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one night in early august, 22-year-old chen xiaoke was "invited" to attend the chanel jewelry exhibition in chaoyang district, beijing - she went to "fill the venue" for the event.

as a fresh graduate and a newcomer to the workplace,two days ago, she found this job in an online part-time job group in beijing. the reward was 25 yuan for a round of sightseeing.

the jewelry exhibition was held in an art park with the theme of "meet your crush" and promoted chanel's new coco crush jewelry series. a row of tall and handsome men greeted guests at the entrance of the exhibition hall. the air conditioning was strong and the main colors of the exhibition hall were black and white, which showed the consistent simplicity and quality of this century-old brand.

everything was so exquisite that it seemed like a dream. the rings, bracelets, and earrings were carefully displayed in glass showcases, some of which were inlaid with diamonds, sparkling under the light. below the showcase was a decorative vintage cassette, and below that were headphones. in the headphones, a sweet female voice asked the audience, "are you tempted?" although these jewellery pieces did not have price tags, chen xiaoke knew that they cost "at least 10,000 or 20,000 yuan".

many well-dressed young women took photos here, showing off their s-shaped curves. some of them were followed by photographers. chen xiaoke, a professional crowd-pleaser, came here in a hurry after get off work. she had no makeup on and wore a t-shirt, shorts and a pair of sneakers. her entire outfit cost no more than 500 yuan.

"i walked in covered in dust and felt out of place." as soon as he entered the door, chen xiaoke felt that he was "very rustic."

when she was in college, she had the courage to walk into luxury stores and take a look, even if she didn't buy anything, because "before graduation, my parents will give you a good life."but her courage gradually faded after she graduated from college - she found that the life she could lead on her own might be "this is the only way."now she and her friends share a small room outside the fifth ring road in beijing, and travel across half of beijing to work every day. after deducting rent and living expenses, her disposable income is 2,000 yuan per month.

in order to save money, she started learning how to cook. in order to increase her income, she started doing various part-time jobs in her spare time, including being a stagehand.

according to chanel's official mini program, the most expensive new product launched at this jewelry exhibition is a ring, priced at 89,500 yuan.based on chen xiaoke's current income, she would need more than three years of savings to afford the house.at the entrance of the trial room of the jewelry exhibition, when the salesperson asked chen xiaoke if she wanted to try on the jewelry, her first reaction was to refuse in panic, "no, no."

but she also grumbled in her heart that although some of the jewelry was inlaid with diamonds, they were all made of 18k gold. it would be better to stock up on real gold with the money.

she spent a total of 20 minutes in the pavilion, including watching an elegant modern dance performance by a man and a woman.she sent the "i was here" photos she took on the spot to the agent, completed the task of filling the field,rmb 25 was successfully deposited into the account the next day。

after walking a few hundred meters from the dreamlike exhibition hall, chen xiaoke instantly returned to reality - at 8 o'clock in the evening, the subway station was crowded with people, almost all of whom were ordinary workers like her. after waiting in line for nearly half an hour, she finally squeezed into the subway during the evening rush hour.

by the time she returned exhausted to her small shared apartment, it was already past 9 o'clock in the evening.

the chanel jewelry exhibition lasted for seven days. on the fourth day of the exhibition, many part-time online groups in beijing had already posted advertisements related to the exhibition: "this is a rare opportunity to appreciate high-end jewelry, don't miss it!!!"

these advertisements will specifically state that those who come to fill the venue must "appear clean and tidy and not sloppy", "do not wear slippers or vests", and emphasize that "it is prohibited to fill the venue on the spot".

obviously, the move of filling the venue with large crowds means that the popularity of this exhibition is not ideal.

china's luxury consumption is in a state of weakness. although chanel's 2023 financial report released in may this year showed that its sales increased by 16% year-on-year,many luxury brands are having a hard time.burberry's first quarter financial report for fiscal year 2025 showed that its sales in mainland china fell 21% year-on-year. kering group, the parent company of gucci and bvlgari, reported a 10% year-on-year drop in sales revenue in the asian market (excluding japan), led by china, in its first half of 2024 financial report.

