Chapter 350: Meeting

After thinking it over for a while, Zhou Yimin said, “Section Chief Yang, I’ll go ask for you. But whether it works out or not, don’t blame me.”

“Of course, of course! Yimin, just the fact that you’re willing to help is already a huge favor. I wouldn’t blame you,” Section Chief Yang said hurriedly.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back now,” Zhou Yimin said at that moment.

Section Chief Yang packed a bit of tea for Zhou Yimin to take with him. “Yimin, take some of this tea to enjoy.”

Zhou Yimin understood that if he refused, Section Chief Yang might think he wouldn’t try his best to help, so he accepted it.

“Thank you, Section Chief Yang, for the tea.”

After that, he took the tea and left, heading back to the Procurement Office.

When he got back, he saw Zhou Dazhong and the others doing some cleaning.

Zhou Dazhong saw him and quickly greeted, “Good morning, Uncle Sixteen!”

“Morning,” Zhou Yimin responded.

Zhou Dazhong, being quite tactful, went ahead and brewed tea for Zhou Yimin. The others looked on enviously—they wouldn’t even get the chance to help make tea even if they wanted to.

That’s just how it is when someone has hometown ties. There’s never a worry about task completion. He overachieves every month, so a promotion is probably around the corner.

Nowadays, without connections, it’s really hard to get anything done with supplies.

Zhou Yimin didn’t stand on ceremony and accepted the tea directly.

Just as he sat down in the office—before he even had time to warm his seat—he was notified of a meeting.

Soon, he arrived at the conference room and saw all the factory leaders were present.

Zhou Yimin found a seat next to Wang Weimin and sat down.

“Section Chief Wang, what’s with this big turnout?”

Wang Weimin replied as if used to it, “Yimin, you’ll get used to it. The first workday of the year always starts with a leadership meeting.”

Once Factory Director Hu entered the conference room, the murmuring stopped and everyone turned their attention to him.

Factory Director Hu sat down and went straight to the point, “Comrades, Happy New Year!”

“Last year, we exceeded our targets, and it was all thanks to everyone’s hard work. I hope everyone will continue to strive in the new year. That said, our factory’s task load this year will be even heavier.”

Everyone in the room immediately felt the pressure. The heavier the task, the greater the reward upon completion—but if they failed, criticism would be swift.

Director Hu continued, “Because the workload is heavy, logistics must provide solid support! The Logistics Department cannot afford any slip-ups!”

“Factory Director, the Logistics Department will absolutely not be the weak link!” Director Ding immediately stood up and promised.

Right now, he had a huge headache. Supplies were becoming harder and harder to secure. He’d hoped the snow over the New Year would mean a better year, but the situation turned out to be just as bad—if not worse—than last year.

With heavier tasks, more food and meat would be needed, and that was no small problem.

He could only wait until the meeting ended to go back and figure something out.

As the meeting went on, people discussed different ways to meet the targets. Only Zhou Yimin sat quietly on the side, not contributing any ideas. After all, he was just a team leader—such important matters wouldn’t fall on him.

He was honestly a bit bored, even feeling a little sleepy from listening.

Suddenly, Factory Director Hu called him out, “Yimin, do you have any different ideas?”

“I think we can learn from the safety protocols implemented at the Rice Cooker Factory. If we could implement them here, I believe it would not only improve worker safety but also boost morale,” Zhou Yimin replied, surprised to be called on.

Director Hu had heard about those safety protocols before and knew they had indeed brought improvements to the Rice Cooker Factory. “Alright, let’s implement what Yimin suggested.”

“And how’s the development of the special steel coming along?” he asked.

Director Liao quickly reported, “Factory Director, we’ve tried many times, but the special steel we’ve produced still doesn’t fully meet the required specifications.”

Three workshop directors had gathered experienced craftsmen together, but the progress still wasn’t ideal.

“Alright! This must be expedited,” Director Hu said. He knew how difficult it was, but still urged them to move faster.

After over an hour of discussion, the meeting wrapped up.

“That’s all for today’s meeting,” Director Hu said.

With that, everyone began leaving in an orderly fashion.

Zhou Yimin had originally hoped to slack off a bit, go back to the office, have some tea, and read the newspaper.

But to his dismay, as soon as the factory-wide meeting ended, the Procurement Office had to have their own meeting too!

Most likely to respond to the tasks Director Hu had just assigned.

No choice—when you’re just a lowly worker, and the boss speaks, how could you possibly refuse?

He soon arrived at Director Ding’s office for the meeting. Luckily, the office was big enough to fit everyone; otherwise, there wouldn’t have been enough room.

Director Ding spoke up, “Everyone, you heard what Director Hu said just now. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can procure more supplies?”

Everyone knew how difficult that was, so for a moment, no one had a good answer.

The whole office fell silent.

People just looked at each other, unsure what to say.

Seeing this, Director Ding felt helpless and started calling on people directly. “Section Chief Wang, what do you think?”

Wang Weimin hadn’t expected to be the first one called and stammered, “Director Ding, I haven’t thought of anything yet.”

A few others were called on in turn, but their answers weren’t much different from Wang Weimin’s.

With no other option, Director Ding turned his last hope to Zhou Yimin and said, “Yimin, do you have any ideas?”

Everyone turned their gaze to Zhou Yimin.

He had thought he was just going to sit through the meeting quietly—he didn’t expect to be called out again. After a moment of thought, he said, “I have an immature idea. I’ll put it out there, and we can discuss whether or not it’s feasible.”

“Go ahead, Yimin. We’ll explore it together,” Director Ding said, a bit anxious.

Zhou Yimin began slowly, “Right now, some of the procurement staff have access to certain supply channels. But since there are no incentives, they just focus on meeting the basic quota and don’t try to procure extra.”

He added, “If we can find a way to motivate these procurement officers, I’m sure the amount of materials we get each month would significantly increase.”

No one in the room was stupid—once Zhou Yimin mentioned it, everyone started to build on the idea.

“Yimin, this is a good approach,” Director Ding praised him immediately.

Many procurement staff lacked any real career advancement opportunities, which made them lose motivation. But if they saw a chance at promotion, they’d definitely compete fiercely to procure more.

“We could set up a ranking system. If someone ranks first for six consecutive months, their administrative level would be raised by one tier. That would definitely get them competing for supply procurement,” Zhou Yimin continued.

Director Ding was overjoyed. “Good, good!”

He hadn’t expected Zhou Yimin to come up with a fully-formed plan—and one that required six months of consistent performance for a promotion. That added both competition and difficulty, preventing rapid or unbalanced advancement.

(End of chapter)