Reborn in 2005, starting with repairing mobile phones

Chapter 172 Li Hu's Dilemma, the Job Placement Turmoil

Lin Dong stopped paying attention to media matters.

On September 20th, it was still hot in Shenzhen.

When Lin Dong returned from the flagship store, he passed by the laboratory and found the door half-open.

He glanced inside and saw Li Hu sitting in front of the computer, staring at the screen, motionless, as if he had already passed away.

The mineral water bottle on the table was unscrewed but not capped, and there were two takeout containers piled up next to it, with chopsticks stuck in the rice.

Footsteps sounded at the door, and Chen Long walked over from the other end of the corridor carrying a water glass.

Upon seeing Lin Dong, Chen Long gestured towards Li Hu with his lip.

"It's been three days. This guy has been in this position for three days. The system is stuck at 95% and won't go any higher. It'll crash if it keeps running like this."

Lin Dong raised an eyebrow, glanced into the laboratory, and his gaze fell on Li Hu's stiff back.

"What problem could stump him for so long?"

"Can't find it." Chen Long pushed up his glasses. "I checked the logs. There's no memory leak, the CPU isn't running at full capacity, and the I/O isn't blocked."

It just collapses while running, without any pattern. The third brother tried everything he could.

He glanced at Li Hu inside.

"He hasn't slept much for three days. I can't persuade him."

Lin Dong nodded.

He patted Chen Long on the shoulder, indicating that he didn't need to come in, and then pushed the door open and went in himself.

The laboratory was very quiet.

Zhou Chengyu sat in front of the computer in the corner, staring blankly at the screen.

The waveform on the oscilloscope in front of Zhang Mingyuan was still jumping.

None of them spoke; the only sound was the air conditioning whirring.

Li Hu didn't notice Lin Dong coming in.

He stared at the screen, tapped the keyboard twice, then stopped, deleted, and rewrote.

I wrote a few lines, then deleted them.

The mouse moves across the screen, opening one window, closing it, and then opening another.

This action has been repeated over and over again.

Lin Dong stood behind him.

About two minutes later, Li Hu realized that someone was behind him.

He didn't turn around, his voice a little hoarse. "Chen Long, I told you, leave me alone."

"It's me," Lin Dong said.

Li Hu's fingers paused for a moment.

He turned his head, revealing dark circles under his eyes, bloodshot eyes, and messy hair that looked like it hadn't been washed for days.

"You've arrived."

His voice sounded somewhat dejected, lacking his usual playful and cheerful demeanor.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Li Hu turned back, staring at the screen. "It just crashed while running. Looking at the logs, it shows memory, CPU,..."

Both 1 and 0 are within the normal range. I suspect there's a problem with some interrupt handler, but after three days of searching, I haven't found which one.

"What are the odds?"

"I break down every one or two hours. Sometimes I can last half a day, sometimes I break down after half an hour." Li Hu paused, 6

There's no pattern. I suspect it was triggered by some external interrupt, but I'm not sure.

Lin Dong stared at the screen for a few seconds, then reached out and patted Li Hu on the shoulder. "Get up."

Li Hu paused for a moment, then turned to look at him.

"Let me see," Lin Dong said.

Li Hu hesitated for a moment, then stood up and offered the chair to him.

His legs were a little stiff, and his knees made a popping sound when he stood up straight.

He stepped aside and leaned against the table.

Lin Dong sat down and stared at the pile of code on the screen. He had seen this problem before.

When Android first came out, some manufacturers encountered similar problems when porting the system. The system would crash randomly while running, and the cause could not be found.

The Android community debated for a long time back then, and finally, a Google engineer came out and gave directions.

The problem isn't with the code logic; it's at the interface between the hardware and software—the interrupt priority is set incorrectly.

This is very difficult to find; even Google has been struggling with it for a long time.

No wonder Li Hu couldn't handle it.

It's just that Li Hu's direction of investigation is correct; it's only a matter of time.

But how much hair can be saved is unknown.

He scrolled up the code and found the interrupt vector table. Then he scrolled down and found the registration section for the interrupt handler functions.

"You're on the right track," Lin Dong said. "It's not memory, not CPU, not I/O. It's interrupts. You guessed right."

The problem isn't with the handler function, it's with the priority.

Li Hu frowned, took half a step forward, and moved closer to the screen.

"Look here."

Lin Dong pointed to a row in the interrupt vector table, "The priority of this interrupt source is one level higher than the one it should handle. Under normal circumstances, there won't be any problems because the triggering frequency is low."

"But if it arrives at the same time as another interrupt, it will preemptively interrupt, causing system state corruption." He paused. "Have you investigated that interrupt?"

