Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Catch the opponent off guard and raise the industry’s barrier to entry.

”President Wang, what do we do if we run into Meituan’s street team and get into an argument?”

A recent college graduate raised his hand and asked.

”Kuai Pao always operates within the bounds of the law and explicitly prohibits any form of violent communication. However, ’stay calm when things happen, and don’t be afraid when trouble comes’ is also our code of conduct here. If you can’t win the fight, run. The brothers from the Kuai Pao delivery department, Cloud Speed Express, and Fast Taxi, as well as the group’s legal department, will always have your back.”

Wang Yuan said in a calm tone.

The first couple of sentences were normal, but as he continued, the tone took a sharp turn.

Raucous laughter erupted from the audience.

After all, everyone knew that the employees of Senlian’s subsidiaries were famous for their solidarity and their ability to fight.

During the battle with Eleme in the first half of the year, the few employees who were on the front lines weren’t punished at all. In fact, the company actively supported them with money and effort. In addition to compensation for lost work and a nutritional supplement allowance, they each received a 10,000 yuan bonus.

In an office on the sixth floor, Pei Yi ended his call with Kang Guodong and put down his phone.

’Just another half month, and the ’Thousand People, Hundred Cities’ plan can go live,’ Pei Yi thought to himself. ’I can’t let that guy Cheng Weixing surpass Kuai Pao’s expansion speed.’

He and Cheng Weixing worked for the same boss. Although they fought alongside Fast Taxi in places like Yanjing, Shijiazhuang, Tianjin, An Ci, and Tangshan, they were also secretly competing with each other.

「Meanwhile.」

Far away in Yanjing, Wang Xin personally monitored the R&D progress of Meituan Takeout every day, making the development team miserable.

They had to work overtime until eleven or twelve every night before they could go home. The worst part was that there was no overtime pay. Who could stand that?

Everyone was working for money, weren’t they?

”The UI for the order system must be finalized today. I want to see the result before we leave. @R&D @Design @Operations @Testing, thanks for your hard work!”

At eleven o’clock at night, Tang Ling, the project manager for the order module, was still in the group chat, pinging the owners of each department to push the project forward.

”Fuck! What a bitch! She won’t clock out herself, and she’s forcing us to work overtime too.”

A developer from the tech department abruptly stood up, slamming his hands on his desk with a loud THUD. He spoke just loud enough for his words to drift into Tang Ling’s ears.

The surrounding designers, testers, and operations staff looked at each other, a hint of satisfaction appearing on their faces.

’Who the fuck doesn’t want to get off work early?’

They wanted to stand up and join in the cursing too, but they just didn’t have the courage.

”Brother Bao, keep it down. People can hear you,” a colleague advised.

”I fucking said it for her to hear! Fucking try-hard, moron. Anyone who didn’t know better would think she was Wang Xin’s mother, the way she’s always trying to squeeze us dry,” Zhu Qingbao cursed as he packed his things.

As a senior backend developer, his years of professional experience told him he shouldn’t be so impulsive.

But after a solid week of overtime, he couldn’t take it anymore. ’Screw it,’ he thought. ’This feels good now. I’ll deal with the consequences later.’

’Brother Bao is so brave!’

’Too bad. I’ve got parents to support and kids to feed. It’s not easy finding a job. I can’t be as carefree as Brother Bao.’

’Hahaha, that try-hard Tang Ling got what she deserved!’

Although no one spoke, they were all communicating with their eyes, silently roasting her in their minds while watching Tang Ling with mocking expressions.

”Zhu Qingbao? What’s the meaning of this? Takeout is the company’s S-tier strategic project for the second half of the year! Don’t you have any perspective? Do you even consider yourself a Meituan employee?”

Tang Ling’s face flushed red. She stormed over and demanded in a shrill voice.

”Perspective? Screw your perspective! I fucking quit! Settle my pay tomorrow, or I’ll be at the Labor Association’s doorstep protesting with a banner every single day! We’ll see if Wang Xin survives that!”

Zhu Qingbao knew in his heart that as soon as morning came, the company would fire him.

”Aren’t you afraid of being blacklisted and banned from the entire industry?” Tang Ling sneered, making a blatant threat.

”Who the fuck are you? You really think you’re hot shit? Acting like you can speak for the whole industry?”

Zhu Qingbao sneered, slung his laptop bag over his shoulder, and walked out without a backward glance.

