Courtyard House: Starting as a mediocre engineer

As He Yuzhu successfully found a partner, more and more rumors began to circulate.

The girl's name was Wu Xiaoya, she had just turned 18 and was currently unemployed. Her parents sold her for 650 yuan, which eased the burden on their family, so they made a good deal.

The placement of unemployed youth is generally carried out in accordance with the following policies:

If no one in the family is employed, a job will be provided immediately upon arrival. The neighborhood committee will arrange employment without delay. Ensuring the basic livelihood of every family is a priority here.

Others need to queue, and generally men are given priority over women, and younger people are given priority over older people.

Therefore, after Wu Xiaoya married into the courtyard house, she, like Yu Li, had to wait in line on the street!

As for those students, whether they are graduates of colleges, universities, vocational schools, or technical schools, they will definitely be guaranteed jobs. There is no need to worry.

Note: This does not include graduates of general education such as junior high school and senior high school.

In other words, those who can't even get into technical or vocational schools after graduating from junior high or high school are unemployed youth. These are the people who have to line up at the street level for jobs.

Therefore, it is virtually impossible for people to secretly snatch jobs, buy jobs, or substitute for others in jobs. It requires smoothing things over with all relevant parties, including the hiring unit, the labor bureau, and the local street (school) authorities.

To put it bluntly, if someone could streamline all these processes, would they still be considered an ordinary citizen? With that kind of power, surely they could manage a job.

Without a doubt, that's hellish difficulty, something even ordinary cadre families can't achieve.

So, are there any alternative solutions? Hmm... there are! Enlist in the military, and upon discharge, you'll be guaranteed employment. Discharged veterans are guaranteed jobs, and these are government-employed positions. Similarly, demobilized officers are guaranteed officer positions.

Just to clarify: This applies to soldiers with urban residency permits like those in Beijing. Soldiers with rural residency permits will still return to their rural homes to farm after their service. Therefore, promotions in the military are still extremely competitive and cutthroat.

Everyone should know this. Joining the army was extremely popular during that period; people in both cities and rural areas were practically fighting tooth and nail for it.

Let's put Wu Xiaoya's work aside for now. Anyway, He Yuzhu and Wu Xiaoya will get married before the end of the year.

Since we're going to have a happy occasion, we definitely need to solve the money problem.

He Yuzhu borrowed money from all around the courtyard house, and I heard he borrowed even more from his workplace. Anyway, he was already drowning in debt, all for the sake of winning a smile from a beauty?

Zhuang Zhongchen, being quite sensible, proactively approached He Yuzhu and repaid the 43 yuan debt. Fortunately, he already had some savings, enough to barely cover such unexpected situations.

As for borrowing money from He Yuzhu? Well... should we write an IOU?

……

And so, the National Day holiday finally came to an end, and the city of Beijing entered the golden autumn season.

On that day, Director Jin convened a work meeting with the leaders of various departments.

"...Our results this year can be described as a mixed bag. It's already year-end summaries, but the property damage and number of injuries from safety accidents remain stubbornly high..."

Well! This year has been really unlucky, with a series of safety accidents and a once-in-a-century torrential rain.

But superiors will never be reasonable. When it comes to the year-end summary, the general affairs department will definitely be severely reprimanded.

"...Stop playing dumb. Let's all think of a way to make amends!"

That's absolutely true. The property damage is already done, and the dead and injured cannot be brought back to life. Claiming to make amends is nothing more than playing word games to make the summary report look a little better.

Soon everyone was chattering away, offering all sorts of terrible ideas. In short, everyone was working together to deceive their superiors and cover up the truth.

In this era, employment is generally based on lifetime contracts, with employees spending their entire lives in the same workplace. Furthermore, they rely on their employer for everything, from birth to old age, illness to death. Therefore, collectivism is highly valued, and there is a strong sense of internal cohesion.

To put it more plainly: even if internal strife leads to bloodshed, they will still unite as one against external forces.

Finally, it was Zhuang Zhongchen's turn. After considering for a moment, he said, "Director Jin, this is what I'm thinking: since the safety incident that has already occurred cannot be resolved, we should strive to achieve outstanding results in the post-incident analysis."

"Okay, please continue."

"Regarding safety incidents, we can collectively publish papers to prevent or even completely eliminate existing hazards. If this can be recognized by higher authorities and become a future safety standard, wouldn't that be our greatest achievement?"

"Xiao Zhuang, what are your thoughts?"

"Indeed, I'm just throwing out an idea here!" Zhuang Zhongchen smiled slightly. "A few days ago, when I was inspecting the meat processing plant, I discovered that their cold storage had safety hazards."

"Cold storage?"

"Yes! When the cold storage door is closed, it's very likely that someone could be trapped inside. Over time, they could suffer frostbite or even freeze to death. And this isn't uncommon; it's just a matter of whether it's discovered in time. What if? So, we need to make a hole in a corner of the cold storage that a person can crawl through. There should be a passive emergency light so it can be seen in the dark; there should be an emergency bell so it can sound a distress signal in an emergency; if that's not enough, a rescue hammer should be hung on the wall next to it. This hole should also be sealed with low-strength bricks. Normally, it should be a single unit. If a self-rescue situation occurs, you can take the hammer and break open a rescue hole. The structure here must not be very sturdy; the standard is that a woman's strength is enough for her to break open the hole and escape."

This is actually the later safety standard for ice storage. It didn't exist at all in the early 60s.

Like that old movie later on, "Big Li, Little Li, and Old Li," directed by Xie Jin, it's a very good comedy. There's a scene where several people are locked in a freezer, and they desperately try to move their bodies, but luckily they're eventually rescued.

If you're just watching a movie, this scene is indeed hilarious. But what if it happened in real life? Wouldn't that be incredibly dangerous? And this kind of situation isn't uncommon (even if it were, it wouldn't be a movie plot); similar safety accidents happen frequently.

And in practice, it's incredibly easy to do. It's just digging a dog hole... a hole in the wall, right?

There was almost no investment involved. It's just an emergency light, an electric bell, and a hammer—how much could that cost? For such a great and cost-effective project, there was no reason for the higher-ups not to approve it.

After pondering for a while, Director Jin couldn't help but slam his hand on the table and exclaim, "Great! Let's do it this way! And the thesis...?"

"Director Jin, let Engineer Cheng and Engineer Cui write it! I'll learn from them. Besides, there are indeed research requirements for promotion, and Engineer Cheng and Engineer Cui are almost done with their years of service. I'm still far from that. Giving it to me would be a waste."

"Alright! Let's finish this paper as soon as possible."

"..."