in early august, after the chanel jewelry exhibition, a recruitment advertisement for bvlgari exhibition attendees appeared in a part-time job group in beijing: 30 yuan per visit, "just take a photo on site and that's it."

creating an atmosphere of prosperity by hiring external staff is becoming an unspoken choice in many industries.

one day in march 2024, housewife wang yujuan came from foshan to guangzhou pazhou exhibition center to fill in a home expo event. the content of filling in is simple: stay in the exhibition hall for 10 minutes and get 30 yuan as reward.

the round-trip subway ticket from foshan to guangzhou pazhou exhibition center costs 16 yuan, but wang yujuan also goes to guangzhou for shopping. she thinks it is a good way to see the world and earn back the travel expenses.

she also had another purpose: to find out the market situation. "the real estate market is very bad this year, and so is the furniture industry," wang yujuan said. her family's business is related to this. her husband opened a home decoration store.this year, the chill is also being felt.

it was a weekday. wang yujuan spotted some middle-aged and elderly people and students in the home expo exhibition hall. she had a vague feeling that most of them were there to fill the space. if there were only real audiences on the scene, "it would probably be sparsely populated."

last summer, he wei from shanghai also worked for a large insurance company for five days. the reason was that the agent told him that lunch and snacks were provided, and he could earn 180 yuan per day.

"i'm just sitting around doing nothing anyway. the weather is so hot and i can use the air conditioning." he wei decided to take advantage of the bargains.

before filling in the field, he was asked to go to the company's business outlet to take an assessment, "to see if you are suitable for insurance." after passing the assessment, he was asked to fill in the employee number of the insurance company who introduced him. he also had his own work number.

"this is actually an employee induction training. different lecturers tell you how many risks a person will encounter in his life, how much money they are making now, and how working in insurance is a loving thing to do," he said.

an insurance brokerage company executive told phoenix.com that the insurance industry is an industry that relies heavily on "people", but the industry is currently under pressure and there is a serious loss of sales staff. under this circumstance, the core kpi indicator of insurance companies is "registering and issuing orders" - "number" refers to the work number of new employees.“everyone wants this indicator to look good, regardless of the cost.”

"the key is whether we can find so many people to meet the kpi indicators." he said that filling the venue therefore becomes reasonable.

"when i hear you say that, my mind will always be a little shaken.some people may start by filling in the market and then slowly start selling insurance."he wei said that there were more than 40 people training with him, and he added some of them on wechat. shortly after the training ended, he found that some of them did start to enthusiastically sell insurance and posted all kinds of insurance information on their wechat moments every day. "for insurance companies, this is recruiting new members."

medical conferences have also begun to become gathering places for people to fill up the venue.

since 2024, chen xiaoke has attended two medical conferences to fill the audience. "the content of the conference was really boring, and only a few people really listened."

in early september, a high-end medical conference was held in a four-star hotel in chaoyang district, beijing for three days. among the speakers were many well-known doctors from top hospitals in china.

at around 7 o'clock in the morning, more than a hundred people who came to fill in for the meeting gathered at the nearby subway entrance. most of them were young people in their twenties, and a few were in their thirties or forties. many of them greeted each other.

participate in such a day of filling,the remuneration is 70 yuan and a box lunch.

several agents also arrived at the scene. they told the people they had recruited to fill in the venue verbally and in the wechat group, which branch venue they would go to later. they also reminded that when signing in, you can fill in the name of a hospital in the unit column, and don't write "doctor" as the title, you can write "nurse". in addition, never say that you are here to fill in the venue.

after entering the hotel and signing in with the conference staff,the staff immediately began to skillfully look for the booths of medical manufacturers that were distributing gifts on site, and received small fans, soaps, etc. by scanning codes or signing in.a medical manufacturer's staff muttered that someone changed clothes and hats after receiving a gift and came back to receive another one. a female attendant took inventory of the small gifts in the bag immediately after taking her seat, and pointed to a bottle of glucose oral solution and told phoenix.com: "we didn't have this yesterday. we had wet wipes yesterday, two boxes."

