Last night before going to bed, I set the timer for the porridge cooker. I used a ready-mixed pack from the supermarket—beans, rice, dates, etc., costing over 8 yuan per jin. Worried it wouldn’t be sweet enough, I added rock sugar again and again, but it never seemed quite right.

In the morning, I rushed barefoot into the kitchen. Under the rising steam, the porridge turned out mushy—I had added too little water last night. There was no choice but to add a big bowl of water and continue cooking to fix it. After an hour of stirring, it finally looked like porridge, and I cooled it down in ice water with relief.

The taste was good, but it still wasn’t sweet or cold enough. By noon, after it had cooled, I drank even more than in the morning.

I updated my resume and started mass-applying for jobs.

After reading many JDs, I found:

• Most positions require experience. This means either the market demand isn’t high, or the industry is stable or declining.
• Half are specialized functional companies, and half are vertical business companies. Communicating with a vertical business company, I found it was run by a typical traditional industry boss. Their perspective comes from a grassroots background, and their language is full of business jargon, revealing a jungle-like environment of competition and cooperation among small and micro enterprises.
• Flat management structure, limited promotion opportunities, and not very transparent salary quantification. Salaries are left-skewed in the normal distribution.
• Most companies are holding onto what they have, looking outside, investing and speculating, hoping for a better future someday.

This article was originally written in Chinese and translated into English by AI. Please excuse any errors in expression.