E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World -
Chapter 199: Episode 199: Achieving this year’s target is one thing, but what about next year?
Chapter 199: Episode 199: Achieving this year’s target is one thing, but what about next year?
Liu Ruidong was startled by Zhou Xueyin’s momentum, "Reimbursement? Reimburse what?"
Zhang Yongzhong was scared by the mention of reimbursement, causing the cup in his hand to be directly overturned onto himself, "Young lady, keep your composure! Can’t you be less panicky? You’re scalding me..."
He was just looking for an excuse to go change his clothes when Zhou Xueyin forcefully pushed him back down on the sofa, "Where do you think you’re going? You can’t distance yourself from this matter!"
"Where am I going? I need to get this water dried off, don’t I? These clothes are all wet, it’s so uncomfortable." Zhang Yongzhong looked around for something to dry himself off with.
"Stay uncomfortable... Boss, I’m going to speak my mind. I went to the police station to pay a fine today!" Zhou Xueyin said passionately.
"You broke the law?" Zhang Yongzhong asked knowingly.
"You’re the one who broke the law! Yes, it was you who messed up, and I’m cleaning up your... mess!" After all, she needed to maintain some propriety in front of two men.
"Me? I broke the law? What did I do?" Zhang Yongzhong retorted somewhat nervously,
Clearly, he knew exactly why Zhou Xueyin was so agitated.
"Don’t act dumb when you know the truth!" Zhou Xueyin glared fiercely at Zhang Yongzhong, "Take a good look at the text on the fine notice!"
"Regarding... website content violation penalty?" Zhang Yongzhong read those words as if they were popping out unexpectedly.
"Website? Our website?" He continued to feign ignorance.
"Who else do you think? If not 51buy, it must be Zhongonline, right?" Zhou Xueyin really wanted to smack him.
"Boss, boss! I swear, I didn’t do anything shady! The fine shouldn’t fall on my head!" Zhang Yongzhong pleaded with Liu Ruidong for help.
"Zhou, calm down, let’s talk this through..." Liu Ruidong spoke soothingly, but the smile he usually wore had disappeared from his face.
"Let’s not beat around the bush! The fine is because of that little game the old cicada put together!" Zhou Xueyin also took out the punishment evidence that she had photocopied from the police station to show them both.
"The police officer said, 75% of the entire page content is all SQ content! They couldn’t just turn a blind eye!" Zhou Xueyin recounted what Officer Zhang had told her at the police station.
"Hey, they should have actually clicked in to see, the content is totally different from the screenshots, okay? It was done like this to draw users in to play... They’re really something..." Zhang Yongzhong still tried to argue.
"They don’t care about what your actual content is, they’re looking at whether it’s violating rules or not! What they see is over 75% of illegal content, get it? The impact is too bad! If they don’t penalize you, who else?" Zhou Xueyin’s emotions grew more intense.
"How much was the fine?" Liu Ruidong finally couldn’t find anything to argue in Zhang Yongzhong’s defense.
"150,000..." Zhou Xueyin replied in a displeased and low voice.
"How much?" Zhang Yongzhong asked in disbelief.
"150K, brother! What did you think it was?"
"Okay, let’s say that this time it’s on me for not supervising properly, I’ll take the major share and personally pay 100K, and for the remaining 50K, Xiaozhou, you and the old cicada split it?" Liu Ruidong offered sincerely as he looked at the two.
Why should we split it equally? It should be the originator who takes responsibility for the accident, and even if it’s to be shared, it should at least be 30K on the brainless one! Zhou Xueyin thought resentfully, but who asked her to be the company’s general manager?
Who asked her to have not insisted on her opinion against putting up the little game page?
Concede it as a dumb loss, treat it as spending 25K on a lesson...
"Fine, I have no objections, just transfer the 100K to my account later... I covered the payment in advance this time, or else I wouldn’t even be back here to talk about it, and the website would still be closed!" Zhou Xueyin’s tone was no longer as intense as before, having become considerably calmer.
