In the late winter of 2017, on the stage of a company's annual meeting, when the host read the award speech of "Excellent Outstanding Employees Special Award", Zhou Geng, who was sitting in the audience, began to unable to control his body. Even his toes couldn't help but curl up, like a bird that had just landed on the ground thousands of miles. He was so familiar with this award speech because he wrote every word himself. He thought about the short sentence "Treat the market as art" for several days. Since the award speeches for each candidate are completed by themselves, the words that read are basically equivalent to officially announcing who wins the award. At this moment, as the project leader with high performance in the marketing department, his familiar award speech drifted through Zhou Geng's mind like the final subtitles of the show. He was so excited that he was about to stand up from his seat! But just halfway through, he heard in a daze:
"The winning employee of this year is, Chen X, welcome..."
He was a little confused. He is not familiar with this name. After a few seconds of standing and squatting, he caught a glimpse of a colleague named Chen from another department who had never appeared on the public candidate list and gave a speech on the stage to receive the award.
week Gengliang is over. He felt ashamed and humiliated. But the experience of struggling in the market for four years quickly calmed down. He sat back, adjusted his expression in the shadows, and attended the subsequent dinner as usual. During this period, colleagues with different thoughts came over and asked him:
"Why isn't you?"
Even the award-winning colleague Chen came over and said embarrassedly:
"Isn't you? Why is it me? I don't know what's going on, it's for no reason..."
Zhou Geng laughed at it and did not change his expression. But the contradiction between "tolerance" and "left" in his heart has already broken out.
Three years later, Zhou Geng, who was successfully promoted to department head, recalled this scene at that time and made a vivid metaphor:
"Just like Hillary and Trump , Trump are running for election, pretending that their grandson has won the votes everywhere, and suddenly found that the person who was elected was the Gore next to him!"
In fact, Zhou Geng had no intention of running for the election. Although his performance is far ahead, after experiencing the first leader like a "rogue", he has long understood that there are no iron rules and fairness in this world. Only by using real skills and not falling into the flexibility of the rules is the hard truth. But he mentioned his name and made it public on the candidate list, asking him to canvass around, and finally read his award speech and presented the award to people outside the list. This was a humiliation.
Zhou Geng felt that he was being played. It would be normal if this happened during the first leadership. But the second leader treated him like a master and a father, and why did he make himself eat a fly?
Zhou Geng couldn't figure it out, but he decided to swallow the fly.
Six years ago, Zhou Geng, who graduated from a master's degree in mechanical manufacturing, was just 25 years old. Through the campus recruitment, he went through interviews at all levels and was admitted to the marketing department of a leading company with detailed allocations as he wished. Although the department head was on a long-term business trip at the time and missing the last round of interviews, the Ministry of Human Resources still recruited Zhou Geng. He was ecstatic. The employment scope of mechanical manufacturing disciplines itself is narrow, and companies in the sub-sectors can even count them. After being able to become the leader as soon as he graduated, Zhou Geng felt that he had been standing at the end of some people from the beginning. But he recalled:
"If I had met that supervisor during the interview, I might have been unable to help but give up."
In Zhou Geng's eyes, the supervisor had a ruffian and bandit-like spirit. He not only had a loud voice, but also had a swear word, so that the entire department was covered in an atmosphere like a "grass-stage team". Occasionally, I met my colleagues who called him to the door to smoke together. When they heard them whispering to the national curse, they didn't like anything, and Zhou Geng couldn't handle it at all.
I don’t know if it was because of the lack of the “in-person interview” link that the supervisor did not have a deep impression of Zhou Geng, or because the supervisor was dissatisfied with the extraordinary recruitment of the Ministry of Human Resources, or just because of the inconsistent aura. In short, by the third and fourth months, other newcomers who came in at the same time started to go on business trips.For the marketing department, business trips can not only satisfy the freshness of young people when they open their eyes to the world, but also means that their career has officially started. But Zhou Geng continued to do odd jobs: printing documents, sorting files, cleaning, and helping people collect express delivery and picking up takeaways...
He couldn't help but find the supervisor timidly and said tactfully that he also wanted to go out to "exercise". The supervisor agreed:
"Okay, okay!"
But two months have passed, and there is still no movement, and even fewer chores work. Zhou Geng browses web pages, reads novels, and watches videos day after day. Once, he took out his cell phone to see if it was almost time to get off work. When he saw that it was only 3 o'clock! At this moment, he suddenly realized:
"Isn't this just stumble? He was marginalized as soon as he joined the company, waiting to retire?!"
he thought to himself, was he not performing well? He tried his best to find loopholes in himself, and the more he thought about the problems, the more he felt, the more he was greatly disappointed. But he hasn't started to show off yet.
