Chapter 83: Hiring People from Hometown

It didn’t take long for Wen Jiajia to break her promise of not eating after brushing her teeth. When she entered the sixth month of pregnancy, she often felt very hungry. Sometimes, she even woke up in the middle of the night because of it.

Not long ago, she received a letter from home saying that her eldest sister-in-law had given birth to a girl, and the delivery had gone smoothly.

Maybe it was because she was well taken care of during pregnancy. She usually ate fine grains, had meat every few days, and had a bowl of egg custard every morning. Additionally, with the milk powder that Wen Jiajia sent home and the goat milk that Wei Xin found for her, her sister-in-law felt better in the later stages of her pregnancy than in the early stages.

The letter said that the child was born in the hospital, and the doctor who delivered the baby was a classmate of Wei Xin’s, so they asked the doctor to name the child Wei Wenying.

At the end of the letter, her sister-in-law wrote a lot about her pregnancy experiences, filling up five pages. When Wei Dai first received the letter, she almost thought something serious had happened at home.

After reading the letter, Wen Jiajia packed some things and sent them back, including several feet of fine cotton cloth.

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Office Scene

Wen Jiajia had just returned from a meeting with Director Gao. The factory had recently added a new product, and the feedback had been very positive. The pharmaceutical factory next door had reserved all of this year’s production.

There was no need to worry about not being able to sell the products, but the factory’s production capacity was limited, making it impossible to produce more. As a result, they needed to introduce another production line.

The meeting had been about this matter.

At this moment, Wen Jiajia was sorting out the information about the last production line they introduced and handing it to Director Gao next door.

She then asked, “Director Gao, are you going on a business trip?”

Director Gao nodded and said, “Yes, I’m going to Hai City. I’ll ask Liang Mu to take me there. You can stay in the factory. Oh, and come to the train station the day after tomorrow morning to pick up the machine.”

Wen Jiajia was surprised. “Are you going somewhere else?”

Director Gao replied, “Yes, we have to go to the Eastern Province.”

Wen Jiajia understood. There was a large medical glass factory in the Eastern Province, and they were probably going there for exchange and learning.

She left the office with a weekly plan given by Director Gao. During Director Gao’s business trip, she would have to complete some of his work, meaning she’d be a little busier in the coming week.

After returning to her office, Wen Jiajia started eating steamed buns again.

She was ravenous, feeling as if her stomach had become a bottomless pit that could never be filled, no matter how much she ate.

She had biscuits to eat initially, but now she had eaten all of them, and all the biscuit and pastry tickets she had saved were completely spent.

After eating half of the brown sugar bun, Wen Jiajia wrapped the remaining half in oil paper and placed it in the drawer to eat later in the afternoon when she got hungry.

Then she started writing her work reports. These had to be written weekly, and some people even wrote them daily, voluntarily.

At first, Wen Jiajia was puzzled, wondering how anyone could enjoy writing and voluntarily choose to do these reports. 

Later, she understood that in this age without computers, some work content had to be recorded with pen and paper. Otherwise, future tasks could become very troublesome.

For example, if she hadn’t kept records of the new machine she had introduced during her last business trip, it would be difficult to provide Director Gao with comprehensive information now.

Of course, another major reason was that ideological reports had to be written regularly. Once you started writing those, it was common to complete a work report at the same time.

At noon, Wen Jiajia went to the cafeteria to eat.

The cafeteria had changed a lot—from its original mud floor to a concrete one, and even the food window was now equipped with bright glass.

Wow, the factory is doing well now.

As batches of goods were shipped out, money flowed into the factory.

You can tell the factory is more prosperous now, just by looking at how much more luxurious the cafeteria has become.

Like the pharmaceutical factory, Yibo also has a big meal once a week. The big meal here means dishes like braised pork, steamed pork with rice flour, or other meat-containing dishes. The rest of the time, it’s considered good to have tofu and eggplant with a little extra oil and sauce.

Today wasn’t a big meal day, but Wen Jiajia unexpectedly smelled meat. She went to the window and saw that it was minced meat with vermicelli. She immediately opened her lunch box and asked for a serving.

It’s not that she didn’t want a second serving, but the sign said each person was limited to one.

Next to the minced meat and vermicelli were steamed buns. Wen Jiajia thought about it and bought two steamed buns, along with some vegetables.

The steamed buns were slightly yellow and had wheat bran on them, but fortunately, they weren’t too harsh on the throat. They went quite well with the oily minced meat and vermicelli.

Before crossing over, Wen Jiajia had never eaten authentic whole wheat bread. After crossing over, she had eaten plenty of whole wheat steamed buns.

The flour used for whole wheat steamed buns is made by grinding the wheat with the husk still on. One bite of it will stretch your neck two miles^[1]Phrase used to describe something extremely spicy or intense in flavor.. You have to keep a glass of water handy while eating, otherwise, it’s tough to rescue yourself when your throat gets choked.

People say that eating whole wheat helps with weight loss, but Wen Jiajia’s experience showed that the effect was average. The main reason it works is that it really suppresses appetite. She had never been able to finish an entire whole wheat bun.

