Chapter 61: Attendance Must Be Strictly Enforced!
Upon hearing this news, the ghostly employees' initial reaction was utter bewilderment.
What on earth was going on?
The ghostly employees tried to trace the logic, only to find that it made no sense at all!
An employer pays us a salary to buy our working hours.
If we use our rest time to help the boss work, why would the boss still pay us?
And why offer triple the rate?
Did he have so much money he didn't know what to do with it?
In the words of other ghostly bosses: "Handing out hard-earned cash like that to employees—what a monstrous waste!"
This was not "blessed karma" at all!
It seemed... a bit illogical, didn't it?
Right at that moment, a ghostly employee had a flash of inspiration and cried out in sudden enlightenment:
"I understand! The boss is handing out welfare benefits to us!
The boss feels that everyone is short on money, so he's using this method to give us extra cash to spend!"
As soon as these words were spoken, the employees exclaimed in admiration. So that was how it was!
Other ghostly bosses could never do something like this, but coming from Boss Chen, it felt completely natural and seamless.
Which boss, upon taking over a failing cafeteria, would voluntarily make up for half a year of unpaid wages owed to the employees?
It was Chen Mu!
Which boss would voluntarily double his employees' salaries and proactively increase their welfare bonuses?
It was Chen Mu!
Which boss would actually grant his employees four hours of rest time! And give them a break every single day?
It was still Chen Mu!
Which boss would provide employee meals comparable to banquets at a five-star hotel?
It was still fucking Chen Mu!
That explained it. It all made sense now...
A philanthropist like Boss Chen sympathized with his employees and considered them in everything he did.
No sooner had he maximized their benefits and perks than he worried they wouldn't have enough money to spend, so he proactively used "overtime" as a pretext to distribute extra rewards to the staff.
And to ensure the employees wouldn't feel guilty and could accept the money with peace of mind, he even gave it the pleasant-sounding name of "overtime pay"!
A philanthropist!
Boss Chen was truly a philanthropist!
"Brothers, let me ask you, are any of us still short on money right now?" one ghostly employee suddenly shouted out.
The other ghostly employees replied, "Not at all!"
Nonsense! Chen Mu gave such high salaries and bonuses that even the lowliest employees working under him enjoyed fantastic benefits!
Although they couldn't be called fabulously wealthy, they were definitely, absolutely not short on money!
That same employee shouted again: "Right now, Boss Chen is building his enterprise. With him spending vast amounts of money to improve our benefits, Boss Chen himself must surely be strapped for cash.
Even though Boss Chen is strapped for cash, he doesn't say a word about it. Instead, worried that we don't have enough money to spend, he gives us 'overtime pay'!
Boss Chen treats us like his own blood brothers!
During this startup period, just when Boss Chen is in need of money, accepting this 'overtime pay' makes me uneasy in my heart.
Since Boss Chen treats me like a brother, I must treat Boss Chen like a brother too! I will absolutely not take this overtime pay! I will work for Boss Chen for free!"
The words of this ghostly employee voiced the innermost thoughts of the rest of the staff.
Indeed, throughout the entire ghostly world, you couldn't find a better boss than Boss Chen.
If Boss Chen went bankrupt due to insufficient funds, where on earth would they find such a great boss again?
They absolutely could not let Boss Chen go bankrupt!
When Boss Chen was facing such hardship, how could they still take his money and suck his blood? Could their consciences bear it? Was that something a human could do? Oh, no—was that something a ghost could do?
This overtime pay must never be accepted!
They could not increase the burden on Boss Chen!
The ghostly employees quickly reached a consensus.
No overtime pay! They would help Boss Chen work overtime for free! Since Boss Chen treated them so well, working overtime like this was actually a pleasure!
Soon, a large cohort of off-duty ghostly employees marched in a mighty procession toward the Landscape Courtyard and joined the massive renovation army.
These employees worked with extraordinary zeal, each and every one of them looking as if they had been injected with chicken blood.