Zhou Geng found the supervisor again. He became even more nervous, his eyes drooped, and hesitated, and finally he even shook his legs unconsciously.
"What are you shaking! Look at you...!" This time, the supervisor finally arranged a colleague who was about to be upgraded to a specialist for a major account and handed over a "small customer" from Chengdu to Zhou Geng. This person, who is called "Lao Hou", is exactly the same as the replica of the supervisor. He has a loud voice and dirty mouth, and has an evil aura, but it is quite numb when flattering. The supervisor casually said "thank you", and he would immediately respond:
"I can't stand being praised by the leader."
went to Chengdu with Lao Hou. Zhou Geng was inexplicably worried, but he was still secretly happy, and he finally had a business trip!
On the day when I went to Chengdu, Zhou Geng and Lao Hou met at the pick-up position after getting off the plane. Before this, neither of them contacted each other.
Zhou Geng still clearly remembers that it was the first time he took the opportunity in 25 years. He was a little excited and nervous, so he checked the boarding process and precautions online in advance and arrived at the airport early. He asked while exploring the procedures and passing the security check. But he himself didn't understand why, and he never thought of making an appointment with Lao Hou who was familiar with him to go with him.
At the dinner table, Lao Hou simply introduced Zhou Geng to the customer as the new project docking person. In the evening, another KTV was arranged. As soon as he entered the hall, looking at the magnificent decoration and the two-tall crystal chandeliers, Zhou Geng thought to himself:
"Can you be willing to hand over to my small customers, and you also need to spend so much money to fight such a big fight?"
was thinking, and there was already a row of "princesses" standing in front of him.
"Which one do you want?" Lao Hou asked him with a loud voice.
"I..."
"Just her, don't tell me." Old Hou raised his hand and pointed at a point opposite Zhou Geng.
In the private room, Lao Hou whispered with the customers and tried to deal with the princesses. Only Zhou Geng was calm and silent on the side. During this period, Lao Hou stepped on his new leather shoes several times, and whispered to him while he was clinking glasses:
"You are slapping the customer in the face without saying anything!"
Zhou Geng thought reluctantly for a long time, but still couldn't find anything to say, so he had to ask the lady beside him:
"Why are you doing this?"
Since he had the first customer, Zhou Geng broke the situation of being powerful and having nowhere to do it, and was determined to use this as a starting point to open up the situation for his career. For the next three months, he stayed in Chengdu, chatted with customers, and asked customers to introduce their subordinates, leaders, and peers... He chatted one by one, hoping to slowly take root and sprout and bloom on one day:
"In those three months, I basically haven't seen what the sun in Chengdu looks like."
In order to overcome the problem of not speaking fluently when meeting strangers, especially when meeting leaders of high levels, Zhou Geng insisted on doing mirror practice. He chose different products every day to introduce himself to the mirror, while he was talking while observing his facial expressions until there was no jam at all, until he looked smart and amiable in the mirror. This kind of exercise can be as high as a dozen times, and at most it can reach nearly 50 times.
As the relationship network expands and deepens, Zhou Geng gradually discovers that some of Lao Hou’s previous serious violations and legacy problems have been exposed. If you want to follow the rules, it will definitely disrupt the established interests and touch many people's cakes. It's difficult. In order to avoid head-on conflicts, Zhou Geng decided to report the problems to the supervisor indirectly from the perspective of improving the rules and making up for loopholes. He thought that based on his in-depth understanding of the business and thinking about discovering and improving problems, suggestion , and loyalty based on the interests of the company, he should be able to add points to himself , .
never thought that since he had reacted to the supervisor, the supervisor suddenly became more harsh. Several times at the meeting, he sternly asked Zhou Geng in front of everyone:
"After running business for so long, what's your name? He revolves around an old customer every day, and he will have to live a lifetime with his own rice? Besides, this rice is still something that others reward you!"
swallowed the words of the supervisor, and Zhou Geng decided to try his best to discover new customers while stabilizing the Chengdu customers and not give people the opportunity to slap in the face. He searched for the contact information of potential customers of on online and called the mobile phone number of the person in charge of the front desk:
"I am always familiar with you X, but my phone broke just now and the number was lost. Now I have something urgent to do, please help me transfer it." The success rate of
method was very low at the beginning, after all, I was guilty and easily hesitant to speak. As he had no choice, Zhou Geng simply came to the door to get the security guard and the front desk to get the magnetic field. When I saw the security guard handing the cigarette, when I saw the front desk handing fruit, I talked to me:
"This city is so good... The wind is a bit loud today... What cigarettes do you like?... This fruit looks good, do you like it?..."
