I am not a literary giant

There's no such thing as a prolonged cold war between middle-aged couples. Before long, Wang Zixu was lying in bed with his wife in his arms. The only thing missing from their usual reconciliation process was the payment of their dues.

The wife's understanding of preparing for pregnancy was simply counting down the days, giving birth on the most crucial day, and nothing else before that. So they skipped that step and went straight to the final stage of the reconciliation ceremony.

"Actually, I have my faults too." The wife started to look for her own problems, which meant that she had completely calmed down. "I thought about it carefully later, and what you said at the time was indeed reasonable. Sometimes you have to be a little careful in the same industry."

"Hmm." The prince squinted and made a sound through his nose.

His wife said, "However, you should still go and meet Raymond Lam. He often publishes articles in local magazines. If you go and have a chat with him, you might be able to find some connections. I'm not saying you should use connections or backdoors, but even good wine needs advertising. If you have a good chat with Raymond Lam, you might get a few articles published in Xihe Literature and Art. That would be a great honor."

Prince Xu remained silent. The most important thing between middle-aged couples is mutual compromise. His wife had just compromised; now it was his turn. This was the final step in the reconciliation ceremony. But he wasn't really keen on compromising.

It wasn't that he didn't want to earn money from *Xihe Literature*. He had heard the name Lin Feng twice—once from a colleague and once from his wife—both of whom praised his literary talent. However, neither of them knew much about literature.

He had read Lin Feng's works, and they were only of the average quality expected of a local literary magazine like *Xihe Literature*. He considered himself inferior to Lin Feng. When Zuo Ziliang first came to him, he was praising a great talent from a small place. However, he had secretly submitted a manuscript to *Xihe Literature*, but had received no response to date. He didn't know why.

So he felt a little unbalanced. Was it because he didn't pay homage to Raymond Lam that he couldn't get published in "Xihe Literature"?

He glanced back at his wife and noticed that she was staring at him intently.

"Okay, let's talk about it tomorrow. I'm going to sleep now."

……

Wang Zixu's lectures were effective. The next day, there was a noticeable increase in discussions about literature in the speech therapists' group chat.

Many people are very interested in the method of "shaping the other person in conversation" that Wang Zixu mentioned, and some people have even tried to use it in speech therapy, but the effect is not satisfactory. According to those who have used it, it still relies on scripts.

Wang Zixu realized that not everyone had the same deep reserves and foundation as him, and could use his skills so readily. He didn't have the narrow-minded idea of ​​hoarding his secrets, but he was still quite pleased that the power of his unique techniques was being recognized.

He was also pleased that his efforts had brought more attention to literature. He felt that writers like Hemingway did not receive the recognition they deserved in China, and that people preferred watching short videos to reading books.

Some people even said they had already ordered several of Hemingway's most famous books, such as "The Old Man and the Sea," hoping to learn some dating tips.

Wang Zixu made no attempt to correct these misunderstandings. You won't learn any dating skills from *The Old Man and the Sea*, but you will learn how to woo fish. That book only has fish, no women.

However, he was happy to see more people reading Hemingway, regardless of their initial reasons. He believed that the tough man's boundless spirit would eventually win them over.

Just as Wang Zixu was scrolling through his chat history, a colleague peeked in and, seeing Wang Zixu, exclaimed breathlessly, "Xiao Wang, why are you still sitting in the office?"

Prince Xu looked up: "What's wrong?"

"Tsk, didn't you get the notification? We're about to be inspected! Hurry up, get to the meeting room, the boss is about to assign tasks."

He jolted, stood up, and rushed to the conference room with his colleagues.

Wang Zixu's work is not busy, except when he is preparing for inspections.

"Welcoming inspection" is short for "preparing for inspection." As we all know, leaders generally don't know what work their subordinates have done, and higher-level organizations don't know how much work their subordinate departments have accomplished. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct inspections of subordinate departments every year to assess their work results over the past year.

