Chapter 52: Recruiting

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

After deciding what his start-up business was aiming at, what he needed to do next was recruit! Obviously, he couldn’t do this all on his own; he had to hire some people to develop the robot vacuum cleaners with him.

He only had a rough idea about mechanics designs; he understood the theory and was definitely capable of hands-on operation, but building a robot was another story. He couldn’t do it by himself. AI Alice was extremely helpful in terms of software, but for the hardware, Chen Jin had to deal with it. He must recruit a team.

Just as he was about to post recruitment advertisements all over the internet, a headline caught his attention…

Six School Teams Fight Against One Another as the National Robotics Competition Enters Finals

As soon as he finished reading the news article, he booked himself a flight and off he went, to the Northwestern Industrial University in West Coast City.

…

Three days later, Chen Jin came home exhausted. There were six young people that got off the plane with him; four men and two women. Being in an international city like Shang Hai for the first time, their faces were filled with happiness and excitement, sharing with each other about everything and anything that was happening.

“WOW! Shang Hai! The city is massive!”

“Yeah, I can feel the dampness coming from the ocean. It’s humid here, which is better than our dry weather back home; excellent for my skin,” said the woman with pimples all over her face.

“Exactly! Let us all follow Mr. Chen and fulfill ourselves professionally in this city!”

“Zhang Zhi Wei! Do you have your backpack with you? Don’t lose our championship trophy and the certificate of merit!” said the rather good-looking man walking in the front.

“Yes, I’ve got them. Both the trophy and the certificate are in my backpack. I won’t lose them. See?” Zhang Zhi Wei lifted his backpack high up so his captain Su You Jie could see.

Chen Jin couldn’t help but smile as he listened to their conversation. Exactly. He had employed the team that won the championship at the National Robotics Competition and tricked them into coming to Shang Hai with him. Yes. “Tricked,” because there was a great number of big companies fighting against each other, trying to get this team to work for them. There were large state-owned businesses; Foreign companies from Fortune Global 500; Private-owned companies that offered $75k annual income; and even a state-owned military company that built tanks offered excellent salary and benefits like housing, cars, and great retirement care.

Chen Jin had nothing to compete with all those large companies, but he won. He beat all the competitors and won the team over. How? What was the secret? Well, it was nothing special. Just money. He offered a ton of money. He was determined to win the team at any cost. He had even solved two major problems for them in three days.

For instance, the captain Su You Jie’s girlfriend, who was the most beautiful girl in his school and a gorgeous flight attendant, had been really fussy with him lately because some rich man had been pursuing her; she’d been giving the captain the cold shoulder, complaining about how poor he was. Su You Jie wanted to save their relationship and win her back. Chen Jin put on an act for the captain’s benefit, taking him to the 4S Car Shop along with the girlfriend, and purchased a fifty-thousand-dollar car. (It was his salary advance, of course.)

They then signed the contract that promised to give him an annual salary of $150k in front of his pretty little girlfriend. She, without any hesitation, changed her attitude completely and had a big smile on her face afterward, treating him sweeter than ever before.

Chen Jin shook his head with a heavy sigh. He didn’t quite understand why someone so talented like Su You Jie would fall for a gold digger like her.

Another example was when the deputy captain Zhou Kun had a financial crisis at home. His father had stage 4 uremia and needed a kidney transplant, but they couldn’t afford the medical expenses, which were at least $150k. To help solve the problem, the whole team worked their heads off to win the championship so they could use the prize money to pay for his father’s medical expenses. However, $45k was not enough; they needed $105k more to cover everything.

So, in response to every single company that came forward, Zhou Kun asked for a $105k salary advance; if they agreed to it, he would do anything for the company for the rest of his life. No company agreed to such a deal. They were not charities, after all.

“I’ll pay for it!” Chen Jin stepped up, as countless eyes stared at him in disbelief.

“I’ will give you a $105k salary advance and arrange your father for surgery, as long as you sign the contract.” He handed him two sets of documents.

“Done!” Zhou Kun signed it without the slightest hesitation.

And just like that, Chen Jin successfully won the two best members of the team: the captain and the deputy. Seeing the $3,000 salary they would be making if they passed probation, the remaining four members, Zhang Zhi Wei, Xiao Sa, Wu Lei, and Yang Qiu Ying, also signed the contract promptly. The entire team now belonged to him.

And soon, Zhou Kun’s father was transferred to the best hospital in Shang Hai. In short, this recruitment trip had cost Chen Jin a fortune.

…

Chen Jin booked a luxury hotel for the team to stay at. The next morning, Chen Jin took them to the small factory in Bao Shan Industrial Park and showed them around.

All six of them were speechless. They looked at Chen Jin, tilting their heads in confusion. This was where they’d be working at? A factory with no facilities whatsoever?

“Ahem…” Chen Jin made some noises to draw their attention and explained, “No, the place does not look legit. But don’t worry, all the facilities and equipment will arrive shortly. Anything you need. Y’all have heard of Jobs, right? Or Sergey, the co-founder of Google? They started their businesses in a shady garage. But what we have isn’t a garage. It’s better than that.” Chen Jin had to tell them some Chick Soup story, seeing no one was impressed by the place.

Su You Jie shrugged his shoulders, looking indifferent. Those guys had all sorts of tools in their garages. Here, we literally have nothing. Nonetheless, they’d already signed the contract and agreed to work for him. They couldn’t turn their back on him now. After all, that was how start-up businesses began. You start from scratch.

Throughout the next few days, Chen Jin listened to Su You Jie and Zhou Kun’s advice and placed multiple orders from various factories, purchasing all the necessary equipment, including a small CNC machine tool, a press machine tool, a laser processing machine, a cutting machine, a polisher, a welding machine, and a large amount of circuit boards, as well as electronic components, control switches, and wires…all of which cost him a total of $2.7 million.

Not only did the equipment come in all kinds of designs, but in medium to high quality, too. They did not choose the cheap ones to cut down on the expenses, which convinced the team even more than their boss was a true entrepenuer.

In the meantime, working together like that had settled and eased the team’s anxious mind; as the equipment arrived one after another, they began to fulfill their duties, entering the first stage of the technology they had planned on developing.

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