In the civil engineering and architectural design industry, why are everyone running away with buckets?

Recently, there is a popular term called "pail-running". This term generally refers to the fact that a worker in the civil engineering and construction industry can't stand the hard work and low income, so he directly picks up a paint bucket on the construction site, loads his clothes, and runs away.

Why did the civil engineering and construction industry, which was still in full swing more than a decade ago, come to this point? I was on a business trip last week and chatted with a high school student majoring in civil design at Huazhong University of Science and Technology to share with you the current situation of the industry.

I remember when I graduated from high school in almost 07, at that time, in fact, the whole county discussed the choice of college entrance examination majors, and two majors were very popular, one was called communication engineering, and the other was called civil engineering.

At that time, there was no finance or computer business

At that time, the most well-known was not Tsinghua University and Peking University, but Tongji University's civil engineering major, because I remember that at that time, if someone was admitted to this major in this school throughout my high school, then it would be a campus star. After all, it is extremely difficult to be admitted to Tsinghua University and Peking University, and genius-level players are needed, but the probability of taking the Tongji exam is even greater, which belongs to the ceiling of ordinary students.

20 years ago was the era of communication and civil construction, each professional development has its background, when a high-rise building rises from the ground, when a kind of bridge and tunnel prosperity and development, the civil industry ushered in the spring of more than ten years.

With the development of the civil engineering and construction industry, it has also directly driven the development of the design institute. There is a certain difference between the design institute and the civil engineering and construction engineering, and when the design institute hears the name, we know that most of the design institutes are doing design, while most of the engineering institutes are doing implementation. To put it simply, the design institute draws drawings, and the project produces buildings and viaducts based on these drawings. However, although the main work of the design institute is design, it is inevitable that they have to go to the construction site every once in a while, and even have to go to construction sites all over the country on business trips.

Whether you are a 211 or 985 graduate, you may have to go to the construction site a few more times when you get to this industry. Another of my former college classmates who did road and bridge engineering spent more than half of the year in the mountains and forests, and according to him, it was normal not to see anyone for a few months.

As you can imagine, if you encounter a road, bridge or elevated project in the deep mountains and old forests of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau or Guizhou, this project will be repaired for at least one or two years. Except for the occasional New Year's holiday, I can come back a little, and the rest of the time is basically all on the project.

Maybe the students who sit in the office now can't experience the fatigue of doing civil engineering. When I was in college, I went to a construction site to help out for two days to earn my own ticket money. I remember working from about seven or eight o'clock in the morning, and since I was a novice, I could only throw a brick and hand a cement or something, like those of us who had never done construction work for a few hours, and my whole body ached.

And we had to do it almost 12 noon. However, when you do 12, you can generally rest for about two hours, and this break is not deliberately taken out by the foreman, but because the sun is too strong from 12 o'clock ~ to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and people can't get the sun at all. Then in the afternoon, I had to work from about 2 or 3 o'clock until six or seven o'clock.

Then only do 7 o'clock in the evening the reason is only because the sun goes down, every day is dark, it is really inconvenient to work, often at the construction site should know that there are many safety construction hazards on the black construction site, so it is not a last resort, will not be in the night construction, the foreman agreed to get off work.

I remember that after two days of work, I was so tired that I couldn't get out of bed, and I only earned 160 yuan, but that was in 2015.

Another time, when I was graduating from high school, I followed my eldest brother to work on a construction site in Chongqing for more than a month. My brother made stair handrails, so I went over and helped out. That month was almost my life-saving time, and I would like to tell you a detail, we don't sleep in the room during our lunch break, but in the rough room on the construction site.

That's because in this kind of weather in Chongqing, Sichuan, the temperature of the bed board is more than 40 degrees, and you have to jump up when you lie down.

In addition, the construction environment of the construction site is extremely bad, and it is normal for a wooden board and a brick to fall on the upper floor. Shortly after I arrived at the construction site, I stepped on a nail that punctured the soles of my feet, and I was so scared that I didn't sleep well for a few days when I studied biology and learned that tetanus bacilli can cause death.