They renovated Chen Mu's house just as carefully as if they were decorating their own homes.
One employee looked at Chen Mu's grand mansion and, far from feeling any jealousy, couldn't help but sigh in admiration:
"Look at that! Someone as kind-hearted as Boss Chen deserves to make a fortune and live in a big house!"
After four hours of hard labor, these ghostly employees—without a single exception—failed to log their overtime information and refused to collect their overtime pay.
Consequently, Chen Mu quickly discovered something was amiss—
His villa was undergoing rapid renovations.
Luxurious flooring, crystal chandeliers, green lawns... One decoration after another was springing up from the ground.
Yet, when he checked the work logs, he found that nobody was supposedly working!
If nobody was working, how was the house being renovated faster and faster?
Had he run into ghosts?
When Boss Chen investigated, he discovered that his ghostly employees were simply refusing to log their hours or collect their overtime pay.
This simply wouldn't do!
This wasn't about saving a little money.
Chen Mu had spent over a hundred million underworld notes just on the renovations for the Landscape Courtyard. The employees' overtime pay, all things considered, amounted to mere hundreds of thousands of underworld notes.
Since Chen Mu had already spent the big bucks, would he really care about such a small sum?
The primary reason was that this undermined Chen Mu's authority!
Chen Mu demanded absolute obedience within his enterprises! Every single one of his commands had to be faithfully executed by the employees.
Although Chen Mu was well aware that the employees were refusing their overtime pay out of affection for him, this undeniably violated his regulations.
He could never set such a bad precedent!
Therefore, Chen Mu summoned his security brigade and issued a strict command:
"From now on, every single employee working overtime must punch in and out for attendance. Not a single punch can be missed or skipped!"
The security team faithfully carried out Chen Mu's orders, leaving the employees who had actually been forced to take their overtime pay looking utterly dejected.
"Boss Chen is in such difficulty, yet I still sucked Boss Chen's blood. Am I even a ghost anymore?"
"I've failed my own conscience."
"By the way, why can't we just work a little harder? The overtime pay is fixed; as long as we put in a bit more effort, it's equivalent to Boss Chen paying less in overtime expenses!"
This proposal to show consideration for the boss quickly won the enthusiastic response of a large number of employees.
Thus, at the Landscape Courtyard construction site, a widespread phenomenon of arriving early and leaving late began to emerge.
In order to get more work done, some employees skipped dinner after their shifts ended and rushed straight to the construction site, using their half-hour meal break to work instead.
Moreover, they refused to punch in early, only clocking in precisely when their shift officially started.
This was known as "arriving early"!
The so-called "leaving late" followed the same logic: they would clock out the exact moment their shift ended, but deliberately refuse to leave, continuing to work for an extra twenty minutes.
On their way back, they preferred to take a taxi just to save travel time—paying the taxi fare out of their own pockets—all so they could do a little more work for Boss Chen.
Chen Mu soon discovered this situation as well, and he was utterly shocked by it.
What kind of mental wiring did this group of ghosts have? They wanted to keep working overtime during their overtime hours?
Chen Mu was planning to acquire a hospital next, which would certainly require him to provide medical insurance for his employees.
If his employees actively overworked themselves during their overtime hours and wore themselves out with illness, how much extra in medical expenses would Boss Chen have to shell out?
This was no longer ordinary corporate rat-race competition; this was malicious overtime work!
He had to curb this unhealthy trend within the company immediately!
Promptly, Boss Chen issued a new directive:
"We must strictly enforce the company's attendance management! Resolutely forbid arriving early and leaving late; no one is allowed to work a single minute extra!"
When other companies tightened their attendance policies, it was usually a sign that they were going downhill.
Yet Chen Mu was tightening attendance just as his business was taking off—and doing so in reverse, strictly forbidding people from arriving early or staying late.
At that exact moment, Chen Mu suddenly felt that this ghostly apocalyptic world was being played by him in... a rather peculiar way.