Walking the Path of a Workaholic in Cliché Novels (QT) Chapter 115

The manager understood and immediately said, “This is a mistake on our part. We are very sorry for disappointing our customers. I don’t know which waiter it was, but I will immediately ask him to come over and apologize to the customer.”

“Don’t.” An Yinong raised his hand, “What do you mean by disappointed or not? I came here to eat, while your restaurant provides food and supporting services. What we have is just a cold money transaction, there is no other relationship, so there is no such thing as disappointment.”

The manager just smiled and didn’t seem to take it seriously.

“I see the manager doesn’t care. He seems to think that I am young, ignorant and making trouble here. Fine, I will explain it to you one by one.” An Yinong sat up straight, his expression became serious and earnest.

“First, I come here to eat, first to buy food, second to buy service. Service is already included in the premium of your dishes, otherwise, with your gold-leaf fruit juice, it wouldn’t cost ten dollars. Does the manager agree with this?”

He tapped the fruit juices on the menu. For just over a dozen yuan, he could buy a basket of excellent imported fruits outside.

At this time, other guests had already noticed this. The manager wiped his forehead and said, “I know, so…”

“Since you admit that I have already paid for the ‘service’ when I ordered the food, then let’s talk about the second point: Why is the service I deserve discounted?” An Yinong interrupted him directly.

“Gentlemen……”

“Let him speak.” The manager wanted to say more, but someone next to him stopped him. It was a man with a faint sandalwood scent. He had a handsome and gentle face, but there was a scar on his eyebrow, which made him look evil.

It was him? This time there were two conspicuous bodyguards standing behind him, but their aura did not seem as strong as their employer’s. An Yinong wondered why this man’s temperament was so changeable. Sometimes he seemed like a big boss with a story, and sometimes he seemed like a well-mannered scholar.

“We meet again.” The man smiled when he saw him, and his temperament became very gentle.

“Yeah.” Every time he saw this person, he would feel uncomfortable but he couldn’t explain the feeling. An Yinong closed his eyes and recalled the voice, appearance and smile of his own old Gu, and barely suppressed the urge to act.

The man sat down in the seat opposite. He was wearing a black casual suit and a moon-white silk scarf on his chest. He looked at An Yinong and turned the ring on his thumb: “The young guest spoke very well, let him continue.”

“Yes.” The manager shut up. A guest was a guest, why add the word ‘little’?

“I’m sorry, I spoke out of turn. Do you have any suggestions?” The man’s smile became more obvious and his voice became softer.

An Yinong immediately became alert: This attitude was not right, was this guy trying to steal his old man Gu’s girl?

An Yinong, who didn’t want to start a new relationship for the time being, didn’t look at the man, but the man kept looking at him, and even frowned when An Yinong frowned.

A strange, disorienting feeling rose up in him. If this was a girl, a man could understand, but this was clearly a boy: What’s wrong with him?

“It’s not really a suggestion, it’s just a complaint from a not-so-good-tempered customer.”

An Yinong laughed at himself and continued, “As part of the service system provided by the entire restaurant, the waiter called the customer who only gave a five-dollar tip a poor ghost, called the customer who communicated with text a deaf person, and even spit in her dish. This can be regarded as your restaurant’s feedback on the three-dollar and five-dollar tips. Is there a problem?”

“This, sir, is not what we taught you.” The manager complained.

“Yes, you didn’t say it verbally, but didn’t you grant the waiter this right in action? If your training is sufficient and thorough, and you treat customers with enough respect, then why should I, as a customer, pay for such humiliation?” The manager’s complaint could not convince An Yinong.

“Secondly, if a restaurant does not pay a waiter enough basic salary and makes him live only on tips, then out of self-interest, will the waiter choose to please customers who tip more and ignore or even despise customers who tip less?

“In other words, it is the salary distribution of your restaurant that determines the behavior of the waiters. In other words, it is the management of your restaurant that indirectly promotes the entire service system to ‘hate the poor and love the rich, flatter the high and trample the low’. Did I make sense?”