Sometimes he feels that he seems very mentally retarded when he says these words as a master's degree. He even dislikes himself, but he persists.
Not long after, when he made that kind of magnetic call, he was much smoother. When you meet a company with lax rules, or the front desk of , , you can directly transfer it to him. How much conscientious you meet, Zhou Geng compiled a story, and met X on any occasion and talked about something, and he often got away with it.
After contacting the master, the rest is to do your best to get in touch. Unexpectedly, several customers had just had some hope, and Lao Hou came out halfway and intercepted two of them. Zhou Geng made an appointment with Lao Hou:
"The cross-customer issue, let's discuss together how to deal with it more appropriate..."
"What's the point of discussing! Whoever takes it will belong to whom, and he will speak!"
Zhou Geng felt that he was simply breaking through the circle and growing wildly. He has no way of doing it, and exhausts 's energy, but it is likely that he will fail and be unrecognizable. The supervisor's attitude towards him still did not change, and even became more and more aggressive. Not only did he publicly order him to give up cross-customers and let Lao Hou be responsible for it independently, he also attacked himself at a regular meeting:
"After so long, what order have you signed and what benefits have you brought to the company? The company doesn't need such a fool at all!"
This "ium" attacked Zhou Geng, as if he had hidden all his humility and grievances in his heart to tear it out the image that made him shy to face. He blurted out:
"How long!? How long have I been here?! It's less than half a year since I officially started working. No one took me, no one cared about me, and fled myself. Young people, can't I give me more time?" As soon as
was said, Zhou Geng was shocked by himself. He regretted it a little, but it was hard to recover. He had no choice but to comfort himself that it was natural for the leader to achieve results. But I clearly have insight, ideas, and loyalty! Isn’t the reflection of Chengdu’s problem enough to reflect all these advantages? Zhou Geng decided to report to the supervisor directly from the perspective of Lao Hou's serious violations, and make the final struggle to reverse the stereotype he left in the supervisor's mind. But the matter still went against my wishes. The supervisor said indifferently:
"Don't interfere with other people's affairs. Take care of yourself, you know it a little bit!"
A kind of despair of "nothing is wrong" made Zhou Geng completely angry.He slammed the door and went out:
"You can go at worst!"
At the annual meeting that year, the vice president clinked a cup with Zhou Geng and said some polite words to encourage and bless the New Year. The supervisor inserted and hard and patted Zhou Geng on the shoulder:
"You should be grateful to the vice president! If he hadn't taught me that I would give you a chance and give you some chance, you would have been taken away by Lao Hou and me."
After saying that, the supervisor sat on the chair next to him, laughing and shaking his legs very much, as if provocatively magnifying Zhou Geng's nervousness and fragility when he first saw him 100 times. The supervisor even trembled! Zhou Geng recalled:
"just like epilepsy!"
Zhou Geng couldn't figure out what he had done wrong, so that the supervisor would not only have to make a trip behind his back, but also to come and tell him who made the trip! It was not until one day that the company found out serious violations based on anonymous reports and fired Lao Hou and the supervisor, and the answer to this puzzle was:
It turned out that Zhou Geng did not only move Lao Hou's cake, but the cake itself was customized by the supervisor!
When the second supervisor airborne from another department, almost no one was available under his command. The subordinates who had a relationship with Lao Hou and his former supervisor all resigned with guilt. There are two old employees waiting to settle down until retirement, and three young people about the same age as Zhou Geng. But no one is willing to fight as hard as Zhou Geng. Therefore, Zhou Geng naturally became the person who used the most easily and most frequently in the new supervisor.
"You are so similar to what I first entered the company, it's exactly the same." The new supervisor commented on Zhou Geng.