the meeting officially started at around 8 a.m. at the beginning, there were not many attendees. a branch venue that could accommodate more than 100 people only had about 40 people sitting there. among them, there were a few participants who were dressed in formal clothes, listened attentively and took notes from time to time. the remaining 30 or so were just casual attendees who walked to the venue from the subway entrance in the morning. during the lunch break, they stayed in the venue to eat lunch and rest.

for non-professional attendees, the content of the meeting was extremely difficult and boring, with professional medical terms such as "ras inhibitors", "glp-1 receptor agonists", "sglt-2 inhibitors", "statins", and "pioglitazone" appearing from time to time. phoenix.com saw at the scene that some people were watching short videos or browsing taobao in silence, and a female attendee in her thirties was scrolling through multiple part-time job groups pinned to the top of her phone. the intermediary reminded in the group,"if you feel sleepy, go to the toilet and move around. don't sleep."。

but by the afternoon, a few of the crowd couldn't take it anymore. one young man started snoring, his voice echoing throughout the venue until he was woken up by a scolding from an audience member in front of him.

nowadays, online part-time job groups are replacing the traditional offline day-wage labor market and are growing and developing continuously.

li fan is a part-time online agent in shanghai. he told phoenix.com,i started out as a part-time worker online, and a year ago i started to “upgrade” to become an agent.。

he said that in this industry, small agents like himself are called "team leaders." team leaders connect with large labor companies and are equivalent to their subcontractors, distributing the orders received from large labor companies to part-time workers. among them, there are many orders for filling the field.

it is not difficult to set up your own part-time job group. li fan will post part-time job information on major social platforms and leave contact information to introduce new people to the wechat group. currently, he has 4 online part-time job wechat groups.each group has more than 400 people, including office workers and students who want to earn pocket money and supplement their lives, as well as some unemployed or flexible workers.。

for agents, among all part-time jobs, the money earned by filling in the venue may be "the easiest" - many part-time jobs only require a few people, while filling in the venue may require dozens of people. li fan can "earn about 10 yuan" from each person filling in the venue each time. li fan just treats being an agent as a side job.some full-time big agents he knows can earn tens of thousands of yuan a month。

but in fact, this money is not easy to earn - "it takes a lot of time, and a lot of messy things come to you, which is very annoying."

one of li fan's worries is that "there are so many people who stand up." fortunately, in this online society of strangers maintained by fragile verbal agreements, intermediaries have quickly figured out an effective management method.

for example, paying a deposit.each person who fills the venue needs to pay a deposit of 5-15 yuan before participating in the event. after the event, the deposit and remuneration will be paid together. if you cancel the appointment at the last minute, the deposit will not be refunded.

another example is to have more “spare tires”.li fan said that if an event needs 30 people to fill the venue, some agents will recruit 35. if all these people come, it is first come first served, and the agent will compensate the others for their travel expenses. "this is easy to get criticized, but some agents often do this."

what makes li fan even more anxious is that the industry is becoming more and more competitive - "there is no threshold for this industry itself. as more people do it, everyone will compete with each other on price."

some activities such as recharging by applying for a card are full of risks. li fan said that this kind of recharging can make money quickly, but it may be illegal, so he "never touches it".

he heard that this type of charging mainly uses the identity information of the person charging to apply for bank cards and phone cards. one id card can be used to apply for up to 15 phone cards, and the purchase price is 30 yuan per card. after the person charging to apply for the card, these cards "will definitely be taken away" and then disappear.

on the other hand, the requirements of party a clients for the staff are getting higher and higher. in many part-time job groups, the agents require applicants to send photos first for early screening. according to phoenix.com,the requirements of agents for attendees include but are not limited to: to attend house and car sales events, to look rich and look like a boss; when filling in for high-end conferences, slovenliness is prohibited; when filling in for a company that is hosting clients, you need to bring your own laptop; when filling in for a restaurant, sometimes a single person cannot attend, so couples or friends are required to form a group of two.

not long ago, a company participating in a decoration exhibition wanted to ask li fan for more than a dozen people to fill the exhibition hall to show that its business was booming. the client's requirements for the fill-in personnel were: shanghai locals, owning a house, knowledgeable about decoration, aged 35-50, and staying at the exhibition for about an hour.

