(Disclaimer: This story is fictional)
I am a young old mother, only 50 years old this year. My hukou is still in the backward village of my hometown, and I still belong to a rural woman in terms of household registration.
But now that I'm settled in the city, I'm economically middle-class in a city.
How did I go from a rural woman to a city middle class?—— look at my story:
I hadn't graduated from junior high school yet, so I went home to feed the cows. Seeing that there were no employment opportunities in backward villages, I moved out of the countryside in 2008 with the trend of going out to work.
When I was Chinese junior high school, strictly speaking, I was only equivalent to a primary school student, because I was a scumbag in junior high school. Naturally, I didn't dare to go to Shenzhen, Guangdong, and I was afraid that I wouldn't find a job, so I decided to go to the nearest city to make a living.
Because I have no culture, my first thought is to be a housekeeper and a nanny, but I found that I can't do it at all, because I can't use slightly more advanced household appliances, and I can't read the manual.
Later, I went to work as a waiter, but I was not wanted in many places, and they disliked me for being ugly and dark, saying that I should not scare the customers.
I had no choice but to apply for a job as a cooking aunt at a construction site. It was here that my fate was changed.
At that time, there was a contractor surnamed Liu at the construction site, and he often brought a boss who did steel stirrup processing to my small canteen for dinner. I wondered, only the supplier invited the contractor to dinner, how could the contractor invite the contractor to dinner in turn?
I'd like to find out.
The so-called steel stirrup processing is to bend the steel bars used in the construction into geometric shapes, so that they can be tied into columns and poured into cement to form the main frame of the building during construction.
The requirements for site and technology are not high, as long as the steel bar is folded according to the requirements, the processing fee can be charged. I don't know why, but I suddenly became very interested in this, because it doesn't need to be very literate, as long as you can endure hardships.
I took advantage of the fact that I was very familiar with the foreman surnamed Liu, so I asked him vigorously about this situation. Seeing that I was a rural woman who was interested in this, he jokingly said, if you can do it, I will also give you a part of the business.
I said really? I don't have the funds. He said that there is no need to have funds, anyway, the steel belongs to their construction site, just take it and make it into the shape they need and drag it over, and give me a processing fee of 50 yuan per ton.
I thought to myself, how much steel is the steel bar of a building? That can be counted as an astronomical amount of money? I said, do you count? He said of course it counts (I guess he thought I couldn't do it).
I went home and told my husband about this, I said that I could call Ergou and Sanmao in our village, and the four of us together, just bend the steel bars into geometric shapes, just bear a little more hardship and make a little more effort.
My husband and I borrowed money to buy two bending machines, found a remote abandoned factory and started it.
This contractor surnamed Liu also fulfilled his promise and gave me a 5-story processing business. The four of us worked day and night for four days, and finally settled the processing fee of almost 30,000 yuan.
I literally stayed up all night with the money in my hands.
This contractor surnamed Liu may look at me ugly, black and rural, with relatively simple social relations and stupidity.
So one day he said to me, I will give you 1 ton of steel bar today, you have to process 1.5 tons of finished products for me, and I will double the processing fee for you.
As soon as I heard it, I was stupid and confused, and I said how can this be done? How can 1 ton become 1.5 tons?
He didn't answer me directly, so he took one of the previous man's processing and compared it with mine, and I saw that the steel stirrup steel bar looked thinner than mine.
He asked me if I understood? I really didn't understand, I thought that the rebar that other people were using to process was smaller in diameter.
The foreman surnamed Liu scolded me and said that you are such a stupid woman. Just tell you directly, in the future, you can stretch 1m of steel bars to 1.5m, and then make steel stirrups and send them to me.
I didn't think much of it at all, anyway, I just did what he asked, and the price could be twice as high, so why not.
In this way, I followed the foreman surnamed Liu and began to make a fortune. I ran a few construction sites a year, and I earned almost 1 million in the first year, and then it rose geometrically.
After making so much money, the foreman surnamed Liu said that he saw that I had made money, and that he felt that he had helped people and done good deeds, and he wanted to congratulate me and invite me to dinner in turn.
Because I am uneducated, I neither watch the news nor care about current affairs. It's a fool from the countryside again, I don't understand it at all, and I will do what people want me to do.
When you have money, you are happy.
Until one day, the foreman surnamed Liu suddenly disappeared and couldn't be contacted, and then I didn't know what shrinking steel bars were, and it turned out that I had been doing the pit business of shrinking steel bars.
I finally understood why the contractor surnamed Liu invited us to dinner in turn. Because he resold the large amount of steel that had been saved, he made a considerable profit in the middle. Give me twice as much processing fee, it's just a drizzle.
I heard that there are still buildings made of shrinkage steel that have collapsed, so it has attracted the attention of the regulatory authorities. I couldn't rest my nights for fear that something big would happen.
Later, I finally heard about this contractor surnamed Liu, and it turned out that he completely left the industry when he heard a little rumor and went incognito.
He said not to worry, he still had a little conscience at that time, and it should not be a big problem to use the shrunken ones and the ones that were not shrunk, and the ones that fell out were completely made of shrunken steel bars.
My fearful heart finally quieted down.
It was also through the drizzle of those years that I made a lot of money and squeezed into the middle class industry in a third-tier city.
Although I am not educated, I still have a conscience. I know that you can't make money like that. My husband and I quickly cleaned up the equipment and grounds, and left the industry completely.
To this day, I cherish my hard-won wealth very much, and I am reluctant to spend it indiscriminately.
I often think that if there is a quality problem with those buildings in the future, I will find a reasonable way to donate the rest of the money to them as a repair fund.
#Seeing the world#
Follow me @筱筱清路 to accompany you all the way!