woman wearing irish linen shirt

The statue of Raffles surrounded many tourists as usual.

The sun is too big today.The shimmering light under the bridge made people's eyes hurt. I blocked the car window with a folder until I passed that section.

On the other side of the river is a large area of ​​traditional Nanyang buildings with white walls and light tiles, and the low orange roofs stretch far away.The old Parliament Building is vaguely hidden in the middle, and behind it are the most expensive office buildings in Singapore, one after another, which is dazzling and unreal due to the strong sunlight reflection.There are more and more people around who are rushing in the same direction. Occasionally, I see people wearing long-sleeved shirts, but they are only paired with a pair of light-colored trousers with low weight, and the leather shoes are polished to a mirror effect.I took a few quick steps to swipe the access control card, and caught up with this elevator.

"Yao, this shirt is so pretty! It suits you very well." Hui Lin leaned over and chatted with me in a low voice.She was wearing an orange short-sleeved T-shirt with our company logo on the chest.

I took a breath.God, I forgot again!

"I still have to rely on clothes, unlike you, who are so glamorous in a company T." I almost laughed and talked to her.Without the lower half of the face to express, relying on the eyes and eyebrows above the mask alone, it is even more difficult to convey goodwill.Of course, thinking of the good, I may have inhaled less of the scent of perfume interacting in the confined space.

"Thanks! Speaking of which, are you planning on changing it later?"

"I was about to tell you..." I got out of the elevator on the HR floor with her, clasped my hands together, "Help me—"

Hui Lin was taken aback and laughed: "I have to look for it. You know, there aren't many new T-shirts left this year, and I'm not sure there is a size that suits you. Are you going to speak today?"

"Yes. I'm really sorry, I have to trouble you." I smiled apologetically and waited outside.Today is the day for the general meeting, and employees who are not in other places have to come to the company—every time our company culture conference is held on a large scale, may this be regarded as a tradition of Internet companies with too healthy cash flow?Due to the special circumstances this year, we finally did not rent any high-altitude restaurants in Marina Bay, but simply held themed events within the company.

I just got back from work yesterday, and in my haste I forgot to wear a company T-shirt.It is also possible that I have selectively forgotten: the memory of last year is really not good, a group of elites who are barely a bit professional, uniformly wearing big orange short-sleeved shirts, appeared in the gymnasium together...there was even a light show...

Hui Lin came out with a packing bag.Her eyes were slightly apologetic: "Maybe it doesn't fit well..."

"No, this has helped a lot, thank you Hui Lin!" I winked at her before flashing into the elevator.

Now, only people from our company are left in the elevator room.Some familiar people greeted me, and I nodded my head.After getting out of the elevator, Lao Huang, who was in the same group, asked me: "It's been a long time since I saw you in real life! How does it feel to be trapped in Jakarta?"

"It's not good. I don't dare to take off my mask in the hotel." I whispered to him very quickly, "I heard there was a long queue at the Carter Center in Little India last weekend?"

"Yes, my wife and I waited in line for more than an hour to buy two boxes of [-] pieces. But the company will distribute one every day, I thought Hui Lin told you."

"Did you see that?" I replied with a smile, shaking the T-shirt in my hand.He nodded.

I realized that Lao Huang had something to say to me.He must have been waiting for me somewhere.

We go around to the small conference room.It's only nine o'clock in the morning, and it's easy to find a vacant meeting room. Lao Huang sat down and pretended to turn on the computer—because the walls and doors are made of glass—and said, "Didn't I tell you after the meeting that day? , Has there been a fishy smell recently?"

I motioned for him to continue.

Lao Huang had a strange expression on his face.Because he is a weird person, I can't tell what he means.I just heard him say: "I saw people from BCG on the sixteenth floor."

"you sure?"

"I couldn't be more sure." He raised his hand, reminding me of Donald Trump. "This is Singapore, no one wears a suit, and neither does our legal department. You think, a team of suits Men and women, with new faces, appearing on the sixteenth floor, who else can they be except from a consulting company? Besides, I happened to meet them drinking with Kevin last week."

Kevin is the boss of the department next door. He worked in BCG Singapore for eight years before jumping over here, and has two years of experience in the New York office. He is an old consultant.

I made a nasal sound noncommittal.

"Wake up, Yao!" He clapped his hands suddenly, "It's war!"

I looked at Huang and just said, "It's going to be a long day... Maybe we should go to the office first."

"You're right, but I still think I should tell you first." He tapped the keyboard twice seriously, "I haven't told the boss yet."

I recall it.

The grandson!

"Don't stare at me," he continued to stare at the screen, "I just think you need to know about this first. You see, although it's a war, it's a battle between Kevin and the boss—"

He didn't say the second half of the sentence, but the meaning was already on the surface.

