Chapter 16 — My Nameless Occupation

Heavenly Universe Media. They just completed their Series B funding round, expanding their workforce from fifty to two hundred employees, and their internal operating system simply cannot keep up with the growth. The CEO personally reached out, explicitly asking for the team that drafted the roadmap for Eternal Enterprise.

How did they hear about us?

Manager Zhao from Eternal Enterprise recommended us in an industry group chat. Her exact words were: There is someone at Shui He who can boost a company's operational efficiency by forty percent.

Manager Zhao. The same woman who used to complain incessantly that scheduling events was a nuisance and dump all the paperwork on me. I turned on my computer.

Where is Vu Tieu Man?

She is waiting for you outside.

Tell her to come in. She will lead the Heavenly Universe Media project. I will guide her through the first phase.

A new battle was about to begin. The CEO of Heavenly Universe Media is named Ha Duy. He is thirty-six, a returnee from overseas studies, with a rapid-fire speaking style and an incredibly aggressive work ethic. Our first meeting took place in the open-office space of their headquarters. Over two hundred people were crammed onto a single floor, with virtually no partitions between the desks, making the office as noisy as a bazaar. Ha Duy led us into a small meeting room.

Director To, I have heard about your time at Eternal Enterprise. It is legendary.

It is hardly legendary. It is just twelve years of relentless, continuous work.

Then that is perfect, because our company is in dire need of someone capable of twelve years of relentless work to build a proper system. After our Series B round, we tripled our headcount, but our management capacity has failed to catch up. Human resources reported that the turnover rate has climbed to thirty percent.

I flipped through the company brief he had sent over earlier.

Mr. Ha, your problem is not the lack of a system, but the fact that you have systems in place with no one to enforce them. You have purchased three different sets of administrative software, yet none of them are functioning properly.

Ha Duy offered a wry, pained smile.

You saw right through us at a single glance.

It was not a glance. I spent four full hours studying the materials you sent me.

His expression shifted, moving from polite social posturing to genuine gravity.

Director To, what is your quote?

The base proposal is one point two million, which includes half a year of personnel stationed on-site to handle implementation.

Did you not charge Eternal Enterprise eight hundred thousand?

The proposal for Eternal Enterprise was designed and implemented entirely by myself. For your company, we have to audit everything from scratch, and the complexity level is significantly higher.

Ha Duy pondered for a moment.

Deal.

As we walked out of the Heavenly Universe Media office, Vu Tieu Man looked at me with pure admiration.

Director To, when you stated the price, he didn't even try to haggle.

That is because I spent four hours analyzing their documents and pointed out critical issues that he had not even realized himself. Clients do not pay for a proposal; they pay for trust.

Vu Tieu Man nodded vigorously. Once we returned to Shui He, Ly from the sales department was already waiting in the conference room.

Director To, we have more inquiries. Peak Prosperity Real Estate, a regional developer, wants to optimize their internal operations. There is also a restaurant chain called Flavor of the Rivers and Lakes that is preparing for an initial public offering and needs to standardize their operational systems.

Three clients. All within less than a month. Tham Dich stood at the doorway.

To Van, in the first quarter of this new business unit, the total value of signed contracts has already exceeded two point eight million.

Still a little short of the profit-sharing threshold.

If you include the Heavenly Universe contract, we will cross that mark next month.

I looked at the list of clients scribbled on the whiteboard. Eternal Enterprise. Heavenly Universe. Peak Prosperity and Flavor of the Rivers and Lakes in negotiations. Forty-three years old. It has been two months since I was fired.