On my first day at work, I opened the office door and froze.
Three desks were piled with garbage, mold was growing in a cup of instant noodles, and a succulent was on its last legs. Three men stood there looking at me: Chen Xu, the chatterbox; Lu Yiming, the social recluse; and a director as cold as a refrigerator, named Gu Xici.
They said, “You’re the first woman in the department. We’ll handle all the dirty, exhausting work from now on.”
I believed them.
Then I wrote my first proposal, and they fell silent. When the client wanted to increase the budget, I gave them options to choose from and got the job done without whining or making a fuss. When the animation team flaked on us, the four of us worked seven straight nights and made a film that moved the client’s boss to tears.
They said women shouldn’t push themselves too hard. Three months later, they were calling me “Dad”, no, “Client Dad.”
But things started getting a little strange.
That refrigerator of a director began draping his coat over me at two in the morning. The night we were filming in Moganshan, he messaged me, “It’s cold in the mountains. Wear something warm.” In the elevator, he suddenly asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Before I could process that, he said, “Su Zhan, I like you.”
“When I first saw you, you were carrying that ‘I don’t want to go to work’ canvas bag and looking totally bewildered. I thought you seemed pretty interesting.”
This is the story of a woman born in the 2000s fighting her way through a department full of three male coworkers. It’s also a story about late-night overtime, hot-pot dinners, and those feelings that are too hard to say out loud.
We’ll stay awake with you.
We’ll keep you company through every three in the morning.
And we’ll wait with you for the person who’s willing to walk you home.
