As the new episode of the show went online, the first week of the pop-up store also came to an end.
This week had been like a battle for everyone. Every day, news from the front lines rushed into their minds. They not only had to pay attention to the movements of small cards online but also keep an eye on whether Random Entertainment had any hidden tricks up its sleeve. At the same time, they had to deal with those anti-fans.
This episode of the show mainly featured their daily training routines, interspersed with segments of making merchandise. Several trainees were hated by their fans because the toast they made could be called dark cuisine.
At first, when fans didn't know this was the trainees' own choice, they scolded Random Entertainment. Later, when they found out, they immediately changed their tune, showing unlimited indulgence, or more often, reluctant indulgence.
"Chili oil and avocado... Ha... I can't accept this."
"Garlic butter toast... cream chicken toast, my two sons even have such similar tastes."
"Why pair ketchup with stinky tofu!!! Why!!!"
"After all, Random Entertainment is guilty for preparing these ingredients."
"Shrimp and chocolate toast... ugh... I can't indulge this..."
Those who made the toast smell and look good immediately became hot commodities, especially Yao Shuo's strawberry cream toast. The price was directly hyped up to crazy levels, even more expensive than his SSS card plush toy.
Fans were dazzled by these weird ideas from Random Entertainment, lamenting every day that they weren't rich. Scalpers and purchasing agents made a fortune in this war.
Fans of other companies looked at their own merchandise being harvested like leeks, gritting their teeth in hatred. They had nothing better to do than to scold their idols' companies.
On Monday, the pop-up store started its second round of business.
Random Entertainment also welcomed great news. While employees were still on their commute, they were notified that they would move into the company building this morning. Upon arriving at the company, they were to first tidy up their desks and wait for notification of the specific time.
He Xin, who had only been working for a week, was overjoyed. She could slack off in the morning now!
As soon as she exited the subway, the fierce cold wind made her shrink her neck. She carried her bag and ran quickly towards the company.
It was still early at this time. Being new to society, she didn't dare to arrive at the company just on time, so she always arrived more than twenty minutes early. As soon as she entered the company, the familiar warmth didn't envelop her. The central air conditioning seemed to be off.
"Ah, it's freezing!" He Xin, who had originally wanted to take off her coat, zipped it back up and stamped her feet.
Hearing this sound, Jiang Juyou opened the office door and looked out. She didn't expect someone to be here already. "You're here so early?"
Perhaps not expecting the boss to be in the office, He Xin was startled. She calmed her little heart and quickly greeted, "Uh... Good morning, Producer Jiang."
After a week in the company, she had only caught a glimpse of the boss when she entered the office and hadn't spoken to her yet.
"It's cold, right? I thought since everyone would be moving next door soon, I didn't turn on the central air conditioning. If you're cold, just quickly pack your things and go over there. The heating is already on there, it should be warmer."
After saying this, Jiang Juyou remembered something else, "You probably don't know where it is. Just pack up first, and when you're done, come knock on my door. We'll go together."
He Xin on the other side responded with a cat-like "Okay..."
Her current impression of the boss was entirely based on clips from the show and her colleagues' summaries. In the show, Jiang Juyou had hardly ever smiled, always looking at the trainees with a scrutinizing gaze, her aura very powerful.
Colleagues who were junior employees like her had rarely seen the chief producer, but they had heard that she rarely smiled, had high work requirements, and liked to suddenly assign tasks. They also said she wasn't a serious person and usually didn't put on airs as a boss.
In short, it was a very contradictory evaluation.
But He Xin, who had always been afraid of teachers since she was young, was still fearful of Jiang Juyou.
She had just started working, so there weren't many things on her workstation. She found a box and could fit everything inside. After packing, she fell into a dilemma. He Xin glanced in the direction of the chief producer's office, hesitating whether to go and call her.
But the next second, the door opened, and she hurriedly pretended to be busy fiddling with her box.
"All packed?" Jiang Juyou came out pulling a suitcase.
He Xin turned around, glanced at the suitcase, and quickly replied, "Yes!"
"Then let's go... Take the elevator to B1, there's a path to the company from there." Jiang Juyou said as she pulled the suitcase and led the way.
"Okay!" He Xin immediately followed.
The company building was right next to the venue, with an underground passage connecting to the company. This was to facilitate the staff of the performance department to move back and forth. The company building also had connected paths to surrounding buildings.
Originally, Jiang Juyou had unlocked it on Wednesday, but because its unlocking situation was different from other buildings, it wasn't fully unlocked until yesterday. The difference was the addition of a sky bridge connecting the two buildings, mainly because the surrounding buildings needed to operate during the day, so it could only be built at night, dragging on until Sunday before it was completed.
Random Entertainment's building had eleven floors above ground and five underground levels.