"What he said is probably to be down-to-earth, hard work, and no evil spirit on his body. They are all scholars." Zhou Geng understood this way.
was recognized by the leader for the first time, and Zhou Geng's gratitude inspired unprecedented motivation. No matter whether he should be responsible or whether he encounters emergency or difficult situations, he will take the lead as soon as possible. Many times, even the new supervisor's work report is completed by him staying up late. Soon, the new airborne supervisor gained a foothold with his assistance. The two fully trusted each other, and had no sense of oppression when they got along, and even developed a sense of dependence in Zhou Geng's words to describe "emotional appreciation". The new supervisor also took him on a business trip, and even turned down social engagements with customers. In the early morning, Guangzhou and Zhou Geng drank pork liver porridge, met beer, and talked about "Yangming Xinxue". The new supervisor also taught Zhou Geng that if you ask a customer with a strong heart to go to KTV, you must take the initiative to lead the princess to launch:
"If you don't bring it, it will be difficult for the customer to take it. You have to learn to create excuses for the customer. You just need to send the customer to your residence and let both of them follow him upstairs. It's easy to deal with."
has cleared the shackles of personnel and can work without distractions, and Zhou Geng burst out with unprecedented execution. His sales performance has grown rapidly and he has also begun to take over some more important management tasks.
The new supervisor discussed project planning with him, personnel coordination, and even handed him over the account and password approved by the department. But Zhou Geng immediately turned off the computer every time he finished the approval and never looked around. The trust relationship between the two is unbreakable. Some senior meetings new supervisors also began to bring Zhou Geng to attend. Once, Zhou Geng even made a speech on "future planning" at the meeting. After the meeting, a leader from another department made a special trip to the new supervisor and praised his subordinates for being "the only person who can sort out the methodology and explain it clearly."
Just as Zhou Geng secretly felt that meeting the first "rogue" leader was the "what he did" before the general gave his great mission, he felt that he had finally met the "Life Bole" of his teacher and father, and was confidently preparing to stand on the podium of the "Special Award for Outstanding Employees", he was injured by the "Awards Celebration Incident".
Afterwards, the new supervisor explained to him:
"Chen X's department leader came to me specially. Their department has never won a special award. Our marketing department has won three times, and they really can't hold it. I have a good relationship with him, and it's hard to refute him. Your achievements are obvious to all. The king of uncrowned, don't care about that.We are our own people, it’s easy to discuss..."
Zhou Geng could hardly hear what he said below. He thought to himself:
"What a light and 'our own person'! What a bullshit king! Good negotiation? As a result, it all came out, just like shit, so I can only discuss how to eat it! "
Zhou Geng found that in the end, everything could still be bargained. And he was still the piece that was abandoned in other people's bargaining. At this moment, he suddenly lost the sense of belonging that he had worked hard to establish and floated in a kind of air of nothingness.
or tolerate? After rewriting the resignation report several times, Zhou Geng endured it. He found that he seemed to be making a choice between a chicken head and a phoenix tail, and this choice was so helpless:
"Leaving from this high-start leader and working hard in another company, it was just a chicken head. What's more, struggle is everywhere and may not necessarily become a chicken. It’s better to just stay here and wait for an opportunity. "
Zhou Geng reminded himself again:
" All rules are variable, and all praise is meaningless. Only when you are so strong that the rules cannot change the results and abandon you, and praise cannot deceive you, can you survive in the workplace and have dignity. "
He wants to prove it to himself.
Half a year later, the new supervisor resigned Starting a business . He never asked Zhou Geng if he wanted to go with him. Everything is different.
A third supervisor named Ben came again. If the bad of the first supervisor is a "rogue type", then Ben's bad is the black-bellied "smiling tiger" type.
Zhou Geng is no longer the same as before. As a business leader, he brought new people and an assistant. At the level of corporate management, his ability has also attracted much attention. In order not to make Ben feel a sense of crisis, the vice president took back the approval authority from Zhou Geng and handed it over to Ben.
Zhou Geng didn't mind:
"I just want to cooperate with Ben and be a deputy that doesn't make him hate. Don't have any trouble. I can concentrate on serving customers and doing good results, which is enough. "
, but it turns out that this is not enough. Ben, who obtained the approval authority, did not relax his hostility and vigilance towards Zhou Geng. He even developed a catchphrase in front of the client:
"Don't worry, leave this matter to my subordinate Zhou Geng to do. "
"My subordinate" has become an indispensable attribution before Zhou Geng's name. It doesn't matter if you hear it once or twice. Zhou Geng also feels awkward.
Ben also cares about Zhou Geng's monthly project report emails and routine cc:
" Without my instructions, it is not allowed to copy to the vice president at will! "Ben modified all the emails sent by Zhou Geng in cc and sent them again.
