Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 358: The New Employee Handbook
Wednesday morning, December 15.
Wu Bin arrived downstairs at Shenhua Prestige with a mix of excitement and nervous anticipation.
On Monday, he had already received the results—he had passed the interview!
At that moment, he had practically jumped for joy.
After years drifting around the workplace, he had never felt this happy before.
According to Tengda Group's arrangements, new employees could officially start work at any time after being hired. If they needed time to handle handover procedures at their previous jobs, there was no rush at all—Tengda Group would not urge them.
Whenever the paperwork was finished, they could come and start officially.
After returning to Hengtui Games and informing his boss of his resignation, Wu Bin was, as expected, urged to stay.
The reasons were all very reasonable.
For example: work needed to be handed over, the annual meeting was coming up and year-end bonuses would soon be distributed, everyone had worked together for so long and had built up feelings, they could even raise his salary, and so on.
But Wu Bin was extremely resolute and left without any delay at all.
The reason was simple: starting one day earlier meant earning one more day's salary at Tengda Group.
Although Hengtui Games promised a raise, even after the raise, his salary would still be far below Tengda Group's base pay.
Starting one day earlier meant making money one day earlier!
So Wu Bin didn't waste even a minute, determined to be among the first batch of new employees to report for duty.
The only uncertainty was whether he would still be able to get a year-end bonus and annual meeting gifts after joining Tengda Group.
At his old company, those were guaranteed.
But Wu Bin knew very well that even if Hengtui Games gave year-end bonuses and annual meeting gifts, they wouldn't be very generous.
The year-end bonus would probably just be a symbolic one extra month's salary.
As for the annual meeting gifts, at best it would be a consolation prize—maybe a red envelope of two or three hundred yuan.
That level of temptation was obviously nowhere near enough to make Wu Bin stay.
He couldn't help but sigh inwardly: whether it's easy to poach talent or not has little to do with HR—what really matters is the company's compensation and benefits.
A company like Tengda Group didn't even need HR to recruit aggressively. As long as they let a bit of their benefits leak out, job seekers would naturally flock to them.
In contrast, companies like Hengtui Games would talk endlessly, only for candidates to ask in return, "Are you guys really trying to poach people with a pay cut?"—and the conversation would die on the spot.
That day, Wu Bin had deliberately put on his most expensive suit, walking proudly into Shenhua Prestige before taking the elevator up to the 16th floor.
At present, Tengda Group has already expanded quite significantly.
Industries such as Feihuang Studio, Against the Wind Logistics, Moyu Internet Café, OTTO Technology, and Dream Fulfillment Ventures were no longer located in Shenhua Prestige, they each had their own office buildings.
Within Shenhua Prestige itself, only Tengda Group's game department, along with the two websites Terminal Chinese Web and TPDb, remained, occupying the 17th and 18th floors respectively.
However, after this round of recruitment, Tengda Group's office space was no longer sufficient.
Previously, Tengda Group's game department, along with administrative and finance departments, were all squeezed onto the 17th floor. At the beginning, the space had been more than adequate, but as the game department kept expanding, all the workstations were now fully occupied.
Occasionally, some employees would be "promoted," but the pace was far too slow to make any real difference.
As a result, after this large-scale recruitment, the original office space had become completely inadequate, making it necessary to rent another floor.
Thus, Tengda Group also rented the 16th floor below, arranging it with the same layout, specifically to welcome the arrival of the new employees.
However, further expansion would become somewhat difficult.
Although the rent at Shenhua Prestige was on the high side, it was, after all, a high-end office building—and there simply weren't that many entire floors sitting vacant.
If Tengda Group wanted to expand again in the future, the options would either be to rent floors that were far apart from each other, or to move out altogether and relocate to a larger place, such as a standalone office building.
But those were matters for the future. From now on, they could start looking for suitable locations. In the short term, the current office workstations would be more than sufficient.
After this expansion, Tengda Group's game department was separated from the administrative, finance, and other departments.