Li Hu stared at the screen for a few seconds, then opened his notebook, flipped through a few pages, and stopped at a page filled with densely packed records. "I've checked. This is an interruption of the touchscreen, not very frequent, and it's never been a problem."

"What about the other one?"

"The other one—" Li Hu flipped through a few pages, then stopped, "The other one is a timer interrupt, with a fixed frequency. The probability of both occurring simultaneously is very low, but it does happen." He looked up at Lin Dong, "So it's not a code problem, but a hardware configuration problem?"

"It's a configuration issue. It's also a code issue." Lin Dong leaned back in his chair. "The hardware has fixed the priority, but the code can push back the response time of the other interrupt, staggering them. Give it a try."

Li Hu didn't speak. He walked past Lin Dong, bent down, and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. He modified the entry logic of the interrupt handler function, adding a conditional statement. He saved, compiled, and ran it. The three of them stared at the screen.

One minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. It didn't crash.

Li Hu stared at the screen, stunned for a few seconds.

He suddenly jumped up from the chair, raised his hands above his head, and shouted, "I told you my direction was right!"

Chen Long pushed up his glasses, thinking, "It has to be the fourth brother who takes action. That kid must have been hiding something."

Zhou Chengyu peeked out from behind the screen, glanced at it, and then noticed that Lin Dong was also there.

He nodded to Lin Dong.

Zhang Mingyuan also looked up, saw Lin Dong, nodded, and then looked back at the oscilloscope, where the waveform was still jumping.

Li Hu turned around, grabbed Lin Dong's shoulder, and patted him twice with such force that it felt like he was hitting a sandbag.

"Fourth brother, when you pointed out that interrupt priority just now, my heart skipped a beat, and I knew I was right. Do you know that feeling? It's like—" He gestured, "It's working. Everything's working all at once."

Lin Dong's shoulder ached from the pat, and he took half a step back.

"understood."

Li Hu released his grip, turned around, plopped back into his chair, placed his fingers on the keyboard, stared at the screen, and started typing again.

He typed two lines, stopped, turned around, and his carefree smile returned. "But seriously, the way you were looking at the code just now, I thought you were going to steal my job."

Li Hu chuckled twice, then turned back to continue knocking.

"Fourth brother, I'll handle the rest myself. You go do your thing and don't get in the way."

"Once we find the problem, things will be easier," Lin Dong said. "Don't stay up any longer, we'll deal with it tomorrow."

Li Hu didn't even turn his head, just waved his hand.

"Okay, okay, I'll write a little longer."

Lin Dong had no choice but to turn to Chen Long.

Chen Long stood to the side, still holding the thick chip manual in his arms.

Lin Dong glanced at him, the meaning clear: you stare at him.

Chen Long adjusted his glasses and nodded slightly.

Lin Dong didn't say anything more, turned around and left the laboratory.

Back in the office, I closed the door.

He leaned back in his chair, staring out the window.

He knows the answer to 80-90% of the technical problems currently facing the market.

How should this be resolved?

It's not that he's smarter than others; it's that he's seen it all. He's seen how Android messes with interrupt priorities, how Qualcomm handles power consumption, and how Apple optimizes touch latency.

He knows the direction of all these things.

But if you ask him to write an operating system from scratch, he can't. Ask Li Hu to write it, and Li Hu can. Ask Chen Long to design a chip architecture, and Chen Long can. He can't.

He's no longer the one doing the work; he's the one pointing the way. If the direction is right, and everyone else executes correctly, the result will naturally be good.

There was a knock at the door. Three knocks, neither too loud nor too soft.

Lin Dong was lost in thought when his mind was pulled back.

He furrowed his brow and leaned back in his chair.

"Come in."

Zhou Jing pushed the door open and came in, holding a folder in her hand.

She was wearing a white shirt and dark trousers, her hair was still tied in a low ponytail, and her expression was the same as usual, neither smiling nor tense.

"Ms. Lin, the job rotation is over. The job assignment plan is out, please take a look." She put the folder on the table, paused, and added, "There's one more thing, the flagship store's setup is almost finished, and the pre-opening procedures need to be reviewed by you again."

Lin Dong nodded, picked up the folder, and opened it.

The first few pages contain each person's job rotation record, including where they went, what they did, their performance evaluation, and the team leader's comments.

Zhou Jing meticulously prepared the densely packed tables and notes.

He turned to the last page, which was a summary table.

The names of the one hundred people were divided into four positions: sixty experience consultants, fifteen maintenance engineers, fifteen operations support staff, and ten management trainees.

Lin Dong glanced through it and closed the folder.

His initial plan was to have ten maintenance engineers and fifteen reserve cadres.

Now that the adjustments have been made, there are five more maintenance slots and five fewer in reserve.

