Even Ghosts Hate Overtime

When the elevator reached the security room on the first floor, the system
finally chimed——

[Congratulations on completing your patrol of the 11th floor of Fortuitous
Retribution Building. Earned work hours x0.5. The earned hours have been
automatically added to your employee ID card. Please check.] [Patrol completion
rewards unlocked: 「Security Guard’s Favorite Teddy Bear Cookies x2」, 「Take Down
the Resident Today x2」, 「Muddle Through the Day Eye Mask x1」.] [During the
patrol, you unexpectedly obtained a special item: 「An Employee ID Card with
Missing Information」; Item Note: The employee information on this card is
blurred. The player must re-enter it in the correct format. (Note! Information
cannot be modified after entry.)] [Through this patrol task, your 「Corporate
Culture Concentration」 as a new employee has increased by a certain amount.]
[You have initially mastered the skills of a security guard. Keep up the good
work. Familiarize yourself with the job quickly. Compete to the death for a
promotion and a raise.]

Su Lai quickly checked the details of the reward items. 「Teddy Bear Cookies」 can
help restore the user’s mental stability. If the user is a building security
guard, it can also trigger a hidden effect.

「Take Down the Resident Today」 can temporarily boost combat power. It’s one of
the practical offensive items. 「Muddle Through the Day Eye Mask」 is exactly what
it sounds like. If you can’t hold on during work and want to slack off, wearing
this eye mask will prevent patrolling leaders from noticing.

As for that “Corporate Culture Concentration” thing, Su Lai had no idea what it
was for.

But after experiencing the Spring Breeze Community instance as an original
resident, Su Lai guessed it was like 「Resident Affection」 — an essential value
for players, but if it got too high, it might cause boundaries to disappear.

In a bizarre world overrun by contaminants, being too closely connected to the
surrounding environment was never a good thing. If you get too sucked in, it’s
hard to get out. Both your spirit and your body will be silently assimilated,
eventually becoming part of the contamination.

The clock in the security room ticked. It was now 2:50 PM. Su Lai was now more
confident in his deduction: during work tasks, the flow of time distorts based
on the nature of the task, specifically designed to trap laborers.

Honest office workers, used to following rules, were often the easiest to trap.

Seventh Floor of Fortuitous Retribution Building, Customer Service Department.

The open-plan office was packed with people. The workstations were so compact
that turning around felt cramped. There was virtually no private space between
them.

The overhead lights flickered. The dim light couldn’t illuminate the weary,
blurry faces of the laborers.

The customer service agents were processing an endless stream of customer
complaints and order inquiries. Everyone’s eyes were bloodshot, fixed
unblinkingly on the dialog boxes on their screens, their hands flying across the
keyboards.

Desktop computers were densely arranged on the desks. Headphone cables were
crisscrossed and tangled. The surroundings constantly echoed with the crackling
of keyboards and the urgent ringing of landline phones, rising and falling,
never-ending.

Less than two minutes after entering this floor, He Yinwen, sensitive to sound,
felt her head swelling. She began to regret her choice.

From the moment she entered the instance, He Yinwen had been filled with unease.
Murphy’s Law at work. She had never been good at so-called stress interviews or
service-oriented tests, had no talent for articulate flattery, and no skill for
navigating complex interpersonal relationships.

So after the interview, He Yinwen’s score was the lowest among the players. She
lost the priority to choose her department and position.

After her preferred Technical and R&D departments were taken, the only options
left were Human Resources, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service.

Faced with these four choices, her heart sank. All of them required dealing with
people. The very thing she had spent over twenty years avoiding.

In the end, she picked the best among the worst and cautiously chose Customer
Service.

Customer service was a problem-solving role. She only had to deal with users.
The work content and environment seemed relatively simple. Unlike HR, Marketing,
and Sales, which sounded like they required navigating complex interpersonal
networks. She was no good at that kind of human interaction…

With this mindset, He Yinwen became a new employee in Customer Service. Her name
was erased, replaced by the number 1723.

