Project Manager

This is based on my personal experience. Let’s turn the clock back to 2008. It all began with a business trip for a company project. C City: memories I will never forget...

"Project Manager" is a workplace coming-of-age novel spanning seventeen years. In the winter of 2008, twenty-four-year-old Zhou Tong makes his first business trip to C City and joins the project team at Taike Communications. Still green, he struggles through mishaps like forgetting his formal clothes and showing up sick. Through project manager Kang Zhiqiang, client representative Jia Xiaoyu, successor Pang Wei, and others, he glimpses the workplace in all its complexity: Kang Zhiqiang’s sincere belief that “the way you work is the way you are,” Pang Wei’s struggle to balance reality and ideals, and the unspoken feelings between Zhou Tong and Jia Xiaoyu. Through countless late nights revising proposals, business dinners, and crucial presentations, Zhou Tong grows from a helpless newcomer into a dependable pillar of the team.

In the spring of 2025, middle-aged Zhou Tong pulls out his old notes, and the memories come flooding back. When his niece receives an internship offer from Taike and faces a choice about her future, he shares his story with her: the workplace isn’t just about winning or losing. Memories of professionalism, integrity, and warmth are what time cannot wash away. With delicate prose, the novel depicts the arduous journey of a generation of project managers. Amid ever-changing personnel and the unchanging Yangtze River, it asks what values are worth holding on to.