He thought about it and could understand.

Repair engineers are easy to find; people with strong hands-on skills are not hard to find. But management trainees are future store managers and regional managers, and not just anyone can do that job.

Ability, mindset, learning speed, and resilience – you can't lack any of these.

Zhou Jing's principle of "better to have none than to have something of poor quality" is correct.

"Has the team leader been chosen?"

"It's decided. Ten group leaders, selected from the reserve cadres. Zhang Wei and Chen Hao are both among them." Zhou Jing paused, her tone softening. "They were evaluated based on a comprehensive assessment of their abilities, performance, and evaluation results; no one was favored."

Lin Dong glanced at her. "I didn't say you favored anyone." He pushed the folder back to her. "You made the decision, so you're responsible. I'll go to the store tomorrow and announce it in person."

Zhou Jing was taken aback. "President Lin, are you going in person?"

"Yeah. It's not appropriate for me not to be there for the first batch of employees to be assigned positions." Lin Dong leaned back in his chair, staring out the window for a while. "Besides, if someone is dissatisfied, you can't handle it. It'll be easier if I'm there."

Zhou Jing nodded, picked up the folder, and turned to leave.

The following morning, on the first floor of the flagship store.

Sunlight streamed in through the glass curtain wall, falling on the light-colored wood-grain tiles, making the entire space bright and airy.

One hundred people stood in the exhibition area, wearing identical white T-shirts with the Oriental Technology logo printed on their chests.

Some were nervous, some were expectant, and some were expressionless.

Zhou Jing stood at the front of the line, holding a list in her hand.

Lin Dong came down from the second floor and stood next to her.

He glanced around but didn't speak immediately.

"The rotation is over."

He said, "In the past few months, you have visited factories, warehouses, distribution channels, and conducted tests."

Everyone got a turn. You all know who's best suited for what, and Zhou Jing knows too." He paused, "The job assignment plan is out. The positions are divided into three categories: Experience Consultant, Maintenance Engineer, and Operations Support."

The audience fell silent.

No one was whispering.

"There are sixty experience consultants, divided into six groups of ten. There are six group leaders."

Zhou Jing took over, her voice not loud but clear, "Fifteen maintenance engineers, divided into two groups of eight and seven. Two group leaders. Fifteen operations support personnel, also divided into two groups of eight and seven. Two group leaders."

She paused for a moment, then added, "There are ten team leaders in total. All of them are reserve cadres."

Someone in the audience stirred, but no one made a sound.

"The reserve cadres are now team leaders."

Lin Dong continued, "But it's not permanent. If you do well, you can be promoted to assistant store manager, deputy store manager, or store manager. If you don't do well, you'll be replaced. Ordinary employees who do well can also be promoted to team leader. Positions are open; whoever is capable will be promoted."

Zhou Jing opened the folder and began reading the list.

There are six groups of experience consultants, each with ten people. Who is the group leader?

There are two groups of maintenance engineers and two groups of operations support.

As the names were read out one by one, some people breathed a sigh of relief, some clenched their fists, and some remained expressionless.

After finishing reading, Lin Dong took a step forward.

"Does anyone disagree?"

There was a few seconds of silence in the audience.

A boy raised his hand.

Lin Dong recognized him; his name was Liu Kai, a computer science major. He had worked in a factory during a job rotation and was efficient, but had a short temper.

"President Lin, I want to become a consultant, why did you assign me to operations support? My performance review results are not bad."

Lin Dong looked at him.

"During the job rotation, you did well in the factory. But in the experience zone, when you were receiving customers, two out of three times the customers frowned. It's not that you weren't trying hard enough, it's that you couldn't stand it."

What experience consultants need isn't quick reflexes, but a good temper.

Lin Dong looked at him and said, "Your performance review results weren't bad, but your results in operations support were higher than those in experience consultants. Zhou Jing assigned you to operations support because you're good at it."

"You want to be a product experience consultant? Sure. But if you can keep customers from frowning in the experience zone for a whole week, I'll personally transfer you to that position."

Liu Kai opened his mouth, nodded, put his hand down, and stepped back.

Lin Dong glanced around. "Is there anything else?"

No one spoke.

"Let me repeat myself. Your current position is not permanent. The promotion process is still in place. The path to promotion—team leader, assistant store manager, deputy store manager, store manager, regional manager, regional director—is open."

Anyone who thinks they can do it, let them prove it to everyone. If you prove it, why worry about not finding a good job? The real problem is when you don't work hard but pretend to.

The audience remained silent for a long time. Zhou Jing stood to the side, looking at Lin Dong with a reassuring light in her eyes.

"Meeting adjourned," Lin Dong said.