If there are people out there strong enough to eat two or three whole wheat steamed buns in one meal, it’s still very difficult to lose weight.

After lunch, she returned to the office and continued her work.

After finishing the ideological report and work records, she decided to take a walk to the R&D room next door.

However, when she arrived, there was no one there. They said everyone had gone to the workshop, so Wen Jiajia went downstairs to the workshop.

The weather was hot, but the workshop was quite cool. Being on the first and second floors and spacious, it had windows on all four sides, which made it bright and well-ventilated. The hot wind from outside blew in gusts, and as it entered the workshop, the temperature dropped, making people feel refreshed—just like drinking a bottle of cold beer.

Wen Jiajia was well-liked in the workshop. She used to help out with tasks when she was on duty, which made the front-line workers in the workshop have a good impression of her.

As she walked along, many people greeted her.

“When is Comrade Wen’s baby due?” someone asked.

Wen Jiajia smiled and replied, “Not until the end of the year. There’s still a long way to go.”

“Hey, are you going to find someone to take your place?” the person asked again. They had a relative at home who was asking if there was any work available at the factory, but even if Wen Jiajia needed a replacement, she wouldn’t choose that person, so she just asked out of courtesy.

Wen Jiajia shook her head and said, “I don’t plan on finding someone to take my place.”

If she were still working at the pharmaceutical factory, she could find someone to fill in. Many people liked to find replacements so they could continue earning a salary.

But now that she was a small leader at the hospital, who could take her place? No one could, so she’d have to ask for leave.

“I figured you wouldn’t find someone. By the way, Comrade Wen, was there any discussion about the housing allocation at the meeting today?”

As soon as this question was asked, many people turned their eyes to her.

Wen Jiajia: …

She was here to look for someone.

Wen Jiajia could only say, “No, this kind of thing has to be discussed at a factory-wide meeting, not internally.”

The man curled his lips and said, “Forget it. I’ve seen that the foundation of the building has been laid. It might be completed next year. The leaders have already picked out the good houses and are just waiting to move in.”

Wen Jiajia was surprised. “The foundation has been laid?” She passed by it every day and never noticed it.

“Yes! The foundations of several buildings have been laid. It seems they plan to build all the buildings at once.”

Wen Jiajia wanted to escape the conversation, so she waved her hands and said, “That’s great. This way, everyone can share.”

Someone sneered, “They can divide it any way they want. People from the pharmaceutical factory and the chemical factory are waiting too. It’s not like all the buildings belong to us. It’s good enough if we get one building.”

“Yeah, by the time the leaders each get one, how much will be left for us workers?”

Wen Jiajia couldn’t understand how they had so much information. She didn’t know any of this.

Anyway, she had no intention of participating in the room allocation, and she didn’t feel that the person saying these things was targeting her at all.

Speaking of this, some people began to share their own situations:

“There are eight people in my family, and we live in a small house of just over 40 square meters. I should get a share of the house this time. Only if I get a house can my eldest son get married.”

This was the current housing norm, with three generations of a family living under one roof.

Many people couldn’t wait for housing allocation, and some had to wait until the land was demolished before they could live in a complete house.

The person next to him laughed and said, “Your husband isn’t even from our factory. It should be us, the working couples, who get first priority.”

Factory housing is extremely limited, and it is usually allocated to dual-income families first, meaning both spouses are employees of the factory, and then to single-income families.

Wen Jiajia thought about Director Shen’s personality and the fact that most of the top leaders at Medical Glass were transferred from other factories. She could probably guess who would be given priority in the next housing distribution.

First, they would set aside a portion as dormitories, and then the rest would be divided.

The first group of people to get the houses would definitely be dual-income families with large households. However, there weren’t many dual-income families in the medical industry. After all, it was a new factory that had just been established, and the single employees hadn’t yet had time to fall in love, let alone start families.

So there would likely be houses left over, and at that point, the allocation would depend on who had a larger family or who was a model worker.

Yes, model workers could also be given priority in housing allocation.

When she worked at the pharmaceutical factory, she once heard Sha Yue mention that a few years ago, during the second round of housing distribution, some employees worked overtime for half a year just to qualify as model workers and secure a house.

It was a very stressful time. In the end, even working half a year of overtime wasn’t enough. Later, the person had to do general cleaning around the factory and even clean the toilets. Eventually, one person, who was so exhausted that he fell directly into a small pool at the pharmaceutical factory and almost drowned, was awarded the title of Model Worker.

There was no other choice—the man collapsed just as his superior was inspecting the area, and his wife immediately claimed he had fainted from overwork. Whether it was true or not, no one knew, but the title was granted regardless.

Not only were the pharmaceutical factory’s superiors criticized, but the company was also nearly reported in the newspapers, accused of being a black capitalist who exploited workers.

Although Wen Jiajia didn’t know the man personally, she could guess that he was probably struggling in the factory. The factory couldn’t do anything directly to him, but it was easy for them to block his promotions, and they could easily come up with reasons that were hard to refute.

She guessed that similar situations might occur in the medical field.