"Alright... you two head back first. This month, along with the salary..." Liu Ruidong furrowed his brows.
Zhang Yongzhong originally wanted to say something else, but seeing Liu Ruidong’s worried and frustrated expression, he felt embarrassed to stay and continue kissing up. So, he dejectedly followed Zhou Xueyin back upstairs and obediently transferred her 25,000.
Since the mini-games were temporarily shut down, Zhongonline’s traffic significantly dropped. Although the daily active users didn’t vary much from before, the data indeed looked ugly.
Zhang Yongzhong now sounded like a broken record. Every time he saw Zhou Xueyin, it was, "Xiaozhou, the recent data... is somewhat embarrassing to present..."
Zhou Xueyin was also well aware that the forum was on a downward spiral, and she indeed had to consider whether it was time for "retiring after achieving success."
On a day in July, which should have been a month of traffic surge following the college entrance exam, traffic unexpectedly dropped instead of rising.
A brand deal that could have been secured was also put on hold due to data issues.
One evening, Zhou Xueyin, together with Li Jiniang, Kang Siyin, and Yao Shanshan, went to eat a spicy hot pot at the entrance of the community...
"What do you think, should we also do some kind of limited-time redemption? Activities like points spending with cashback?" Zhou Xueyin had nearly tried every promotional scheme she could think of, truly running out of tricks.
"Honestly, I quite dislike those ’spend so much, get so much back’ schemes that hook you into spending again next time..." Yao Shanshan pouted unhappily.
"New and improved spicy hot pot flavor! Spend 100 get 50 back! Spend 200 get 100 back! The more you eat, the more you get back!" Just by coincidence, this promotional call came over the loudspeaker from the spicy hot pot place.
"Pfft... See? Physical businesses all do it this way. We shouldn’t go against what the netizens want. Why not give cashback directly to customers..." Li Jiniang laughed heartily.
"That won’t do, giving cashback to customers is against the rules, isn’t it? No, no..." Zhou Xueyin rejected Li Jiniang’s suggestion.
"Don’t be so rigid... Use this discount next time around..." Li Jiniang hinted meaningfully with a wink.
"Humph... Yes, I achieved full sales performance this year, but what about next year? Isn’t it over then?" Zhou Xueyin shook her head.
"If we hit target this year, that’s all that matters. Why worry about next year..."
"Yeah... If we hit target this year, that’s all that matters. Why worry about next year... Good point, Jixiang..." Zhou Xueyin eyed her askance.
"That’s what I think, too. Make a sprint this year, grab the year-end bonus, and who cares about next year!" Kang Siyin also spoke with meaningful depth.
"Huh? What do you mean? What’s with this year’s sprint and not caring about next year? What about next year?" Only Yao Shanshan, utterly clueless, couldn’t understand the conversation between the three.
"Let’s go! Eat our fill today, not going hungry today, we can talk about tomorrow’s matters tomorrow!" Zhou Xueyin led the others, striding confidently into the restaurant.
It seemed not only Zhou Xueyin had thoughts of running off, but Li Jiniang and Kang Siyin had long wanted to leave as well.
Yao Shanshan, although a go-with-the-flow person, would certainly follow the others unwaveringly if the three of them left.
In the second half of 2010, Zhou Xueyin and Li Jiniang, using their newly devised package deals, successfully exceeded their sales targets once again.
Even though the forum’s traffic had fallen to a deplorable state, it didn’t prevent them from getting a handsome year-end bonus.
After receiving their year-end bonus, the four of them collectively submitted their resignation requests, catching Liu Ruidong and Zhang Yongzhong completely off guard.
In the end, with no other choice, Zhang Yongzhong had to be promoted to general manager, and the other positions had to be temporarily filled with staff from the head office.
Seeing the core creators leaving one after another, Liu He, Wang Anqi, and Wang Simo could no longer hold back. After the Spring Festival holiday, they also submitted their resignation requests.
In just two months, Zhongonline underwent a complete staff overhaul.
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