The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 425 Workplace Guide
After the meal, Shi Dadan and Zhao Cheng'an even added each other on WeChat. On the way back from Qinhuai, Shi Dadan went through all of Zhao Cheng'an's WeChat Moments posts from the past three months and liked them one by one, demonstrating his impeccable social etiquette.

Five minutes after Qin Huai arrived home, he received a call from An Youyou. On the phone, An Youyou expressed her gratitude to the Yunzhong Cafeteria in a humble and humble tone, thanking the company for giving her this valuable opportunity for further training.

After a few minutes of insincere pleasantries, they inquired in detail about the business trip allowance, whether there was a transportation allowance and meal allowance, and whether there was a mandatory overtime requirement, such as the legendary Zhiweiju apprentices working no less than 12 hours a day.

You could tell they were very cautious and valued this exchange highly.

Upon learning that her workload and salary were both at maximum, An Youyou excitedly asked if she could delay her departure by a few days, as she needed a few days to sublet her current apartment.

Qin Huai readily agreed, telling An Youyou to arrange everything in Shanshi before coming to Hangzhou. Considering that An Youyou had never been on a business trip before, Qin Huai gave her a few extra tips, sharing some tricks for getting along with new colleagues on business trips. An Youyou took notes like a treasure, almost recording the conversation.

After hanging up the phone, Qin Huai noticed that Shi Dadan was looking at him with a complicated expression.

"What's wrong? Did you eat too many dumplings tonight and your stomach is a little upset? Do you want me to go to the hospital with you?" Qin Huai asked with concern.

“No.” Shi Dadan’s expression remained unchanged. “Although I only had a proper job in my first life, I think the techniques you just taught me might not be very applicable to the three-legged toad.”

"Xiao Qin, have you never had a job before?"

Qin Huai was about to deny it outright, saying how could he not have worked, he'd been doing it since he was a child...

Hey, it seems like he's never actually had a job.

Qin Huai returned to Qin Family Breakfast Shop to help out right after graduating from university. He was even more of a "young master" than the young master himself. Master Qin's name was known throughout the entire Sanmalu community.

Not long after inheriting the family business, Qin Huai inherited an even larger one and became his own boss. His time working could be considered working, perhaps during his time at Huang's restaurant, but even then, the work was very casual. Qin Huai was treated like a master chef, and even a close disciple like Wang Jun was specifically chosen by Huang Shengli to assist him.

Now, at Zhiweiju, it goes without saying that every chef there enjoys top-notch benefits, a world of difference from working a regular job.

Qin Huai became increasingly alarmed as he thought about it. Oh no, this had touched on a blind spot in his knowledge; he had never actually worked a job.

"So, many of what I just told An Youyou were not quite right?" Qin Huai humbly asked for leave.

Shi Dadan wasn't entirely sure either: "I can't say for sure, since I'm not very good at working either. But I can help An Youyou write a list of things to keep in mind when getting along with colleagues at work. You can just say that you prepared it specifically for her, and it should come in handy."

"I've seen this girl a few times in the kitchen when I eat at the Cloud Cafeteria. She's a bit dull and learns whatever she's taught. She's only really good at things like money. But all three-legged toads are like that. An Youyou is already considered very smart. I knew a three-legged toad that successfully transcended its tribulation. It begged for food for 30 years before it encountered a famine and starved to death, which is how it succeeded in transcending its tribulation."

Qin Huai: ...?
So, do they have a tribulation-crossing textbook inside the three-legged toads, called "The Beggar's Manual," which teaches each three-legged toad that hasn't yet transcended tribulation how to beg for food?

However, An Youyou's ambitions were a bit higher. While others only cared about their own livelihood, An Youyou preferred to gather followers, which is why she failed her tribulation.

Qin Huai indicated that he understood Shi Dadan's feelings, which were...

"Old Shi, are you sure the work precautions you wrote are useful?"

It wasn't that Qin Huai didn't trust Shi Dadan, but based on Shi Dadan's account and Qin Huai's memory of Shi Dadan's reputation at work... Qin Huai felt that Shi Dadan was even less capable at working than himself.

“It should work,” Shi Dadan said. “I’ve listed all the things I did when I was working in my first life and put them all as prohibited items. That should serve as a warning to some extent.”

Considering that An Youyou's work instructions were urgent, Shi Dadan worked through the night and didn't go out to find food the next afternoon. He finally finished writing the instructions and sent them to Qin Huai before dinner time.

Qin Huai glanced at the document Shi Dadan had sent; there was an average of one typo for every 20 characters. He wasn't sure if the high error rate was due to voice-to-text conversion or if Shi Dadan was simply bad at typing; Qin Huai leaned towards the former, since Shi Dadan almost never typed on WeChat, only sending voice messages.

His claim that he was allergic to reading was no exaggeration. Qin Huai once suspected that he was not only allergic to reading, but also to words.