“Employee 1723, this is your workstation. Familiarize with the work process and
start as soon as possible!” The person in charge handed He Yinwen the customer
service work rules. Her gaze swept over the dense rules, and she could barely
breathe. The alarm bells in her heart were already pounding——

1. Remember your employee ID number. Forget your name.
2. Remember, your customers are not “people,” they are “dear.” You must address
every customer as “dear,” otherwise will respond to you.
3. As a customer service agent, you must respond to any new message
immediately, provided the equipment is functioning normally.
4. Customers are friendly, but you cannot directly refuse any of their
requests.
5. When a customer asks, “What do you suggest I do?” they expect you to
proactively offer a refund-only solution. You should remain as silent as
possible, otherwise the refund amount will be deducted from the customer
service agent’s work hours.
6. When a customer becomes agitated, send a sticker that says, “I’m here,
dear.”
7. When a customer complains that the received item is different from what they
ordered, and says, “This isn’t what I expected,” do not ask for details
about the product. Immediately change the subject to prevent the order from
modifying your perception on its own.
8. When a customer complains that they received an item they did not purchase,
try to prevent them from returning it. This means the item used the shopping
cart to automatically “choose” a family member.
9. Do NOT get complained about by customers! Do NOT get complained about by
customers!
10. 「I’m not…」 has high contamination. Please approach with the appropriate
customer service attitude… (crossed out)
11. When a customer service agent finds a customer’s question strange, check
your own mental state promptly… (crossed out) …

What could she do? She was already here.

From the moment He Yinwen sat down, the inquiries and complaints on the customer
service backend hadn’t stopped.

Message alerts kept flashing, constantly impacting her vision and auditory
senses.

He Yinwen wasn’t good at multitasking. Facing the constantly popping dialog
boxes, her mind was in turmoil. But the rules clearly stated: as a customer
service agent, she must respond to customer messages immediately.

He Yinwen didn’t dare delay. She nervously opened a dialog box——

[Is customer service there?] [Where is the human customer service?] [Are you
customer service dead or what? Why no response?] …

“I’m here, dear. What can I help you with?” He Yinwen copied and pasted this
response into various dialog boxes.

All the customers seeking help were anonymous. The system avatars and identical
「momo」 usernames made her dizzy——

[Your non-slip flip-flops are too non-slip. They’ve welded me to the floor. I
can’t move now. You need to compensate me for emotional distress and my
inability to live independently!] [I bought your pillow. Now I oversleep every
day. I’ve been late ten times this month. Lots of money deducted. You have to
compensate me!] [Your thermos is defective, right? The water I poured in three
days ago is still scalding hot. My father was waiting for it to cool down and he
died of thirst! Will you pay for his funeral?!]

The complaints were all kinds of outrageous, so absurd they made your eyes pop.
At first, He Yinwen found them a bit funny. But later, she couldn’t laugh
anymore.

In these constantly popping dialog boxes, He Yinwen experienced the diversity of
“humanity.”

In the real world, these absurd complaints would be treated as pranks. The
customer service agent could just report them.

But in this Fortuitous Retribution Building, as an employee, the customer
service agent had no right to report. Their job was to change the subject, calm
the customer’s anger. If they handled it poorly, they’d have to use their own
work hours to cover the cost.

Just thinking about having only a 1x work hour multiplier while dealing with
these unreasonable customers, a sense of imbalance grew within He Yinwen.

Why was she assigned to this noisy office to deal with these absurd, yet
somewhat funny, complaints?

Why, when she could have chosen a more “relaxed” job with a 5x work hour
multiplier, did she choose this low-pay, abuse-taking job out of fear of social
interaction and saving face?

Why, every time she faced an important decision, did she make the worst choice
because of her personality and pride? Why was luck never on her side?

Countless “whys” fermented amidst the crackling keyboards. Even with
noise-canceling earmuffs, He Yinwen could still hear the endless buzzing.

