Yeah, when Accountant Yang thought about this, she couldn’t help but get excited.
She was older than Zhou Lina and had already had a child by then, and still made mistakes.
There’s no reason why a girl Zhou Lina’s age wouldn’t make mistakes.
Heh, as long as she screws up, it’s her chance, Accountant Yang thought, suddenly feeling much better.
That’s right, costs are very important, if something isn’t calculated correctly, it can lead to serious problems.
Zhou Lina didn’t have time to concern herself with Accountant Yang’s thoughts; she was truly swamped.
She had been wondering how to learn cost accounting, only to be handed a thick stack of reports, "Can these be done in three days?"
"You want them by Wednesday after work?" Oh my God, Zhou Lina felt faint.
If it were computerized accounting, it wouldn’t be a big deal, really could be done with ease, but the problem was this wasn’t done by computer, but by human brain.
Even if she was quick at math, it wasn’t supposed to be , especially without a calculator.
"What tool should I use to calculate?" It couldn’t possibly be paper accounting.
It was only then that Accountant Feng remembered something, that Zhou Lina hadn’t studied finance and thus didn’t know about the finance department’s "dining tool."
"I’ll take you to get an abacus," Accountant Feng took Zhou Lina to logistics to get an abacus.
"From now on, use this to crunch numbers."
An abacus, of course Zhou Lina knew what this was, it was the calculation tool from before calculators.
She just never imagined that one day she would have to use it to tally numbers.
"It’s quite easy," Accountant Feng demonstrated briefly after which, "you just need to practice a bit."
She really was busy, about to fly off the handle busy, "Also, if you work late, you can take some back with you to work on."
"Remember, I need them by Wednesday after work." Even though she knew Zhou Lina wasn’t proficient with the abacus, work hours couldn’t be changed.
What the heck? Oh my God, Zhou Lina really had to hold back from cursing, as people usually get some training before starting a job, but she got none whatsoever.
No training was bad enough, but shouldn’t she have been allowed to adapt after starting the job?
And yet, she was immediately saddled with so many duties, seriously pressed for time and overwhelmed with tasks.
What to do? Just shrink back? No way, although she did feel a bit like retreating, she couldn’t just quit on the first day in the finance department.
Thinking about it, if she were to be rejected by the finance department, how many other departments could she go to?
She couldn’t join departments that were too professional or technical, nor the union, let alone the labor and wages department.
After much consideration, the most likely place would be the Women’s Federation? My God, Zhou Lina was truly scared stiff.
The Women’s Federation and the union might be two different departments, but their work was pretty similar, dealing with all sorts of domestic issues, and Zhou Lina really couldn’t cope with that. Listening to those people’s complaints, she felt like exploding.
After all that, staying in the finance department seemed the only option, the only one fit for her.
Given such an outcome, what could she do? She’d have to study hard and work diligently.
Although she had never used an abacus before, before eating, she found she could use it quite easily, even trying to calculate a few numbers, the results matching those done by pen.
Zhou Lina let out a sigh of relief. Even though it had taken up the whole morning, having a handy calculation tool was really enough.
Picking up her meal tray, she got ready to go to the cafeteria for food, as nothing was more important than eating.
Only with a good and hearty lunch could one have the energy to work well in the afternoon.
No one called Zhou Lina to lunch together, and she didn’t mind, she went to the union and called Zhang Shifen to dine with her.
On the way to the canteen, Zhang Shifen got a good understanding of Zhou Lina’s work situation that morning.
Seeing the amount of data that Zhou Lina was gesturing she needed to calculate, she too was astonished.
Swallowing hard, "It really is a bit much."
"It’s not just a bit much, it’s really a lot," Zhou Lina pouted, thinking about Friday.
"I didn’t expect to work overtime on my first day at work."
"I can’t even imagine how many days a week I would work overtime if I were in finance." It’s already sad enough with just one day off a week.
And now there’s talk of taking work home after hours to do calculations, it’s practically catching up with the 996 culture of the future.
Now, starting work at half-past seven and finishing at four-thirty, the working hours are already a bit long, and then there’s another three to four hours of work at home, easily exceeding 12 hours a day.
Listening to Zhou Lina’s continual grumbling, Zhang Shifen wondered in her heart if it was really so busy in the financial department.
Zhang Shifen began to feel bewildered, but knowing Zhou Lina’s character, she knew she wasn’t one to lie.
After some thought, Zhang Shifen could only sigh, "The financial department really isn’t easy."
"No worries, my girl, I’ll make you some delicious food in a day or two, I’ll make you some meat dish." Zhang Shifen knew how to comfort children.
Just get straight to the point, serve up some meat; there’s nothing that eating meat can’t fix.
Usually, Zhou Lina would be thrilled at the mention of meat, but now the thought of it being the result of her overtime left her unable to feel excited.
"Forget it, it’s hot, let’s keep it light," Zhou Lina felt that they needed to keep a low profile at the moment.
"After all, we’ve redone the attic and bought furniture." Even though they found an old cabinet at the junkyard and had the carpenter refurbish it, it still cost labor, not to mention the paint.
"Everyone knows we’ve spent quite a bit of money, if we’re extravagant with food and drink, people will think we’re well-off."
Even though they said they borrowed the money from Gu Wei, don’t borrowed funds have to be repaid?
"Fortunately, it’s summer, and it’s okay not to eat meat." In winter, life without meat is indeed hard to bear.
Zhou Lina and Zhang Shifen quickly finished their lunch and returned to the office; Zhou Lina had planned to start work early during the midday rest.
But she didn’t anticipate that many in the finance office were already taking a nap on their desks.
Well, what else could she do? She definitely couldn’t start clacking away at her abacus, that would really be asking for trouble.
After some thought, Zhou Lina decided to take a short rest as well, needing to gather enough energy for a more productive afternoon of work.
It must be said that after briefly resting at noon, the work state in the afternoon had improved a lot.
No longer feeling drowsy, the work efficiency shot up.
In terms of speed with the abacus, Zhou Lina was arguably among the slowest in the finance department, much slower than Accountant Yang.
But the issue was that she had just learned it today, and already she was this fast; given time, wouldn’t her speed increase rapidly?
Accountant Feng was also surprised, giving so much workload to an old hand, aiming to deliver by Wednesday afternoon was quite a stretch.
She didn’t want Zhou Lina to back down because it was difficult, but rather to hold back a bit.
Seeing her speed with the abacus now, she was starting to get a bit lost about this girl.