Previously, when looking from the Galaxy Building towards this side, it seemed to be only six or seven floors, but it turned out to be eleven floors. The position of the rooftop was much higher than she had imagined. When the green cloth was removed, the rooftop of the company building could only be seen by looking up from the Galaxy side.
The added sky bridge was on the fifth floor, connecting both sides but not allowing people to pass through. The purpose of the connection was mainly to make it convenient for employees to go buy drinks, and incidentally increase the possibility of fans seeing the artists.
On the company building side, the second floor was the parking lot and gym. Both employees' and artists' cars had to drive to the side entrance and take the vehicle elevator up to the second floor to park. Employees without cars would enter through the main entrance, which was much less walking compared to before.
The division of labor in the building was also very clear. The underground levels were basically all practice rooms and music studios. There were thirteen practice rooms alone, one of which even occupied two floors and was the largest practice room, able to accommodate a hundred people for rehearsals. There were also more than thirty music studios, of which only five were mainly used for recording, and the rest were personal studios prepared for future music producers.
The division of the upper floors was even clearer, from top to bottom: artist management departments, film and television departments, and variety show departments. The existing teams and employees were all from the artist management department, working on the 9th, 10th, and 11th floors. The 6th, 7th, and 8th floors were prepared for future film and television departments. The 5th floor was the employee cafeteria and convenience store.
The 3rd, 4th, and 1st floors were the workspace for the variety show department. The 1st floor was mainly used to store some equipment, with the rest being several large conference rooms.
Each floor had soundproof capsule rest rooms arranged. Although their working hours were set from 9 am to 5 pm, overtime was unavoidable in this industry, so rest rooms were prepared for staff use.
This especially referred to Jiang Juyou, who was often forced to work overtime.
The area of the Random Entertainment building was almost comparable to the Galaxy venue, with one floor able to fit five practice rooms and office space.
The two of them walked over from the venue side, passing through the office space on the B1 floor, which was also where the New Talent Management Group was located. Because it was underground, the decor was very bright. He Xin followed behind, looking around curiously as she walked.
When they reached the fork, Jiang Juyou pointed to the sign above, "The elevators in the company are divided for employee use and artist use. We go this way." She said as she walked towards the right path.
The office area of the New Talent Management Group was right at the elevator fork, mainly placed there to keep an eye on the trainees and prevent them from wandering around.
While waiting for the elevator, Jiang Juyou was still introducing the structure of the company building to He Xin, "The cafeteria is on the fifth floor, along with a self-service convenience store and leisure area. Starting from today, the company will begin to provide breakfast and dinner. In the future, you can have all three meals in the company. If you miss meal times, you can still buy something at the convenience store. The corridor on the fifth floor leads to the fifth floor of Galaxy next door, where you can go to place orders and buy drinks."
"The second floor has a parking lot, leisure area, and gym. The gym is separated for men and women, and there are also shower facilities inside. I remember you're in the art design group, right? If you work overtime and don't have time to go home, you can make do with washing up at the gym. For sleeping, there are capsule rest rooms on each floor."
"Oh, by the way! The company doesn't allow outsiders in, so if you order takeout, you'll probably have to pick it up outside the company. We originally thought about installing delivery lockers, but then realized they might not be very useful since the company food is quite good."
The elevator had just arrived. Jiang Juyou entered first and pressed the button for the eleventh floor. "You're the graphic designer for the marketing department. Marketing and A&R departments are both on the eleventh floor, and my office is there too."
"All of this information is in the orientation manual on the company app. It shows where each department and employee is located. Open your company app to see where your workstation is. I won't take you there myself as I need to tidy up my office. After you drop off your things, go have breakfast. The breakfast service has already started at this time." As Jiang Juyou finished speaking, the elevator doors opened.
He Xin quickly replied, "Alright, alright. Thank you, Director Jiang!"
She couldn't put into words how happy she felt at that moment. Fresh out of college, she had landed a job at a dream company - working from 10 AM to 6 PM, with six types of insurance and a housing fund, a base salary of 7,500 yuan with no sales targets, and three meals provided.
He Xin thought life couldn't get any better. If only the work wasn't too busy, it would be perfect.
Following the instructions on the company app, she found her workstation. As soon as she sat down, she eagerly shared with her team members.
"Hurry up! I've already moved to the company building! The environment is amazing!"
"Coming right away! I'm just packing up!"
"Just come through the underground passage, we're on the 11th floor."
"They announced in the main group chat! Breakfast is provided from 9:20 to 10 AM every day! Yay! I'm going to save so much money!"
"That's right! And dinner too! Dinner is served from 5:30 to 6:30 PM, and it's not the kind of dinner meant to make you work overtime! It's a proper dinner!"
"I love Mondays, every Monday morning is just meetings and slacking off, so happy!"