An Yinong launched a series of punches, and the manager was completely unable to resist. He said, “Yes, it was our fault.”

The man next to him had an unchanged expression, and it was hard to tell whether he was happy or unhappy, but he stopped turning the ring and had a thoughtful expression on his face.

Seeing this, An Yinong opened the menu and said, “Also, if you want to teach your waiter a lesson, go home and teach him a lesson yourself. I’m here to eat, not to see your restaurant’s failure to manage its employees. Your punishment or humiliation of your employees doesn’t make me feel comfortable. I don’t have such a perverted hobby.”

“There is no interest or relationship between me and the waiter. Instead, I have a direct monetary transaction with your restaurant. So if the ‘service’ is discounted, I should naturally look for you. What do you think?”

The manager kept wiping his sweat, not because he realized his mistake, but simply because he was afraid that his mistakes at work would be seen by the boss next to him and affect his work.

An Yinong sneered: “Please apologize to that lady. Her personal physical condition is not a reason for her to be maliciously humiliated by your restaurant.”

Finally, the manager brought the two waiters to apologize to the confused lady and gave her a large fruit basket. At the same time, An Yinong also received a fruit plate, and the two of them got a 20% discount on their bill today.

But he knew that all this was not because of his eloquence or the restaurant’s conscience, but because of the man sitting opposite him, who he didn’t know whether he was the boss or a shareholder.

“Sir, I have an appointment.” An Yinong reminded him.

“I’m the owner of this store. My last name is Xie. What’s your name?”

At this moment, An Yinong didn’t really want to have any in-depth contact with this person. He didn’t like the feeling of being out of control. But An Yinong still replied calmly: “Hello, Mr. Xie, my last name is He. Mr. Xie, are you staying here because of what I said before?”

“On the contrary, I think your suggestion makes sense. We should increase the basic salary of service staff and set rules so that all guests who come here can enjoy the service they deserve. So, I would like to ask if Mr. He has any other suggestions.”

The man looked very sincere, but An Yinong resisted with a cold expression: “Boss Xie is too polite. It was just my personal opinion before. Boss Xie, don’t take it seriously.”

He looked down at his watch and said to himself, “We agreed to be here by this time, why haven’t we arrived yet?”

The intention of this sentence and this action was clearly to drive the customer away, but the man was not angry at all. He just stood up, smiled and nodded at him: “You are welcome to come again next time to check the results of your suggestions?”

An Yinong smiled and said nothing, but thought to himself: Forget it, I won’t come again after today.

After the man left, An Yinong ordered a honey lemon cake and orange juice. He sat by the window and looked at the calm sea outside and the people walking on the wide street. After the cake was finished, his mood became relaxed again, and it was time to meet with the editor.

The editor arrived on time. She was a newly hired intern editor for Huayou. Her surname was Qian. She had two braids and wore round glasses. She looked very reserved, like a student who had just entered society.

“You?” Editor Qian recognized An Yinong at a glance and her eyes widened.

“Please take a seat.” An Yinong asked with a smile, “Editor Qian, what would you like to eat?”

Editor Qian felt like she was dreaming. She sat down and thought conspiratorially: Could it be that the young boss wanted to know about the new president and deliberately submitted an article to test him?

As a result, An Yinong took out a stack of original drawings and proved that he was the original author: “Here, just treat me as an ordinary contributor.”

Editor Qian laughed: How dare I? She sat upright and listened to An Yinong, nodding to everything he said, so the contract was signed very quickly.

“The work is signed but not the person. The copyright belongs to the author. The royalty fee is five dollars per page. Taxes and fees will be negotiated separately when the single book is published.” An Yinong looked at the contract that had been printed long ago in his hand and was quite satisfied with it.

“We will be partners from now on, Editor Qian. My identity… you know.”

“I know, don’t worry.” Editor Qian kept looking up. She was about to cry. Why did the new boss suddenly want to be an author under her responsibility and didn’t want to reveal his identity?

