Chapter 28 Chapter Twenty Eight

I drove to Trion headquarters early that night.The parking lot is nearly empty, presumably left behind by security guards, 24-hour operations center workers, and a few workaholics—what I'm trying to pretend to be.The lobby front desk on duty was a Spanish girl I didn't know and she also seemed unhappy about working overtime on a Sunday night.She hardly bothered to look at me when I went in, but I said hello to her anyway and pretended to be honest and shy.I went upstairs to my office, did a little work, and made some sales figures for Maestro products in what they call "EMEA" -- Europe/Middle East/Asia.The trend of the curve is not optimistic, but Nora still hopes that I can tamper with the data and try my best to make some optimistic data values.

Most of the floor was so dark that I had to turn on the lights in my cubicle.It's unsettling. Meacham and Wyatt wanted the personnel information of everyone in the AURORA project team, and wanted to find out everyone's work experience, from which companies they were hired, and what their last job was. .This is a good way to speculate on the content of the AURORA project. But I can't just walk into HR, pull open some filing cabinets, and pull out the files I want.Tryon's human resources department is different from the rest of the company.There are security measures in place.First, there is no connection to the computers here from the business owner database - the HR network system is completely separate.I guess this makes sense, since personnel records include all sorts of private data, such as employee performance reviews, the value of their 401(k) retirement plans, and insider stock subscriptions, to name a few.Perhaps Human Resources feared that rank-and-file employees would find out that Trion's top executives were earning a lot more than the rest of them, which would lead to widespread riots in the office area.

The Human Resources Department is on the third floor of Block E, quite a distance away from the New Product Marketing Department.There are a lot of locked doors along the way, but they can probably be opened with my ID card. I suddenly remembered that there is a record of which checkpoint anyone passes at a certain point in time, and this information will be stored, although it does not necessarily mean that someone will check it or use it for anything, but in case Something went wrong, I walked from new product marketing to HR for some reason on a Sunday night, and I left digital breadcrumbs to testify, which is not nice.

So I took the elevator down and out of the building through a back door.The problem with these security systems is that they only record people coming in, not going out.Therefore, you don't need to use an ID card to get out of the building.This may be due to fire code considerations, I don't know.However, this means that I can leave the building without anyone noticing. It's dark outside now.The Trion Building was lit, its frosted chrome surfaces gleaming, the glass windows looking dark blue.In contrast, the night here is quite quiet, except for the whirring of cars speeding by on the highway from time to time.

I went around to Block E. It seems that many administrative functional departments are placed here, such as central procurement, system management and other units.I see someone coming out of the auxiliary passage. "Hey, can you open the door for me?" The man looked like a cleaner.I waved my Trion ID card at him as I yelled, "Damn badge problem again." The man opened the door for me without even looking at me.I just walked in and nothing was recorded.According to the records of the central system, I am still in my office upstairs in Building B. I climbed the stairs to the third floor, and the door on the third floor was unlocked.This is also stipulated by a certain fire protection law: buildings above a certain height must have stairs in case of emergency.Maybe there are card readers at the landing on some floors, but not on the third floor.I walked straight into the reception area outside the HR department.

The reception area here is a typical HR setting - lots of noble mahogany fixtures, a 'we're serious, this matters to your career' kind of message.There are also chairs of various colors that seem to be very comfortable to sit on, telling you that whenever you come to HR, you have to be prepared to sit there for an unbearably long time. I looked around for CCTV cameras but couldn't find them.I don't think there should be, since this isn't a bank - or Project Weasel - I just want to be sure, or as sure as possible. The lights were dim, making the place all the more majestic, or scary—I couldn't tell.

I stood there thinking for a while.The best thing I could do was for the cleaners to open the door and let me in, but there were no cleaners around - they probably didn't come to work until late at night or early in the morning.So, I'm just going to do the old "there's a problem with the card" trick again, at least so far it's been working.I walked back downstairs and through the alternate passage to the lobby.A lobby girl with coppery red hair is watching reruns of The Bachelor on a security monitor. "I thought I was the only one who needed to work on Sunday," I told her.She looked up and smiled politely, then went on to watch her show.I look like someone who works here, I have an ID card, it just got broken by the belt, and I just walked out of it, so I should be in there, right?She's not the talkative type, which is fine—she just wants to watch The Bachelor in peace by herself.As long as she can get me away, she will do her best.

"Hey, listen," I said, "sorry to bother you, but do you have a card repairer here? It's not that I want to go back to the office, it's just that I have to or I'll lose my job. But the damn card reader The device won’t let me in, like it knows I’m supposed to be home watching football right now. Do you understand?” She smiled slightly, probably she wasn't used to being noticed by Trion's staff. "I see what you mean," she said, "but I'm sorry, but the lady who fixes the cards doesn't start until tomorrow." "Oh my God, how am I going to get in? I can't wait until tomorrow! I'm so unlucky!"

She nodded and picked up the phone. "Stan," she said, "can you do us a favor?" A few minutes later the security guard named Stan showed up.He was a small, wiry, dark man, about fifty years of age.Stan is clearly wearing a wig - it's jet black, with his own gray hair showing around it.I really don't understand why you bother to wear a wig if you're not going to touch it up once in a while to make it almost look like the real one?We took the elevator up to the third floor.I babbled on and on with complex rationale for how HR was hierarchically using yet another identification system, but he wasn't too interested.He wants to talk about sports, no problem, I can.He hated the Denver Broncos, so I pretended to be on his side.When he got to Human Resources, he pulled out his identification card, which presumably allowed him to navigate his field of work.He waved the identification card over the reader. "Don't work too hard," he said.

"Thanks, man," I replied. He turned and looked at me. "You'd better have your identification card fixed," he said.In this way, I went in.

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