"I'm still in the group chat, you guys don't even want to pretend anymore, huh? :)"
"...Sorry, team leader."
"I forgive you, I'm slacking off too anyway."
"I saw on the company app that they're hiring, with priority for internal referrals."
"Of course they need to hire, we've been short-staffed because of limited space before."
"They're even going to establish film and variety show departments!"
"I really thought I had joined a small company at first, I didn't expect our company's future plans to be so ambitious."
"There's an all-hands meeting this morning, gather at the A01 conference room on the first floor at 11 AM."
"Oh yeah, time to slack off!"
There wasn't much to tidy up at the workstation. They didn't need to move the computers, just bring their personal belongings. Soon, there was a commotion near the elevators.
He Xin stood up to look and saw her fellow new hires who had joined the company at the same time. She waved and called out, "Over here!"
"Wow-- floor-to-ceiling windows!"
"Hey! He Xin, you haven't gone to eat yet?"
"I was waiting for you guys."
"Everyone from our team is here now. Perfect, let's go eat together. We can finish organizing when we get back."
"Okay!"
At this time, Jiang Juyou had also left her office, heading downstairs to eat.
Although her office was also on the eleventh floor, it was on the other side. The office alone was over 70 square meters, with an entire wall of bookshelves filled with various self-help books.
Jiang Juyou had come here last night and was startled by the wall of books. She had questioned the system, "Do you think I'm the type who loves reading?"
The usually taciturn system had replied, "It's hoping you'll read more."
"..."
Besides the bookshelves, there were low tea tables and sofas, and even a 100-inch TV. It was more like a place to pass time than an office. The actual work area only occupied a corner of the room, while the large sofas were the main feature.
Jiang Juyou hadn't brought much with her today. Her old desk had been as empty as her bank account, with barely anything on it. Although the company was providing food and accommodation these days, and paying her 8,500 yuan per month, Jiang Juyou had student loans to repay, so she hadn't saved much money.
As for her suitcase, it contained her belongings from the dormitory.
With the company building now open, the facility could no longer be used for office work, and she couldn't live there anymore. She needed to find her own place to live, so she had just brought her things over for now, making do for a few days while she slowly looked for an apartment.
After tidying up her office, Jiang Juyou also came out. The elevator on her side was exclusively for artists, only to be used by artists, trainees, and department heads or above.
There were six elevators on the other side, but only two on this side, even with a dedicated elevator room.
Jiang Juyou took the exclusive elevator down to the fifth floor. As she exited the room, she ran into other employees coming out of the elevators, who quickly greeted her.
"Good morning, Director Jiang."
"Good morning!"
All three meals were served buffet-style, with either rice or noodles as the base, along with various side dishes. Lunch was more elaborate, with other food stations open where you could indulge in things like spicy hot pot.
Jiang Juyou followed behind the other employees to get a tray, her expression equally curious. After casually filling her plate, she carried her tray to the table where Li Yao and the others were sitting.
"Is that all you're eating?" Li Yao glanced at Jiang Juyou's tray - steamed buns, hot soy milk, fried dough sticks, and shumai. Then she looked at her own - beef noodles, cold soy milk, tea eggs, scallion pancakes, pot stickers, and side dishes.
The other three looked at Li Yao's tray with exasperation. "You're the one who's gone overboard."
Liu Jiajia had already eaten breakfast and had just gone next door to get a coffee. She sipped her coffee and sighed, "You must be spending all your salary on food."
"Can't help it, I'm hungry all the time. I've gained 15 kilos in the six months since joining the company."
"It's fine, it's not like you're an artist. Eat as much as you want."
To be honest, Jiang Juyou thought she had taken quite a lot, but after seeing Li Yao's tray, she felt she had been restrained. "If I ate that much, it would last me until noon."
"...Hey, what's the meeting about later?"
Jiang Juyou looked up. "It's about internal referrals... and then some of the company's future plans, covering several departments. We're all meeting together. It's good timing since we just had over a dozen new employees join last week, and we haven't really met them yet."
Zhao Xu remembered the announcement she had seen earlier and asked after finishing her mouthful, "What's the structure of the film department going to be like?"
"They'll start by hiring some staff to build their own team, then see if they can sign any suitable directors or screenwriters," Jiang Juyou answered.
Li Yao, ever the optimist, shook her head in amazement, "Who would have thought, just six months ago it was only us few."
"Yeah, I never imagined we'd become a big company."
"So the next two months are going to be pretty busy."
"Will there be bonuses?"
Jiang Juyou: "...Yes!"
Hearing this, Li Yao became even more enthusiastic about eating. "Great! Work hard, earn money, aim to buy a house!"
Jiang Juyou thought to herself: We're not going to be a small workshop anymore!