This sound was continuous, like the hum of a faucet when the water is off, or
bubbles from an aquarium pump. Dull and long. Quiet yet noisy. Attacking her
increasingly fragile nerves like boiling a frog in warm water.

Why was she sitting here, desperately dealing with customers who didn’t treat
her as a person?

Negative emotions amplified infinitely, nearly preventing her from thinking
clearly. She wanted to drink some caffeine to calm down, but even instant coffee
from the vending machine cost 5 work hours a cup. She couldn’t afford it.

She wanted to go to the bathroom to compose herself, but an endless stream of
messages kept coming. She couldn’t leave her workstation…

Gradually, the text of He Yinwen’s replies turned red. The edges of the letters
began to liquefy and twist. They looked bloody, vivid, and alive.

The content of the customers’ inquiries also became increasingly eerie——

[Today is the tenth anniversary of my marriage to my wife, and the ninth
anniversary of her death. Yesterday, I changed her to your store’s urn. She came
back to life overnight! Now she’s lying on my bed scattering her own ashes. My
new wife and I are fighting because of this. Your store must take responsibility
for my marriage!]

[I bought your pesticide intending to kill myself. I drank one bottle, then
another, but I got more and more energetic. I demand that you take
responsibility for my death. Come kill me tonight. If you don’t kill me, I’ll
kill your whole family!]

[Hey, I want a human customer service! What’s your name? I don’t care about your
employee ID! IDs are for robots. Tell me your name…]

Suddenly, He Yinwen’s hands stopped typing.

“My name…?” “Name… Employee 1723… that’s my name… Is there a problem?” She spoke
to herself as she stared at the constantly jumping messages. Her dilated pupils
reflected the screen image, blurring into a mosaic of scrolling text.

She seemed to have really forgotten her own name.

「Remember your employee ID number. Forget your name.」 She had succeeded.

In this place, she didn’t need to exist as a “living person.” She was just a
customer service agent, tapping keys and changing the subject.

The dense messages kept popping up, growing more and more outrageous. Time also
kept passing as she processed the complaints.

Her perception had become numb, her sensitivity to the flow of time dulled. She
had been working for nearly four hours without realizing it.

She could barely remember her own name. But she remembered Rule 6 of the New
Employee Handbook—— 「Meal times are 12:00-13:00 and 18:00-19:00. Please be sure
to go to the company cafeteria at these times to eat.」

Complaints and inquiries flooded in non-stop. As a customer service agent, she
had to address customer issues immediately. But it was nearly 6 PM. As an
employee, she had to eat on time…

The customer service rules and the new employee handbook contradicted each
other! What should she do?

This is insane…

Just then, a pair of bright but incongruous pink flip-flops entered her field of
vision.

He Yinwen froze for a few seconds before slowly rolling her stiff eyes. A young
man in a security uniform put his foot on the power strip, turned off the
incessantly crackling walkie-talkie, and looked at her——

“Want a computer shutdown service?” “Flat price: 250 per kick. Officially
provided by the Security department. Safe and reliable.”

“Buy it or not?”

He Yinwen was suddenly stunned. Her mental stability, which had been dropping,
stared blankly at the rascal-like security guard with a lost, helpless look.

His pink flip-flops were already on the power strip button. One little push, and
the power to her computer would be cut.

But he just held his foot there, negotiating with the exhausted, numb customer
service agent.

As if all of this had nothing to do with him, a fellow newcomer. He was just a
bored security guard in this building.

He Yinwen, as if spellbound, couldn’t take her eyes off the bright pink
flip-flops. An indescribable numbness began to crumble. Her repressed
consciousness gradually awakened.

Her fingers froze above the keyboard. Her pupils slightly contracted. A faint
buzzing sounded in her ears. The blood in her body began rushing to her temples.

This feeling was like a hand that had fallen asleep being moved, the stagnant
blood starting to flow again.

Su Lai looked at his watch and reminded her again. “Time’s running out.” “Tell
you what, I’ll round it down for you. 300 a kick. Really can’t go any lower.
Want it or not?”