The game department remained on the 17th floor, while administrative, finance, legal, and related departments moved to the 16th floor.
Relatively speaking, the 16th floor had fewer people and thus felt more spacious.
On this floor, Pei Qian specifically set up a large conference room and also moved his own office here.
Both the office and the conference room were equipped with large TVs and projectors, making presentations and reports more convenient.
Tang Yishu was naturally arranged to work on this floor as well. As a result, whenever people from various departments came here to report, they would more or less be "affected."
However, Pei Qian also considered that if Tang Yishu stayed on the 16th floor year-round, the number of bugs in the Tengda Group game department on the 17th floor would noticeably decrease.
So Pei Qian planned to adopt a few more unclaimed stray cats from pet hospitals and distribute them evenly across the 16th, 17th, and 18th floors.
With so many pets, he could also buy additional pet supplies—large cat trees and the like—spending even more money in the process.
That way, Tang Yishu could frequently go up and down between floors to scoop litter, extending the "aura effect" across all three floors.
Moreover, by leaving the game department on the 17th floor and moving his own office to the 16th, Pei Qian was also sending a subtle message to the game team: the boss isn't on this floor anymore, hurry up and slack off!
…
Wu Bin's workstation was on the 16th floor.
After learning that President Pei's office was also on this floor, Wu Bin felt a bit nervous.
After all, working right under the boss's nose meant he couldn't afford to be careless.
Up to this point, Tengda Group was still a mystery to Wu Bin—completely unreadable.
All the information he had about Tengda Group came from hearsay, much of which sounded extremely far-fetched and not particularly reliable.
He hadn't been able to glean much from the written test or the interviews either.
Still, Wu Bin guessed that Tengda Group probably placed great emphasis on "spiritual" or cultural development.
Otherwise, why would they come up with something like the "Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test"?
Although Wu Bin had already passed the written test and interviews and officially joined the company, according to the process, he still had to undergo the Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test.
Only by passing the tests could he become a full-fledged employee; failing them would mean—regrettably—being eliminated.
Therefore, Wu Bin had already mentally prepared himself. During his first month at Tengda Group, in addition to working hard and earning the recognition of his colleagues and President Pei, he would also need to seriously grasp what the so-called "Tengda Spirit" actually was.
After explaining his purpose at the front desk, the pretty receptionist handed Wu Bin a copy of the new employee handbook and led him to the human resources department to report to Hao Yun.
After welcoming Wu Bin, Hao Yun took him to his workstation, and then staff from the administrative department came over to help him activate internal network access, set up a TPDb website account, and so on.
During this time, Wu Bin sat in his office chair and began flipping through the new employee handbook, hoping to find some information related to the so-called "Tengda Spirit."
This new employee handbook had only recently been customized by the administrative department and had likewise been reviewed by President Pei.
In the past, there hadn't been such a thing when new employees joined, because Tengda Group was much smaller back then and the onboarding process was relatively simple, there was no need for all these fancy extras.
But things are different now. New employees were joining in batches, and there were many daily matters that required attention. Writing them down in advance in a handbook helped newcomers adapt to the working environment more quickly.
As Wu Bin read through the handbook, he found that it was basically divided into several major sections, explaining various things to watch out for after joining the company.
The first major section was about daily life, mainly covering advice on everyday living—food, clothing, housing, transportation, and so on.
For example, when it came to meals, the company uniformly ordered from Moyu Delivery. The handbook even included reviews of the dishes. In short: everything tasted good; it mainly came down to personal preference.
As for housing and daily transportation, there were also subsidies—and they were quite generous. The exact amounts, subsidy methods, and reimbursement procedures were all written out very clearly.
Looking at the pictures of the company-provided meals in the handbook, Wu Bin practically started drooling.
'Such good work meals, and they're completely free?'
'All taxi rides are fully reimbursed, and there's even a mandatory monthly reimbursement quota? You can use that money to buy anything related to work?'
'There's even a gym subsidy—and every employee gets personal training sessions???'