Kang was indeed very sincere, but he had a bad memory. If Qin Huai didn't think of something and didn't bring it up, Shi Dadan would never remember to mention it. For example, he had traveled all over the world, something a normal person would boast about, but Shi Dadan thought it was nothing and didn't mention it at all.
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"So, Su Qian's egg tarts were still not very good today, which made Chef Zhou irritable. Xiao Tan's four-happiness flower rolls were just for show, and he was caught by Chef Zhou chatting with Zhao Cheng'an while he was slacking off."

"This directly resulted in Xiao Tan having to practice for 3 hours extra today and missing dinner with us, and Xiao Zhao also missed dinner because he was scolded for slacking off." At the same dumpling shop, at the same table, with the same 14 plates of dumplings of different flavors and three layers of pickled vegetables, Qin Huai and Shi Dadan sat facing each other eating dinner and talking about what happened at Zhiweiju today.

“Zhao Cheng’an probably wasn’t scolded for slacking off. Master Zhou is very tolerant when it comes to teaching. For Zhao Cheng’an, chatting while making pastries doesn’t count as slacking off. Not letting him chat would actually affect his pastry making,” Qin Huai explained. “I feel that he was scolded because Master Zhou found out that I was making auspicious cloud pattern pastries today.”

"How are your auspicious cloud pattern pastries?" Shi Dadan's focus instantly shifted from Tan Weian to the pastries.

"I think it's alright." Qin Huai tugged at the corner of his mouth. "It's probably not just me being overconfident. I used to think that making puff pastries was quite difficult, including shortbread, so I wasn't very willing to do it and made relatively few."

"But when I tried it today, I found it wasn't that difficult. I felt it was even better than when I made egg tarts the other day."

"Also, didn't Zhao Cheng'an slack off today and make a batch of dumplings for you? I've never seen him make dumpling filling before, but today I suddenly realized that he has a little habit of making dumpling filling that's very similar to mine."

"What habits?" Shi Dadan asked.

"When we make meat dumplings, we usually mix and season the other ingredients first, and then add the meat filling, season it, and mix it again."

Shi Dadan didn't quite understand: "Will it taste better this way? Just like some fish need to be raised in cold water, because the flesh of cold-water fish is more tender."

"There shouldn't be much difference, just a bit more troublesome. I have this habit because when I was a child in the children's welfare home, Director Qin would ask everyone to make dumplings. They were usually filled with cabbage and some minced meat, and we rarely had proper meat dumplings."

"Meat dumplings are something we can only eat to our heart's content during holidays or Chinese New Year. I'm good at making dumpling fillings; I've been making dumpling fillings for the orphanage since I was in second grade."

"At that time, I thought meat was particularly expensive, and I was afraid that it would be too salty and ruin the meat filling, so I seasoned the cheaper filling ingredients like cabbage and radish first. I would ask the dean to taste it and see if the saltiness was right before adding the meat filling and seasoning it again."

"Looking back now, it was definitely unnecessary, but at the time I thought it was the safest way. Dean Qin couldn't cook at all, so he thought it was some kind of secret recipe of mine and never stopped me. As a result, I developed a habit of making dumpling fillings this way, even the fillings for Four Happiness Dumplings were made this way."

"Then why does Zhao Cheng'an also do this?" Shi Dadan asked.

“I asked him today, and he said that when he first became Master Zhou’s apprentice, he liked to invent and create, and was very innovative. He thought he was a genius and would definitely be able to create many pastry-making techniques that no one had done before.”

"This method of preparing the filling is one of the techniques he created. At first, he thought that this redundant method of preparing the filling would definitely make the filling more delicious, but later he found that it did not. However, since other techniques he created would make the desserts worse, this one at least had no impact, so he has been doing it this way, and now it has become a habit that he can't break."

Shi DaDa:......

Shi Dadan neither understood nor respected it, so he could only silently eat a couple of bites of dumplings.

"Oh right, Zhao Cheng'an can't come today. He's getting scolded and can't touch his phone right now. He asked me to tell you that he'll be making several different kinds of dumplings in the next couple of days. See which ones you like. He's on vacation in four days. I'll have to see if Chef Zhou is available then. If Chef Zhou isn't available, I'll have to take vacation too. Right now, my main job is to watch Zhao Cheng'an make the pastries."

"On his day off, he cooked and invited the two of us to his house for dinner. The main dish was dumplings, and the side dishes were some of his specialties."

"Old Shi, if you have any favorite snacks, you can send them to him on WeChat now, and he will make them at home."

“Sure,” Shi Dadan said cheerfully. “I’ll make a list and send it to him when I get back.”

"I'll bring some fruit over then. What does Xiao Zhao like to eat? If all else fails, I'll buy a big fruit basket with everything."

Qin Huai: ...

Our gift-giving skills are really about the same. You clearly wrote a note in the instructions for An Youyou that you shouldn't just send fruit when giving gifts to leaders and colleagues, especially not just two apples.

When it came to my own hands-on experience, I simply grabbed a large fruit basket and got it done.

As expected of you, Kang.

(End of this chapter)