After joining the work, I changed 5 units in total, and the most personality of the leaders I came into contact with was Chen Futing, the president and editor-in-chief of the municipal newspaper. He has been retired for several years, but colleagues still talk about him enthusiastically and praise his style.
When I first learned to write in high school, I wanted to find a senior person to teach me. I heard that a man named Chen Futing of the Propaganda Department of the Flag Committee had published a novel, so I inquired about it and asked him for advice with his study. Because I was young, I didn't care about anything other than asking for advice and listening to his comments.
Later, he became a leader in the municipal newspaper, and I also graduated from a junior college, first as a teacher, and then transferred to the Flag Political Consultative Conference and grass-roots newspapers. Because I often published news and literary works in newspapers and periodicals, a few years later, President Chen advocated transferring me from the grassroots to a city newspaper as a reporter.
After settling down at the city newspaper, I wanted to find an opportunity to visit him at home, express my gratitude to him, and lay the foundation for future progress.
At that moment, I chatted with my colleagues and heard that President Chen had a "problem": if anyone went to give him a gift, he would say it everywhere. They also gave an example, one year during the Spring Festival, an employee of the unit sent him a piece of famous wine, and he said to the employee at that time, I can't drink wine, you take it back! The worker was speechless, but insisted on putting the wine in his house.
As a result, president Chen said to everyone, I can't drink wine, so-and-so has to give me a piece of wine, put it in the house to occupy a place, if you can drink it, take it! All of a sudden, many people in the unit knew that so-and-so had sent him a piece of wine, and then the employee had to go to his house again and move the wine away.
After that, no one dared to send him anything.
Once, I followed President Chen down to the grassroots level, and in the evening, a local reporter of the daily newspaper, who was also an amateur contributor we had arranged in Qi County, came to my room.
After chatting for a while, he carried a bag and said that he wanted to go to President Chen's room to see, and explained that President Chen had always taken good care of us, and had not given him any gifts, and this time he came to our county, so I went to the market to buy some mushrooms, which were picked up by local people on the mountain.
At breakfast the next day, President Chen sat at the table and said to the leader of the local propaganda department who had eaten with us that so-and-so came to give me some mushrooms last night. I said that the mushrooms from last year at home have not been eaten, and you should take them away. As a result, he insisted on putting me in the room, and any of you like to eat that stuff, follow me to the room after eating!
Everyone looked at each other. Later, seeing that President Chen resolutely did not want it, he had to go to his room and take the mushrooms away after dinner.
Another time, the newspaper company wanted to recruit a group of editors and reporters to admit them according to the written test results.
The day before the exam, a colleague from a grassroots newspaper where I used to work came to my house and asked me to tell President Chen about him and take care of him in terms of employment.
My colleague is very diligent, in addition to the daily news reporting work, but also like me like literary creation, in the past we often discussed the creative experience together, the relationship is very good. He asked me where President Chen's family lived, and said that when he came, he had made preparations and planned to see him after the exam.
But after the exam, the colleague came to tell me that he had not gone to President Chen's house. Because before the test, President Chen arrived at the examination room, stood in front of all the participants in the examination and said: I will say first, after the examination, no one is allowed to come to my home or office to give gifts and intercede, otherwise the results will not be admitted no matter how good the results!
My colleague asked me doubtfully, is President Chen's statement true? Am I still going to his house? I quickly said don't go, if President Chen said this, it is true, if you go, he really does not want you.
President Chen was not in the office every day, he often walked around the floor of the editor's office, talking to the editors and reporters who had no tasks at that time to understand some situations. This habit allows him to obtain information that he cannot hear in formal places through small talk.
For example, once during a chat, he heard that two reporters went to the grassroots level to interview, and they arrived at the flag just in time for dinner. At that time, the flag propaganda minister was in a meeting, and he couldn't spare time to entertain them, so he let them go to dinner by themselves and come back to reimburse them. Unexpectedly, the two reporters came back from eating, opened an invoice of 800 yuan, and directly looked at the propaganda minister dumbfounded: after eating so much for a meal, there was no way to reimburse it!
President Chen was very surprised to hear this, and immediately talked to the two reporters, and seriously criticized them at the all-staff meeting, warning everyone that if anyone did such a thing again, he would be disqualified from the interview.
President Chen, who treats people sincerely, usually has something to say and mingles with the masses, so even if he sometimes shouts at people at work, or even makes people unable to come to the stage, everyone has no opinion on him, they all respect him, and when they talk about him, they will always give a thumbs up in their hearts.
Text: Lü Bin | Anchor: Chen Bing
Source: Pin Reading, No. 3, 2022
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Chu | Proofreader: Huang Chenxi (Intern)