Lao Huang really doesn't look like a Singaporean at all.The common way of writing Huang's surname here is "Ng". It's hard to think of it as "Huang". He may indeed have been misidentified by foreigners so many times that he was somewhat surprised when I recognized him for the first time. ——Other than that, he really doesn’t look like a Singaporean at all: for example, he would cheat me, first release a gossip, and then wait for me to tell the boss.

Another example is that he will also give me gossip, even though the main purpose is to cheat me.

When they returned to the office, almost everyone had arrived. The boss' coat was draped over the armchair of the small desk at the far end. No one was seen, and he might have gone to the sixteenth floor.I put the souvenirs I bought at Soekarno Hatta Airport into the tea room, and then I went out to chat with my colleagues for a while.My desk is in the opposite direction of the boss, facing him from a distance, like an underachiever with two seats pulled out and placed in a corner of the classroom.This kind of special treatment sometimes makes me feel that the so-called flat management is just a tacit fig leaf. Even the new recruits know that the person in charge is the person in charge, so what else is this flat management? meaning?

Yes, like some large factories, we do not display ranks internally.Although I think this has sometimes brought a lot of negative effects to the department responsible for docking with third parties, the immediate boss seems to be very proud.

——The boss and I are from the department that has been negatively affected, and our report to the boss happens to be the boss.

In my opinion, it is not necessarily a bad thing to invite people from consulting companies to stir up the muddy water.

Although it is a new company established less than ten years ago, the group we are backed by can be regarded as a super giant in Southeast Asia. With the double blessing of opportunities and funds, our company, which entered this field first, has suppressed its competitors in the past two years. , the limelight is the same for a while.This allowed the domestic Internet giant to take advantage of it. After the next door was acquired by the giant, it soon had a large amount of resources to engage in traffic wars. During the peak period, almost every week, colleagues sneakily asked for leave to go to the next door for interviews.Of course, some models cannot be replicated. Throughout last year, our company’s stock even rose by 40.00% against the wind, which can be regarded as employee benefits.

The big boss likes to say that this is our "systematic victory"; what I have seen is the increasingly sharp factional conflicts in the past few years after being sold to the group.

I just don't know if these people from the consulting company are here to be shit-stirring sticks, or are they really going to pretend to be borrowed murder knives?

It's almost ten o'clock, but I just rush through most of the mail.I said hello to my colleagues, put on my makeup bag and rushed into the bathroom—this T-shirt was indeed too big, and I found out that it was in size XXL, and I am afraid that only people who are 1.9 meters tall can wear it.In this T-shirt, I look in the mirror like, like—like a big orange shopping bag.I can even swim in it!

This is clearly the result of Hui Lin's best efforts, and I have nothing to complain about.I tucked the clothes into the skirt and pulled them out, repeated several times, but finally I could only gather the hem to one side and tie a knot.

Wearing a T-shirt like this, I look a bit young. At today’s meeting, I may be caught by the big boss to discuss affairs at any time. Considering this, I spent too much time arranging my clothes.By the time he hastily touched up his makeup and came out, only Lao Huang was left outside.

This old man was obviously waiting for me on purpose.

The venue is on the [-]th floor. Most people didn't wait for the elevator, but went by the stairs, and we were no exception.While going downstairs, I listened to Lao Huang digging holes for me: his eyes were absent-mindedly glanced at the entrance and exit of the floor, which happened to be facing the meeting rooms on each floor.As mentioned before, most of our company's conference rooms have glass walls. Although you can't hear the sound, it's a good habit to see who is having a meeting with whom.

When he got down to the sixteenth floor, Lao Huang suddenly made a sound like a successful trick.I heard the very dramatic "Aha!" echoing in the empty corridor, and I didn't even bother to lift my eyelids, but just looked at the window of the entrance and exit.

Sure enough, there were people in the farthest conference room on the sixteenth floor.Two men in suits were sitting with their backs to the stairs, and there was a figure leaning against the window.

"I just said there was some movement today. Didn't you just consult before? How about it, does it look like someone from BCG?" Lao Huang rarely showed a little complacency.

After two layers of glass, the clothes of the two men in suits were blurred into color blocks, and we couldn't talk about the quality of the texture, but judging by their fashionable hairstyles and clothes that didn't match the orange shopping bags, they really didn't look like people in our company.The person in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows was holding a coffee cup, just looking out of the window, not knowing whether those reports had reached her ears.It was a tall woman, wearing charcoal gray wide-leg trousers, and her long hair was loose, as if she was on vacation.

She wasn't wearing anything like an orange shopping bag—she was wearing a linen shirt, to be precise.

"That's Sonia Pender." Old Huang said.