56 posts tagged with "Irony"

Li Mingyuan took a deep breath, as if performing some solemn ritual, while staring at the photo of the high-speed rail seat on his phone screen. For three consecutive days, he had been using his four-hour daily commute to study these horns. What was the purpose of those two plastic protrusions that extended from the top of the seat, curved like ram's horns? It couldn't be a “useless” design; there had to be a deeper meaning!

He was a corporate slave in an internet company, "grinding" to the extreme. His cubicle was his battlefield, and these horns on the high-speed rail seat had become his mental refuge from reality. While his colleagues were discussing new project KPIs and his superiors were spouting rhetoric about “struggle culture,” Li Mingyuan was quietly observing these inconspicuous little things.

Old Wang woke up from a coma, his mind feeling like freshly mixed cement, a complete mush. He remembered he was a firefighter, had rushed into a fire to save a child, and then, he couldn't remember anything else. The doctor said he suffered a concussion, his intellect had regressed to elementary school level. Fortunately, through rehabilitation, he had now recovered to high school level.

Xiaofang has been working at a nail salon for five years. She is most familiar with the colorful nail polishes and the nail lamp that emits a ghostly blue glow. Every day, she repeats the process of filing, coloring, and drying, her finger movements as precise as a machine.

The shop is a chain, and business is booming. There is a constant stream of customers, most of them young and beautiful, with a persistent pursuit of color changes on their fingertips. Xiaofang likes to see their satisfied smiles and hear their chattering about dreams, love, and fashion. Those fragmented sounds, like background music, accompany her through long workdays.

Old Wang pushed open the glass door of the office, and a strong smell of perfume, along with the drowsiness of the afternoon, rushed towards him. He sniffed, trying to identify which colleague had changed their perfume, but eventually gave up. Since the company started implementing "personalized office" practices, everyone's workstation has been arranged like a small personal exhibition, varied and flamboyant. Old Wang felt like a zookeeper who had wandered into a zoo, observing these "exhibits" every day and trying to figure out the logic behind them.

His gaze finally landed on Xiao Li's workstation. It was a small corner piled with red persimmons, but upon closer inspection, those "persimmons" turned out to be combs. Xiao Li was the young man who sold 50,000 combs shaped like persimmons and was hailed as a "model of innovation" by the company. Old Wang remembered that half a year ago, Xiao Li was just an intern who didn't even dare to speak loudly in meetings, but now he has become a role model for the whole company to learn from.

Old man Li was carrying a bucket of freshly fried fritters, walking slowly through the alley. On both sides of the alley, lanterns were hung, and the red glow illuminated the smiling faces of every household. Today was Lunar New Year's Eve, and the air was filled with the scent of the New Year.

But this year's festive atmosphere seemed a little different.

Old Wang was a seasoned deliveryman at SF Express, shuttling through the city's concrete jungle every day, delivering all sorts of packages. Today, he had a special package in his hands. The recipient column read "Unknown," and the sender column read "Deceased Old Man Wang." The package was heavy, wrapped in thick kraft paper, and felt somewhat like a brick.

Old Wang got promoted.

Not to team leader, nor a small department manager, but directly in charge of a "world-class mega-project."

Li Weiguo felt that he was increasingly becoming like an old computer, slow to boot, running sluggishly, and occasionally crashing. And now, the company has organized a team-building activity called "Sufficient Qi and Blood, Blessings for the Whole Family", forcibly pulling them, the group of constantly-spinning programmers, into the mountains, saying it was to "experience nature and replenish energy."

Old Wang retired, not gloriously, but "gloriously laid off."

The word "glorious," in Old Wang's life, was like a gilded nail, firmly hammered into the wooden board of his "life," emitting a harsh metallic scraping sound. He was once the pride of the entire unit, no, it should be said, the pride of the entire country—a model who received a First Class Merit in the army less than a year after graduating with a bachelor's degree. At the time, the publicity was overwhelming, and Old Wang's name was tightly bound to phrases like "promising young talent" and "role model of the times."

My mom called again, as usual, she started by asking about my health and then began to subtly inquire about my recent work. I stammered, mentally figuring out how to get around the phrase "world-class mega project."

This so-called "world-class mega project" is a joke. I, an ordinary programmer, my daily tasks are just fixing bugs, writing test code, and occasionally dealing with server errors. Where did this world-class mega project come from?