You can see, hear, and experience many ghost stories. A place this good shouldn’t be known only to me.

Back in the days when I was “trying to make my presence felt” at the company, the most baffling and troublesome thing was having to help with campus recruitment every graduation season, persuading inexperienced students to join the company. Come to think of it, I must have plucked quite a few seedlings myself. Then I watched almost all those seedlings disappear within a few months, knowing in my heart that next year I’d have to go pull up seedlings again.

Usually, when newcomers joined, the company would emphasize its commitment to diverse development. In practice, however, not long after they were assigned to a department, I would hear that they were taken out every day to eat and drink, watch movies, and waste their lives, as if they were undergoing an alternative kind of training.

What was more bizarre over the past few years was that the seedlings increasingly seemed like disposable chopsticks: wherever there was a staffing shortage, they were shoved in, only to disappear again shortly afterward. Sometimes I really wondered whether pulling up those seedlings in the first place had been a thankless exercise.

Still, the supervisor was actually quite “friendly,” occasionally cooking and bringing food to share, which was probably one way of boosting morale. It was just a little awkward that we had to ask the company for reimbursement every time. Also, if you ask colleagues to help with purchases, remember to give them the money...... (I have to admit, some of the food really was pretty good.)