Only after passing this hurdle can a year's work be considered officially certified by superiors. Failure to pass the inspection will result in varying degrees of punishment, depending on the severity of the offense. However, even the mildest punishment is enough to cause trouble for the department head and can affect the entire unit's year-end bonuses.

Since it concerns the leaders' hats and the workers' wages, the inspection is naturally taken very seriously.

Although the unit is a low-risk department with little chance of financial problems, various issues always arise during inspections, especially with some work-related accounts.

Nowadays, it's emphasized that work must be documented. No matter what you do, you need to create a ledger and include it in the archives. This is naturally much more convenient for inspectors, who can easily find out what work has been done and what meetings have been held by simply looking through the documents. However, this makes the work itself a nightmare for the people doing the work.

Writing ledgers also takes effort, and a lot of it. Some things are easier said than done, and some things are easier done than said. How to balance the difficulties of the work, the care of the organization, and one's own abilities is the eternal challenge of writing ledgers.

Besides writing logs, there are photos, meeting minutes, various documents, signatures... a whole ton of work materials to prepare. Sometimes, after working half a day, I still have to spend half a day preparing the materials. So every time an inspection is coming up, there's always a bunch of materials I've forgotten to write.

In the days leading up to each inspection, the unit mobilizes all staff to go through all the year's documents and records from top to bottom, correcting mistakes and filling in omissions. This is often a huge undertaking.

Upon arriving at the meeting room, my colleagues were chattering away, all talking about the upcoming inspection. This year's inspection was coming much earlier than usual, and it was also a busy time of year, so everyone was complaining.

"Quiet down, quiet down, quiet down!"

The leader slammed his hand on the table, and only then did the chatter cease. He picked up his water glass, took a sip, and said:

"Everyone knows about the inspection. The office will be responsible for making a list of the materials to be prepared, and all departments need to participate. Each department will take responsibility for one section, and the office will be responsible for checking and signing off on the materials. All materials must be up to standard. Shichao, do you have any objections?"

The office manager, Xu Shichao, immediately nodded in agreement. The leader nodded and said, "Then it's clear the office will take the lead in this matter. Everyone needs to cooperate actively; this concerns everyone's well-being. Please bear with us for a little while."

In the meeting room, a girl suddenly raised her hand and said, "Boss, there are only two of us in our department, and my department head is on leave. I can't manage alone."

This girl's name is Guo Ranran, and she is the only person born in the 00s in the company.

The leader touched his water glass and said, "You've taken leave?" He frowned, thinking about how to resolve the situation.

Xu Shichao quickly added, "This situation does exist in our unit. Last year, the tasks were assigned by department. Some departments had a lot of people and finished quickly, while others had few people and almost failed to complete their tasks."

The manager said, "Are you really that naive? Can't you distribute tasks according to the number of people? Larger departments should get more, and smaller departments should get less!"

Xu Shichao smiled awkwardly and said, "That's what I think, but some comrades have objections. They feel that they have been assigned too much content and others have been assigned too little, so they are upset."

The leader raised an eyebrow, banged on the table, and said, "Who has a problem? Who is it? Give me your name and have him stand up and report to me."

Xu Shichao quickly said, "That all happened last year, it's all in the past."

The leader said, "Why didn't you tell me this last year? Comrades, let me emphasize this again. Preparing for the inspection is not the responsibility of any one individual. I know that our unit has mixed positions and staffing, some of our colleagues are on permanent positions and lack enthusiasm, and some older colleagues are about to retire."

"But failing the inspection will affect everyone's welfare. So each of you must take responsibility. If you have any objections, no stalling or passing the buck, report them to me immediately. I'll see if Xu Shichao's task allocation was unfair, or if you all lack responsibility!"

After saying that, he glanced at Wang Zixu with a sharp look in his eyes, which made Wang Zixu feel very wronged.

He is a public sector employee, and it seems the leader mistakenly thought Xu Shichao was referring to him.

Heaven have mercy, he's the kind of hard-working ox who always does any job he can and never makes excuses.

However, the leader did not give him a chance to explain.