Also, when we do stairs and railings, the rough room elevator on the construction site has not yet been installed, we take the outdoor hollow simple elevator, which is an elevator assembled by a motor and a few wooden boards, swaying and yozy, I have done several psychological construction before I dare to sit on it, you can imagine, a wooden box surrounded by openings, people are swaying to the 60th floor, sitting halfway to a strong wind, what is it like?

The good thing is that my fear of heights has been cured, and now I climb out to look at the building a few hundred meters away, just like playing. This is a portrayal of the difficult environment of the civil engineering industry and construction sites, which can be seen in the tube.

Of course, the so-called 211985 graduates do not need to do all the physical work at all, but in fact, physical work is also indispensable. After all, you don't even know what bricks look like, how can you do a good job in a good project, how can you be responsible for designing a building bridge?

Therefore, no matter what you do, the first few years of engaging in civil engineering are thrown on the construction site, and you can adapt to it for a period of time to have a sense of the industry, and you can go further and higher. After all, it doesn't matter, you can't let the boss's son go to the tunnel bridge to drive a forklift and transport cement, right? Of course, the boss's son generally doesn't engage in this kind of industry. In other words, our so-called China is an infrastructure madman, how did we come up with this name? It's not just ordinary people who pile up their time and youth.

However, it turns out that I am tired, the income is okay, and the growth is also very good, whether it is going up or starting a business, there are many opportunities. Now, however, the situation is different, and not only has the level of hardship not decreased, but the outlook is becoming increasingly uncertain. The standard of living is also high, and young people are not willing to suffer this kind of suffering without a future, who doesn't want to take it easy.

In fact, the civil design industry and the civil construction industry are very closely related. So not so much about the development of the design institute, in fact, we are talking about the development history of the entire construction industry.

According to my classmates, he is already a senior practitioner of the civil engineering design institute, which is equivalent to the supervisor level, and he has a relatively good team. It turns out that the bonuses are still relatively generous in all aspects, but as most of the people who can run have run recently, there are fewer and fewer new entrants left.

In terms of business, now that the entire infrastructure has been gradually improved, the original scene of short supply is gone. It turns out that the national infrastructure projects can basically allow them to work overtime. Many civilian projects, like the real estate we usually say, they couldn't look down on before, after all, the profits of civil construction are relatively low, and in the following days, they also began to compete for the market in the civilian market.

And at the same time, as the saturation of buildings is getting higher and higher, everyone is competing for the only share in the stock industry. Therefore, the relationship between supply and demand has also changed, and now it is Party A's market, and for a construction project, large and small design institutes are competing for a small job, which is extremely involuted.

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The design institute where he works is a state-owned enterprise, and there is no such thing as severance compensation. He said that anyone who has a little ability and a little idea has changed industries. The rest of the people may not be able to jump into other industries because they are old, or they don't want to toss anymore, so they live like this, not asking for much money.

I talked a lot with my classmates, and on the surface we talked about the civil engineering and architectural design industry, but in fact, I was thinking more about the Internet industry. In fact, every industry has its hot spots, after which they tend to calm down.

This is true for the coal mining industry, civil engineering industry, communication industry, software industry, and Internet industry in the past. But it's only in the last 100 years that we've changed so dramatically. In fact, in the thousands of years of history in China, most of the industries are relatively stable, and there are even many industries that have eaten for thousands of years, such as civil servants, teachers and doctors.

Therefore, it is understandable that these three major industries have become the three most competitive industries in China. After all, for thousands of years, our ancestors have had profound insights and insights into our Chinese society.

Finally, today's civil communication coal mine may be the future of software computers, but I think that as a scientific and technological tool, there is still a lot of room for computers in the future, and for ordinary people, it is still a once-in-a-century opportunity to turn over. No, AI or something, maybe it's the second information technology revolution, if it happens, just like my predecessor who is a byte boss said, my career can be extended by at least ten years.