At a meeting, Ben suddenly attacked when he mentioned a project that Zhou Geng had never been exposed to:
"Zhou Geng, come and introduce this project to you. "
Zhou Geng was stunned. After the embarrassing cold situation, he could only make do with it. After that, Zhou Geng learned about all the projects and prepared to summarize a memorandum for each project. This matter was extremely time-consuming and energy-consuming. Zhou Geng, who was unable to do anything, followed up all the projects in his hands and suffered a lot. At the same time, Mike, a newcomer who Ben devoted money and effort to cultivate, performed brilliantly.
Ben not only had a tense relationship with Zhou Geng, but also successfully created a gap between the supervisors of other departments and Zhou Geng. On several occasions, Ben invited the supervisors together and claimed to discuss and develop projects together. The diversity of cooperation. He pretended to be humble and said:
"Our department is inefficient, and its development has entered a bottleneck period. The project is as shitty as it is. Please give me advice and guidance..."
"Let's analyze the reasons for shitty first," and everyone took over the conversation and started to discuss.
Zhou Geng sat aside and listened silently. As a actual person in charge without approval authority, he did not have the right to distribute the right to mobilize, but had to take responsibility for all consequences. Zhou Geng was already frustrated and did not listen to the discussion. The harsh words of "shit, shit, shit" finally angered him.Zhou Geng retorted with a dark face:
"Your place is not much better, everyone is making progress, there are processes of progress, just fifty and one hundred steps."
meeting ended unhappily.
in the second game, and the third meeting repeats the same mistakes. Zhou Geng began to come back to the taste. When Ben convened the cross- meeting again, Zhou Geng said that he had left in advance or was feeling uncomfortable and refused to participate.
Gradually, he began to be labeled as "tantrum", "disobedient", "reporting beyond the level", and "arrogant attitude". Ben always complained to the deputy general manager. Although the vice president knew the strangeness, he received too much complaint information every few days, and he couldn't stand it. He simply took the screenshot of the chat record and sent it to Zhou Geng to let him pay attention to establishing a good relationship. Zhou Geng was distressed:
"I not only felt wronged myself, but also wanted to prevent him from appearing wronged. I am like a Burger King, pressing up and down, and leaving the rest of my breath for the customer. It's really about to collapse and get depressed ."
At that time, the personnel in the department had already divided into two factions: the hard-working faction of Zhou Geng and the power-abiding faction of Ben, despising each other. What made Zhou Geng even more sad was that a leader of another department who had given him a lot of business guidance before went to the marketing department to work as a free job because he was marginalized, and this senior decisively stood on Ben's side:
"Maybe even if he is idle, he can't accept being a subordinate. In fact, he could have done something well."
Zhou Geng wrote countless resignation reports, but he really couldn't bear to let go of his old customers who worked hard, so he dragged on for a long time.
Ten minutes before a cross-conference, Ben notified Zhou Geng to go to the deputy general office to report the project progress, and told him to come to the meeting after the report was completed. Ten minutes later, Zhou Geng received a call from Ben:
"Are you still coming for a meeting? I won't say anything if I haven't come for so long. Mr. Li and Zhang, all of you are waiting for you alone. If you don't come, you can say don't let so many people wait..."
Zhou Geng said repeatedly, "Come now." Only after the meeting did he realize that Ben's phone call just now was in front of everyone, and he turned on the amplification to call .
The feeling of "being played with" that seemed similar to each other once again hit my heart. If you work so hard, you will never be able to escape this life! Zhou Geng was angry when he left his back! He rushed into Ben's office to confront each other on the spot, and the two started to fight!
The incident finally made the vice president realize that Zhou Geng and Ben would never work together again, and it was the moment when he had to make a choice. After weighing the trade-offs for many days, the vice president announced at the employee meeting:
"From today, the marketing department director will be officially taken over by Zhou Geng."
At that moment, Zhou Geng felt as if he had a nightmare that had lost his life. Wake up, what should be there is still here. Doing all your strength is worthy of waking up this dream.
Now, Zhou Geng is his own manager and can help customers. Mike's performance is becoming more and more impressive. Some people asked him if he was worried and how he was going to treat Mike. He said:
"Let him develop freely. I must allow people who are better than me to exist. Worrying is useless, worrying whether he is there. Only by standing from a higher and broader perspective, accepting great people, and being good at yourself is the king."
Zhou Geng thought to himself that Ben had been so concerned about him and tried to curb him, but he also eventually replaced him and sat in his position today?
Zhou Geng continued to run around the business trip day and night.
Planning Editor｜Luo Beibei
Typeset Layout｜Wang Jianyu
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