'This… these benefits are way too good…'
Wu Bin felt almost intoxicated as he hurriedly flipped to the next section.
The second major section was about recreation, mainly introducing the company's various rest and entertainment facilities.
For example, the beverage area had all kinds of coffee and drinks available for free, the snack area was stocked with all sorts of snacks, and the fitness equipment and recreation rooms could be used freely, with no restrictions whatsoever.
Wu Bin couldn't help but sigh. 'Even if this is just for show, being able to do 'face-saving projects' this well and with this much care is still impressive.'
Wu Bin had always believed that when companies set up gyms and recreation rooms, it was basically just a way to lure employees into working overtime.
To put it bluntly, it was something that sounded good on the surface.
"We provide gyms and recreation rooms for our employees"—that kind of line was perfect for fooling newcomers who had just joined and didn't know any better.
But in most companies, gyms and recreation rooms weren't allowed to be used during normal working hours; they were only open after work.
And using them after work—wasn't that just a disguised way of encouraging overtime?
Besides, when overtime really happened and everyone on the project team was buried in work, would you really dare to go play games in the recreation room?
So in most companies, these things were purely for show, with far more symbolic meaning than practical value.
Wu Bin flipped to the next page.
This page contained notes related to the previous section.
Wu Bin had assumed it would say something like "Please do not use the recreation room during working hours," but it was nothing of the sort.
The note clearly stated:
"Each employee must accumulate at least 4 hours per week using the fitness facilities or recreation rooms, striving to achieve a balance between work and rest."
"Note: Please do not use the gym or recreation rooms outside of working hours. After getting off work, please go home immediately."
Wu Bin felt dizzy.
It was basically the same as what he'd expected—except for one small detail.
There was an extra "outside of" in front of the words "working hours."
And that completely changed the meaning!
Other companies said, "Don't use the gym or recreation room during working hours," but Tengda Group was doing the exact opposite!
Did this mean… you could only go play during working hours???
Wu Bin almost thought the handbook had been misprinted, but after thinking about it, such a low-level mistake seemed unlikely.
He was thoroughly confused.
With a head full of questions, he continued reading.
The third major section was finally about work.
In most companies, this section was usually placed at the very beginning. But at Tengda Group, it was the exact opposite—it was placed at the very end, occupying only the last few pages of the employee handbook, and the descriptions were extremely brief.
The earlier "daily life" section not only paired the work meals with beautiful color photos, but also went into painstaking detail about the taste and texture of each dish—so detailed it was almost absurd.
The entertainment section was the same. It even introduced the various games collected in the recreation room, complete with short reviews.
But when it came to the work section, the tone changed completely.
There were only a few simple notes.
"Overtime work is, in principle, strictly prohibited."
"If overtime is absolutely necessary due to work requirements, it must be reported to the department head. Only after the department head applies for overtime hours and receives approval may overtime be carried out."
"If an employee feels excessive work pressure, they must immediately report it to the department head. The department head is required to resolve the issue as soon as possible by hiring new employees."
"It is strictly forbidden to contact colleagues for work-related reasons outside of working hours, as this may cause them distress."
And so on.
Wu Bin felt his head starting to ache.
All of these rules basically pointed to the same thing—repeatedly emphasizing, in no uncertain terms: no overtime allowed.
On the other hand, the things Wu Bin had actually been expecting to see were nowhere to be found.
For example, requirements like completing tasks assigned by superiors on time, or prohibitions against colleagues shirking responsibility and pushing work onto others…
There was nothing like that at all!
Wu Bin thought they might be on the following pages, but when he flipped another page, the employee handbook had already ended.
Where was the explanation of the "Tengda Spirit" he had been expecting?
Where were the "100 rules for employees"?
None of it existed.
Closing the handbook, all that remained in Wu Bin's mind were the images of delicious food and all kinds of generous benefits. He couldn't remember much else.
Wu Bin felt a little lost, vaguely sensing that something might be… off.
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