li fan offered 80 yuan. he said that after deducting the handling fee for posting to the part-time wechat account and his agency fee, the staff who filled the venue could only get 50 yuan.

but the business didn't work out in the end - 80 yuan per person was too expensive for the customer.

nowadays, chen xiaoke, a worker who pays attention to part-time job group information every day and earns 20 to 200 yuan each time by filling in the slots, has gradually become accustomed to looking at the world from the perspective of a day worker.

after entering the chanel jewelry exhibition hall, she began to automatically put price tags on the people present:

those exquisite young ladies who brought photographers and made her feel "very different" from herself might be internet celebrities invited by the organizers to fill the venue, and their appearance fees were probably quite high;

those tall and handsome young men who served as guides for the audience were probably models. their market rate was 500 to 600 yuan a day, and the agents who deducted more than 100 yuan were the most ruthless. she almost blurted out and asked about their salary.

if those middle-aged men in black suits who maintain order are part-time, they should be cheaper, about 100 yuan a day;

as for those who took "i've been here" photos in front of a certain display board requested by the agent, if they have ordinary looks and ordinary clothes, some of them may be just filling the space like her, paying 25 yuan for each visit...

she suddenly realized that the world was just like that classic internet saying, "a huge makeshift team."

another person who made a similar sigh was yan hua, who was in a first-tier city in the south. he was inadvertently involved in a higher-end filling game.

he told phoenix.com that one day in late spring this year, a friend told him, who had been unemployed for more than half a year and was running out of money,a boss is out of town and needs someone to help him hold an urgent meeting there. the meeting will include food, drinks and entertainment. the price is 50 yuan.。

it takes an hour to get from yan hua's rented house to the venue by subway. he thought it was too far and offered 100 yuan, which the other party agreed to.

yan hua thought it was just an ordinary meeting, where he could just sit and listen with a bunch of people. soon, he set off. on the subway, the boss sent him a brief introduction of his company, saying that someone might come to the meeting to discuss cooperation, and asked yan hua to memorize it. yan hua tried hard to remember the brief introduction in his mind. he imagined that the audience around him might chat with him and talk about business.

after entering the building where the meeting was held and exiting the elevator, he realized something was wrong. this was a new product launch for an internet company, and there were about a hundred people present, including the media and many business people. many of the men present were wearing suits, but he was wearing casual pants that day.

something unexpected happened - there was a red carpet outside the elevator.he was first led onto the red carpet and signed on a large display board next to the red carpet, and then reporters came around to interview him., asked him what he thought of the city's policies related to his industry, how he viewed the competition from the company in the same industry that held the press conference, and how he planned the future development of his company. he tried hard to memorize the answers and coped with it.

after entering the venue, he found exquisite small cakes and fruits, but unfortunately, his seat was arranged in the first row, belonging to the most important guests. he had no time to pay attention to the small cakes and fruits, and continued to recite the company introduction nervously, "i am pretending, i am afraid that when people ask me later, i can't even say the name of the company or what the company does, which will be embarrassing." he was still racking his brains to think about how to convert the boring written language in the introduction into spoken language.

the finale of the event was a signing ceremony for a multi-party cooperation project. he went on stage to sign with several business people. "others signed with flourishes, but i signed with the handwriting of a primary school student, and it was not even my name." he also had to speak on the stage.although he was terrified, he pretended to be calm, introduced his company, praised the government policies, and expressed his willingness to support and make progress together with competing companies.。

after stepping down, he was interviewed by reporters again and what he said was basically the same.

after the meeting, the organizers arranged a seafood dinner. yan hua was afraid of being exposed, so he tried his best to decline the invitation. "chinese people like to talk about work at the dinner table. what if i get caught?"

he took the elevator downstairs with other guests. everyone else went to the underground parking lot on levels -1 and -2, but he was the only one who went to the 1st floor and ran towards the subway station as if escaping.

chen xiaoke, wang yujuan, li fan, he wei and yan hua are pseudonyms in this article.