God's imitator

Chapter 113 Categories of Problems

After knocking, Lee In-sook entered the president's office.

However, this time Su Xiucen did not seem to hear the knocking. She was standing by the large floor-to-ceiling window in the president's office, gazing absently at the view outside.

The CEO's office has an excellent view of the entire venue, so the scenes seen in the corridor leading to the outside are even clearer from the CEO's office.

"Xiao Li? Is something the matter? I got a little engrossed in what I was reading." Su Xiucen sat down again at the large CEO's desk.

Lee In-sook also sat down in the chair opposite the desk.

"Aunt Su, let me tell you about the situation in the last round of the game."

"Although we completed the market research and earned 5 minutes of visa processing time, we still have to lay off employees given the current reduction in company revenue."

"This is also to further verify the game mechanics: we need to see if the frequency of employees reporting data will change after the layoffs."

Lee In-sook was somewhat worried that Su Hsiu-tsen would be resistant to any form of layoffs.

So, after quickly explaining, she added, "Aunt Su, these employees are all virtual; they're just game data."

Su Xiucen wasn't as resistant as she had imagined, but she clearly still had objections.

"If you've really thought it through and insist on making cuts, I'll approve it."

"But think about it again, has it really come to the point where layoffs are absolutely necessary?"

Su Xiucen turned her name tag over: "It's written very clearly here, we're playing a role."

Lee In-sook nodded: "That's right. We're just playing a role. We're not really becoming presidents and executives, and it's not like we're really laying off employees who can't support their families."

Su Xiucen shook her head: "No, no, I don't think that's what it means."

"Since it's a role, then you have to play it seriously."

"The economy is in a downturn right now. If you lay off these employees, they will have a hard time finding jobs again."

"I see there's still the option of pay cuts, right? If you want to reduce expenses, layoffs and pay cuts are pretty much the same, aren't they?"

"Let's all take a pay cut first, everyone should take a small one, so that no one loses their job, okay?"

After thinking about it, Li Renshu realized that Su Xiucen's statement made sense.

Laying off four people or taking a pay cut for everyone would save the same amount of money, but from a moral standpoint, it would be better not to lay off any employees.

Judging from Su Xiucen's statement, if Li Renshu insists on layoffs, she will most likely agree.

But after thinking about it, Lee In-sook said, "Okay, then let's all take a pay cut first."

"But Aunt Su, you also need to understand that salary reductions are not unlimited. According to the game mechanics, we can only reduce these employees' original salaries by a maximum of 30%."

"If at some point in the future, a 30% reduction in all staff still cannot maintain the health of the company's cash flow, then we will still have to lay off employees."

Su Xiucen sighed: "Okay, if it really comes to that, I will agree to layoffs."

Time was running out, so Li Renshu quickly left the president's office and headed to the outer area with Xu Tong.

……

Fu Chen stared at the computer screen, trying his best to memorize the information in each pop-up window.

After discussing with Su Xiucen, Li Renshu decided to temporarily replace the original layoff plan with a company-wide salary reduction.

Therefore, the number of employees remained unchanged this month; instead, all employees were subject to a 10% pay cut as a preliminary test.

[Company No. 17]

[March Company Account Balance: 90,000 minutes of visa processing time] [April Estimated Income: 70,000 minutes of visa processing time]

[April Estimated Employee Compensation Expenses: 72000 minutes of visa processing time]

At present, there is no apparent impact of salary reductions on the company's mechanisms.

This is reasonable, given the current economic downturn. As long as people don't lose their jobs, a pay cut isn't particularly unacceptable for most.

However, Fu Chen also needs to pay special attention to whether the probability of virtual employees providing data will decrease accordingly after the salary reduction.

If the output is reduced, for example, from 3-4 items per round to 2-3 items, directly leading to failure in market research activities, then we must carefully consider whether the money saved by the salary reduction is worthwhile.

Finally, the sounds of doors opening and employee ID cards being swiped to pass through the turnstiles came from outside, which meant that Li Renshu and Xu Tong had returned.

Fu Chen mentally reviewed the three data points he had just seen, reinforced his memory, and then got up to go out and greet them.

"I recorded three data points, and compared to before, it's not very clear whether there has been a significant change in probability."

"How's it going over there?"

Li Renshu sighed: "It failed. But fortunately, we adopted a relatively safe plan and did not make any additional investments, so it did not cause greater losses."

"The other party added 2, which means I made an extra 2."

Fu Chen was taken aback: "Didn't you say it was in the field of sociology? What kind of question is this?"

Li Renshu briefly recalled: "The question was about how many office workers in a city of 300 million people might order takeout via their mobile phones every day."

Fu Chen asked in confusion, "This question seems to be no different from the previous ones."

Li Renshu nodded: "That's right, there's no essential difference, because no matter what field you choose, the way to play this game is to determine a piece of data that you don't know by breaking it down logically and estimating its magnitude."

"Although these four areas seem to have different focuses, they are all under the same set of rules."

"Currently, we can roughly distinguish the differences between four types of problems:"

"Science-related questions may involve relatively basic scientific knowledge and a slightly larger amount of calculation."
"Social issues may be directly related to socio-economic activities;"

"Questions related to arts and culture mainly focus on the arts and entertainment industry;"

"The main difference between livelihood issues and social issues is that livelihood issues are closer to the micro-level of daily life, and common sense can be used to determine the answers better."

Fu Chen considered it carefully for a moment: "But this kind of problem should not be easy for the 8th Community either, right?"
"Did they just happen to get this data?"

"In the next game, we might have to rely on luck. The side whose employees on the computer guess the questions most correctly will have a greater advantage."

Lee In-sook looked at him: "Maybe... it's not about luck."

I suspect there is a possibility that:
"This game will split the data that is directly related to the problem into two halves, one for each of our two companies."

"If it were purely random, and someone got lucky and guessed the question every time, then the game would be very unfair."

Xu Tong asked in confusion, "Didn't we say that we shouldn't consider fairness in these games?"

Lee In-sook shook her head: "No, no, no, we're considering it from the perspective of copycats. The goals of the games are different, so the level of fairness is naturally different as well."

"If it's to complete a trial for someone, then it's definitely unfair, because it always involves exploiting some human weaknesses and creating necessary information gaps."

"But for competitive games like this, which use relatively rational mechanisms like estimating data, basic fairness must still be guaranteed."

"Otherwise, wouldn't the designers have just let us and Community 8 play rock-paper-scissors to decide the winner? Why bother with this kind of estimation?"

(End of this chapter)