fairness" caused a huge response on the Internet. The boss was deeply inspired and decided to implement an "absolute fairness" system in the company.

"Gold, it's gone up again today!"

Old Wang muttered to himself, holding his thermos mug, staring at the glaring numbers on the computer screen. He worked at "Gleaming Gold" company, whose main business was gold jewelry. But Old Wang wasn't a designer, nor a salesperson; he was just an ordinary clerk in charge of data entry. His daily task was to input the real-time gold prices and inventory data of various jewelry items into the company's internal network system.

Old Liu has been working at his company for almost ten years. He hasn't been promoted, nor has he gotten a raise, but he has developed a "highway" on his hairline. He feels like a screw, fastened in some corner of a huge machine, humming monotonously day after day. Recently, the company launched a "skills certification," ostensibly to "improve the comprehensive quality of employees," but in reality, it was preparing for "downsizing and elimination."

Old Liu isn't worried. He's a Tsinghua master's graduate, a top scorer in the college entrance exam back in the day. He's confident that this certification will impress the leaders. However, the subjects of the certification are baffling: excavator operation, car repair, and cooking skills. Old Liu is dumbfounded. He majored in computer science, so he's good at coding, but wielding a wrench is beyond him.

Nezha has been feeling troubled lately. Not because he's been bullied again, nor because the Dragon King is causing trouble again. But because he, the once-young hero who rode on wind and fire wheels, brandishing a fire-tipped spear, and quelled demons in the sea, is now suffocated by a "Quarterly Performance Assessment Form."

"Comrade Nezha, your popularity growth this quarter is below average, peripheral product sales have declined, and online discussion is showing a sluggish trend. According to the 'Immortal Civil Servant Performance Management Measures,' your salary will be reduced by one grade." Master Taiyi, stroking his beard, read the document in his hand with a grave tone, his voice filled with helplessness, as if he were the one being tormented by the performance assessment.

　 The alarm went off.

The cold winter wind cut through the gas station like a knife, leaving it deserted. Only the orange glow of the lights illuminated the cold asphalt. Old Wang huddled deeper into his cotton coat, exhaling a puff of white mist. He had been working the night shift at this remote gas station for five years. Since the company introduced robots to replace human workers, it had become a forgotten corner.

Old Wang had given this robot a name, “Little Iron,” even though it was just a cold machine. He still had a habit of talking to it. Tonight, Little Iron was different. It was no longer mechanically repeating “Welcome, please scan to refuel,” but instead making strange noises.

Old Wang sat in his twenty-seventh-floor office at Jinsheng Group, staring blankly at the K-line chart on his computer screen. The price of gold had risen again, like a mad, runaway horse, galloping far ahead. He tapped on the keyboard, trying to turn these frantic numbers into a decent report, but the lines, in his eyes, were like golden fetters around his neck, tightening more and more.