Chapter 4: Unemployed

Du Qiu got out of bed in haste, quickly put on clothes, and freshened up. He heated some pork buns from the refrigerator in the microwave and ate them with some yogurt.

Subsequently, he drove to work at the company.

After completing his Ph.D., Du Qiu turned down several partnership offers and joined a startup company that develops autonomous cars, where he has been working for nearly a year.

The field of autonomous driving has been heavily hyped by capital investment in the past two years, and various startups had been able to easily obtain funding until the second half of last year.

Dr. Du Qiu specializes in machine perception and, having a certain obsession with autonomous driving, he easily joined the company.

However, since the end of last year, the investment climate for autonomous driving has changed, and a proverbial winter has approached quietly. Most autonomous driving products have not yet formed a viable market.

Dr. Du Qiu’s company naturally fell into an unprecedented crisis, and in fact, the company began to default on salaries last month.

If it weren’t for Du Qiu’s father’s accident last month, and the crystal pillow causing him to dream about stars and seas every night, he probably would have already switched jobs.

Nevertheless, since he hadn’t changed jobs, he couldn’t afford to be late for work.

Unfortunately, there was heavy traffic today, and by the time he reached the building in the techno park where his company was located, it was already 9:12 AM, making him 12 minutes late.

However, as he walked into the lobby on the first floor of the building, Du Qiu felt that the atmosphere was off. The usually stern and upright security guards were now chatting with the cleaners, paying no attention to the people coming in and out of the building.

Indistinctly, Du Qiu thought he heard the company’s name, Luxing Technology.

With a sense of confusion, Du Qiu took the elevator to the fifth floor, where the company was located, and got a shock as soon as the elevator doors opened.

From the elevator area to the front door of the company, there was a dense crowd of people.

The entire corridor leading to the company door was jam-packed with colleagues, and if not for Du Qiu being fairly tall at 1.82 meters, he probably wouldn’t have noticed that the company’s door wasn’t even open.

“Hey, Dr. Du has arrived. Did General Manager Yan run away?”

“Dr. Du, the company still owes us two months’ salary, and they suddenly announce cessation of business. When will these funds be paid to us?”

“Boss, you finally made it. I thought you knew the inside story and had taken off early.”

…

As a small middle manager leading a research and development group, Du Qiu was immediately surrounded with various questions and greetings as soon as he exited the elevator.

People made way for him to approach the company door, and “Liu Yaofeng,” the capable electrical engineer Liu Yaofeng from his group, called him “Boss.”

“What’s going on, Liu Yaofeng?” asked Du Qiu, even though he had a rough idea of what had happened but still wanted to know the full story.

“Boss, looks like you’ve been kept in the dark too,” said Liu Yaofeng.

Liu Yaofeng explained the situation, and Du Qiu understood what was happening.

This morning, when everyone arrived at work, they found the company door locked with a notice posted on it.

The notice stated that due to a break in the company’s capital chain, the company had gone bankrupt. All procedures would follow the bankruptcy process, and employees were instructed to look for other options. The owed salaries were also included in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Although most employees knew the company was struggling, the management had been adamantly claiming that they were negotiating some venture capital and that the B round of investment would be secured soon.

Who could have anticipated that just one month after defaulting on salaries, and only a third into the current month, the company would shut its doors so abruptly and decisively?

Du Qiu looked around and saw a few dozen people crowded there, but none of the senior leaders were in sight.

Oh, that’s not quite right. It seemed that the Vice Director of R&D, Sun Hongming, was surrounded by people near the door.

“Old Sun has also been discarded. It’s what happens when you don’t get along with ‘Mad Cow,’ right?” said Liu Yaofeng, noticing Du Qiu’s gaze towards Sun Hongming.

“Mad Cow” was the nickname of Feng Niubin, the director of R&D, who came from a state-owned enterprise. Feng’s management skills weren’t great, but he was good at summarizing his subordinates’ achievements as his own, leading the founders to believe he understood management.

Of course, the most important factor was that “Mad Cow” was the big brother-in-law of the company chairman, a fact that most of the company didn’t know.

Du Qiu had also found out by chance, hence he had advised Sun Hongming to avoid conflicts with “Mad Cow.”

Although Sun Hongming was middle-aged and came from a technical management background, he was very astute about the ways of the world. He had been rather tolerant and deferential to “Mad Cow.”

However, because of Sun’s genuine ability, one of the deputy general directors above appreciated him, which made “Mad Cow” jealous and see him as a threat to his position. Naturally, “Mad Cow” started throwing difficulties and obstacles towards Sun Hongming.

Even though Du Qiu had been working at Luxing Technology for less than a year, he had already fostered good relationships with several people there, Sun Hongming being one of them.

“Stop speculating. The company is shutting down, and we’ve all become unemployed. Who isn’t discarded now?” Du Qiu interrupted Liu Yaofeng’s banter.

“Boss, do you have any thoughts?” Liu Yaofeng looked at Du Qiu with some hope.

He knew that “Boss” had some tricks up his sleeve, having sideline projects and even developing a massive piece of software on his own.

“Yeah, right now, I just want to get inside and retrieve my external hard drive. It’s got a lot of important data on it,” Du Qiu said, looking towards the door.

“No way. The police have been called, and they’ve already come. They said they don’t handle labor disputes. Plus, the door has a code lock; Sister Yuan tried it, and they’ve already changed the code.”

“Hello, Dr. Big, stop chatting and think of a way to get our unpaid salaries,” a woman said as she squeezed through the crowd and patted Du Qiu’s arm.

“Sister Yuan, you’re back. What did the park office say? Can they open the door?” Liu Yaofeng inquired.

Yuan Minhua shook her head and said: “Forget it, the people at the park office refuse to help. They’re worried we’ll take away the company’s office supplies if we go inside. They also said the company owed several months’ rent and utilities, and the office equipment inside should offset the debt to the park.”

Yuan Minhua was the head of the company’s administrative and human resources department, and as Du Qiu was hired through her efforts, they always had a good relationship.

Du Qiu stroked his chin and said, “This company is too unscrupulous. Even if they were going to close, they should have informed us beforehand and let us take our personal belongings.”

Du Qiu’s comment resonated with everyone present.

It turned out that those waiting had significant personal items left inside the company; otherwise, they would have left when the police had.

The administrative director and the sales director were there, and seeing that the police wouldn’t make a case, they left helplessly.

The police had warned that they couldn’t cause a public disturbance, so many people left.

Du Qiu thought for a moment, then took out his phone and called Captain Su Jianming of the second team of the Criminal Police Brigade.

“Captain Su, are you free? I’ve run into a bit of trouble. Could you come by the company?”

“It’s not a big deal, just need a witness.”

“Have Xu come? Sure, if you can also get the local police to come, that would be even better.”

…