Tang Ling was so furious she was practically jumping up and down, pointing at Zhu Qingbao’s retreating back and screaming insults.

”I’m going home to sleep! I’m a human, not an animal! Even a donkey turning a millstone doesn’t have it this hard.”

After a moment of silence, a young man from the operations team let out a cathartic roar, slammed his laptop shut with a SNAP, and stormed out of the office.

Tang Ling froze, stunned. She couldn’t understand why Zhu Qingbao had suddenly lost it.

News of the incident quickly reached Wang Xin’s ears.

「Seven or eight hours later, the sky began to brighten.」

As soon as Zhu Qingbao arrived at the company, he was called into the HR office. The conversation went exactly as he had expected.

An N+1 severance package, and get the hell out immediately.

Zhu Qingbao remained silent and signed the termination agreement. As for his overtime pay, he didn’t even bring it up.

To put it bluntly, while he talked tough, he was still worried that Meituan’s HR would bad-mouth him during the background check for his next job.

When he left Meituan Headquarters, Zhu Qingbao actually felt a sense of relief, as if a great weight had been lifted.

Back in his rented apartment, he started sending out his resume.

Just then, a graduate from Yanjing Science and Technology University posted a question on Zhihu: ”How are the salaries and benefits at Meituan? Should I accept their offer?”

Zhu Qingbao grinned and started typing on his keyboard: ”Little brother, take a piece of advice from your big bro: Run for it! Getting off at 10 PM is considered early. You’ll often be working overtime until midnight. The pay is low, the benefits are few, and the only thing they provide 24/7 is boiled water. My two years at Meituan were the most exhausting six years of my life.”

The original poster understood instantly and immediately gave up on his plan to join Meituan.

Because Zhu Qingbao’s reply was witty and funny, the Q&A thread actually got over a thousand comments.

Meituan’s nickname, the ”Boiled Water Group,” spread throughout the industry like wildfire.

A few days later, Zhu Qingbao’s face was grim. After being rejected by three companies in a row, he realized that Meituan was definitely pulling some strings behind the scenes.

Zhu Qingbao decided to go all out. He went on Weibo, tagged Wang Xin, and let loose, posting his clock-in records and detailing all the ways Meituan exploited its employees.

At first, it didn’t get much traffic, but when Chen Yansen saw it, he didn’t hesitate to tag him in a reply:

”You’re welcome to come interview at Kuai Pao! All of Senlian Capital’s subsidiaries strictly follow labor laws and pay their employees in full for overtime. Our company doesn’t do compensatory time off. Not paying for overtime is shameful!”

Chen Yansen had over 30 million followers on Weibo. With his push, Zhu Qingbao’s post quickly shot to the top of the trending topics.

”Thank you, President Chen. I’m sending you my resume,” Zhu Qingbao, being a sharp guy, replied immediately.

”Wow! The boss is holding an interview online!”

”For real? I don’t believe Kuai Pao’s deliverymen get overtime pay!”

”President Chen isn’t lying. My brother is a Kuai Pao Deliveryman. The daily online requirement is eight hours, but they pay overtime for any time beyond that.”

Someone replied in the comments section.

In reality, the base salary for a Kuai Pao Deliveryman was generally between 1,400 and 1,600 yuan, so that bit of overtime pay didn’t add much to their costs.

”I’m a courier for Cloud Speed Express, and we get overtime pay too.”

”I’m a line worker at the Luzhou Orange Phone Factory. I can vouch for President Chen.”

”Huh!? There are actually companies that don’t pay for overtime? Thank god I’m an employee at Pinbei Technology.”

This move by Chen Yansen not only crushed Meituan’s morale but also boosted Kuai Pao’s influence in the industry.

Then a netizen commented, ”I will never use the products of a company like this. They make their money off the working class while sucking their blood.”

This sentence resonated instantly with tens of millions of netizens!

Meituan’s order volume plummeted in response.

Wang Xin panicked. He quickly launched a PR campaign, trying to conflate the concepts of compensatory time off and overtime pay, and claimed that employees were free to choose.

This clumsy attempt at a cover-up only made netizens realize: ’So Meituan really doesn’t pay for overtime.’

The competition between Meituan and Kuai Pao hadn’t even officially started, and Wang Xin had already lost the battle for public opinion.

He could only try to retain customers by distributing coupons.

But netizens just cursed him again: ”See that? They’d rather burn money on promotions than pay for overtime.”

For a moment, Wang Xin was caught between a rock and a hard place.