Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

It wasn’t hard to predict that both the Xiaomi and Orange mobile phones would sell well. Now, it was just a question of who had the production capacity to lock in users first and capture more market share.

Meanwhile, far away in Shencheng City, the Orange Phone Factory was working overtime to ramp up production.

The first batch of over 600 employees was finally experiencing the joy of maxing out their overtime pay.

The daily income from base salary and overtime was capped at 180 yuan.

The cap for weekend overtime was 240 yuan.

Take Brother Zhu, for example. He worked seven days last week and earned 1,380 yuan before taxes.

At his old factory, he would have made eight or nine hundred at most for a week’s work, and he’d have had to put in an extra two hours every day.

”This is so damn good! Next month is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the overtime pay for that day alone is 360 yuan. One day of work will be worth what used to take four days!”

Brother Zhu said with a wide grin.

”Brother Zhu, you know Xiaomeng, the guy who quit last month? He failed an interview yesterday and is kicking himself for it now.”

A nearby coworker chimed in during a break, teasing with a laugh.

”That’s ’cause he’s an idiot! He left a great place like the Orange Phone Factory to go work a job that pays less than 150 yuan for a 14-hour day. Anyone who even finished middle school wouldn’t be that foolish.”

Brother Zhu said proudly, skillfully placing a tested phone into its box along with the manual, charger, headphones, and other accessories.

”The Orange Factory is great, but limiting the overtime hours is a real drag. I could tighten screws for 16 hours a day, but they make me clock out and rest after just 12.”

A workhorse of a colleague beside him complained indignantly.

A young guy like him, just eighteen or nineteen, wasn’t afraid of pulling all-nighters. Forget 16 hours—he’d even worked 30 hours straight before.

After the second round of hiring, the number of employees at the Orange Factory reached 1,200. Every month, they could contribute over a thousand wisps of Human Dao Fire to Chen Yansen.

Meanwhile, the logistics department was acting on order information from the Orange Mall. They wrapped the phones in protective foam, sealed them in cardboard boxes, and affixed the shipping labels.

Shunfeng delivery trucks came once in the morning and once in the evening to haul the packages to the sorting center, from where they were dispatched across the country.

While Chen Yansen was in Yanjing for the Xiaomi launch, thirty to forty thousand customers had already begun receiving their Orange Mobile Phones.

For 1999 yuan, they got flagship specs that would normally cost 3999 yuan: a large screen, a high-performance processor, and the smooth Aurora OS. The reviews were almost universally positive.

Of course, some users complained about the battery life, noting that it had to be charged every day.

There was no helping it. The Snapdragon MSM8260 1.5GHz dual-core processor, paired with the 4.5-inch screen, was a real power drain. But it was also a real joy to use.

Whether for gaming or watching videos, the experience was fantastic.

Chen Yansen was shipping out phones like crazy, getting ahead of the autumn product launches from Apple and other domestic first- and second-tier manufacturers.

In the same price range, phones from Huawei, ZTE, Coolpad, and Lenovo were completely uncompetitive. They were mostly low-end devices with inferior chips, small screens, and laggy performance.

Users who had long been tormented by knock-off phones and overpriced, low-quality smartphones were finally getting a taste of something good.

By the time Chen Yansen returned to Xucheng, pre-orders on the Orange Mall had already reached 1.3 million units.

Industry insiders were all speculating whether the Orange Mobile Phone could break 2 million in sales during its launch month.

This was nearly four months’ worth of total production capacity for the Orange Phone Factory.

”Boss, the new director of the brand department starts today. Should I ask her to come over?”

Someone from HR knocked on the door of Chen Yansen’s fifth-floor office to ask.

”Have her come straight over.”

Chen Yansen was reading a book and didn’t even look up as he gave the instruction.

CLICK-CLACK-CLICK—!

A short while later, Ye Qiuping stepped out of the elevator and walked over slowly.