“By the way, should the drawings be sent directly to the publisher, or can you pick them up in person?”

Editor Qian raised his head and spoke carefully, “There have been cases of manuscripts being lost before, so it’s usually the editors who come to pick them up. Also, if you don’t go and urge them, many authors will forget to hand in their manuscripts.”

Procrastination syndrome?

“How about this, I will send you manuscripts on time every month. If you don’t receive them on a certain day, either call me or come to this address to find me.” An Yinong copied an address for her.

Editor Qian thought to himself, “You’re the boss, you can do whatever you want.” Then she said, “Okay.”

After she left with the contract, An Yinong went to the front desk to pay the bill. The two meals together cost about 100 yuan. In fact, it was just a few plates of snacks and a pot of tea. The prices here were really high.

“Ninety-seven after the discount.” An Yinong took out a hundred-dollar bill. He felt someone was looking at him, so he turned sideways and saw the man from before. He was sitting in the corner, smiling and raising his glass to him.

After all this time, why was this person still here? Oh, he was the boss. Is the boss so idle?

An Yinong smiled back, picked up the change and left: Let’s not meet again.

“Boss, I asked her and it turned out that she was an editor of a magazine. She said that the boy asked her to come because she wanted to publish comics in their magazine and came to discuss the signing of a contract.” The subordinate came over and whispered the news he had found out.

“Comics? Which magazine?”

“It’s the He family’s “Huayou” magazine. I heard that it was recently passed on to the third’s only son by the second eldest. It’s currently being revised.”

As the sun set, the gentle evening breeze blew the scarves on the women’s heads, and the hems of their skirts swayed in the rhythm of the waves. This long street seemed like a temporary catwalk where fashionable men and women showed themselves off.

An Yinong looked at them. The dusk light had a natural and hazy filter. Everything in front of him looked like a painting or a piece of music. This area was either full of banks or hotels. It was where the land prices were the highest and where the scenery was beautiful. He originally wanted to go back directly, but because the scenery was so beautiful, he couldn’t help but stay for a while.

“Crack.”

He turned around and saw a middle-aged man pressing the shutter button in front of him. An Yinong frowned unhappily and turned away.

“Please wait a moment.” The man caught up with him, “Hello, are you interested in being a star?” He took out another business card, which read “assistant of a certain TV station.” “I’m not a liar, you can call this number.”

“I know you are not a liar, but I have no interest in being a star,” said An Yinong.

The middle-aged man caught up with him again: “Our TV station is recruiting trainees this month, you can consider it carefully.” As he said that, he tore off a piece of paper and wrote down the address, date and his phone number.

An Yinong took the paper.

“By the way, can you send out the photos you just took?” he asked when he saw An Yinong’s attitude had improved.

“It’s better not to.” An Yinong smiled, but noticed the surprise in the man’s eyes and immediately stopped, “If you send it out, you will get into trouble.” After that, he left the port.

After watching him leave, the man returned to the company’s darkroom to develop the photos. The technology for developing photos was still a bit crude in that era, and it took the man two days to develop the enlarged photos.

In the photo, the young man was looking sideways, his hair was blown by the wind, his eyes reflected the sunset, the sea and the city, gentle and affectionate, one will fall in love with him if he looks at him for a second longer.

A few days later, this photo appeared on the cover of a travel magazine. The author called him “the boy I met by chance at the port”. People passing by the newsstand were attracted by him and bought a copy even if they were not interested.

“It’s really beautiful. I suddenly want to go to that port to have a look.”

A thin, haggard-looking boy saw the magazine at a newsstand: “Him?”

A sinister smile appeared on his face, and his entire expression was distorted: “You have ruined my life, why can you still smile so happily?”

“He Tiantong, I want you… to die miserably!” After saying that, he picked up the magazine, threw it on the ground, then stomped on it hard.

“Hey! What are you doing?” The newsstand owner walked out. The boy had already left, leaving only a magazine with footprints on the ground. He picked it up and removed the dirt on it. “What a psycho!”