Chapter 237: Chapter 237: A difficult problem
The news was reported to Feng Yiping, and sure enough, it was exactly what Zheng Lezhi had in mind. Feng Yiping's first reaction was to refuse without even thinking about it. What kind of joke is this? Participating in the restructuring of a state-owned enterprise that has gone bankrupt? Do you want to throw away a good life?
He had never wanted a slice of the pie in this tide of prosperity that some people called a feast. He didn't want to take advantage of it, and he didn't want to be dragged in. The reason for this was largely due to the workers, the main body of the state-owned enterprise.
You can tell how arrogant the workers in state-owned enterprises are just by saying two things.
The fundamental law of our country, the first article of the Constitution, states that our country is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.
At the same time, the party constitution also states clearly in the general principles that our party is the vanguard of the working class.
Therefore, a line from a Spring Festival Gala performance from a certain year should be changed to read, 'I am a worker (of a state-owned enterprise) and I am proud!'
Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Since then, the workers in factories have changed twice. Under the leadership of the bosses, who generally regard themselves as officials, not much of the original hard work and self-reliance spirit has been passed down.
Therefore, in our country, state-owned enterprise workers and non-state-owned enterprise workers are two completely different creatures with different concepts. If you are not lucky enough to be a member of the former, it is difficult to understand the behaviour and logic of the glorious state-owned enterprise workers. Many things that seem incredible to the general public are perfectly normal in their eyes.
This is not a wild guess; Feng Yiping has had some personally impressive experiences.
Later, in the new century, he sold a grinder produced by an old state-owned enterprise in the Spring City to a private enterprise that produced fountain pens, to be used for processing moulds.
For such a precise piece of equipment, the manufacturer had to send someone to debug it. Moreover, only after the debugging was complete and it met the various parameters on the random data would the manufacturer sign off on it and the final payment would be settled.
Feng Yiping met the manufacturer's technician at the train station. The technician was a middle-aged man carrying a bag that had been issued by the factory. He looked serious when he saw that Feng Yiping, a young man, was the one who had come to meet him. He looked even more serious when he saw that there wasn't even a car in the square in front of the station.
There was supposed to be a direct minibus from the train station to the development zone, for just two yuan per person. Feng Yiping sensed his unhappiness and reluctantly hailed a taxi, but the man refused to budge.
He got in the car and sat in the back seat, muttering, 'Isn't your company a big one? Why don't you even have a car?'
Feng Yiping explained patiently, 'Our company is not small, but we have never owned a car. The only Audi is a city award, managed by the company office. If you need a car, you need to apply in advance. Today is just unlucky, because another company has already applied.'
In fact, Feng Yiping had never applied for it at all. There are regulations for using the car to receive customers, and a technician like this is simply not qualified.
This page is considered to be turned over, and the middle-aged technician immediately brought up another matter, 'Where do I live?'
Feng Yiping did not realize the deeper meaning of this question, and very sincerely told him, 'There are quite a few clean and affordable hotels in the development zone. Manager Yang from your factory also used to stay in that area.'
'You're not going to arrange for me to stay at your guesthouse?'
'Ah, we don't have a guesthouse.'
'How can such a large group not even have a guesthouse?'
Feng Yiping now also heard what he meant, and felt that he wanted to save on accommodation allowances as well. 'We have groups that are larger than us, and I haven't heard of many of them having guesthouses.'
When they arrived at the door of the pen factory, Feng Yiping paid the nearly 30 yuan taxi fare with some reluctance. This expense was definitely not reimbursable.
At this time, a scene that left him even more speechless appeared. The owner of the pen factory happened to be parking his Mercedes-Benz under the office building of the factory. The technician then complained again, 'Isn't this a nice car? Why wasn't it sent just now?'
At that moment, a thousand wild horses whizzed through Feng Yiping's mind. I really don't know if you are here to provide service or to be a master.
He really couldn't serve anymore, so he handed the master over to the director of the mould workshop and ran away. However, soon, he received a phone call from the owner of the pen factory, who told him with a mix of laughter and tears, 'Is this the person from a state-owned factory? For a simple leveling, he brazenly asked for three packs of Zhonghua!'
Feng Yiping was speechless!
He had previously been in contact with salespeople from this factory, such as Manager Yang, who was in charge of this area. Their interactions were harmonious, and there was no such thing as this incident. After all, they both came from the same factory, so what was the difference?
One was completely familiar with the current rules, while the other was like an unearthed cultural relic. However, he still thought that this was completely normal. Moreover, he often had the opportunity to travel on business, so you can imagine what the mindset of those workers who had always stayed in the small society of a state-owned enterprise would be like.
Moreover, that was still a provincial capital city, and it was nearly twenty years later, so Feng Yiping simply couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to deal with the state-owned enterprise bigwigs in their prefecture-level city at this time.
Even if they really needed to produce the shelves, Feng Yiping would absolutely choose to build a new factory.
But while it was easy to refuse, it would not do to have Zheng Lezhi simply tell Feng Yiping's aunt that 'our company is not interested'. That would be a complete lack of manners and common sense. With their small business, how dare they treat the mayor like an ordinary citizen?
Feng Yiping had no choice but to ask Zhou Xinyu to come and handle the matter. Then, through Zheng Lezhi, Zhou Xinyu was given the opportunity to meet with the secretary of Mayor Fang.
Zhou Xinyu tactfully explained the company's wishes to the mayor's secretary and promised that the city would be given priority when setting up factories for private label goods in the future.
The mayor's secretary was very tactful, so tactful that Zhou Xinyu didn't understand at the time. It wasn't until he learned through Zheng Lezhi that the gist of the message was that they just needed someone to act as a stooge, so that the city would have room to negotiate.
Zhou Xinyu had no choice but to come to Feng Yiping, who of course would not agree. There are too many things like becoming a shareholder by speculating in stocks, becoming a landlord by speculating in real estate, and becoming a husband by wooing a girl. An original stooge who ends up taking over the business is nothing strange.
'Lao Zhou, if we are to be stooges, we will definitely ask for more favourable terms than the other company. What if it ends up in our hands and we have to take it? It will be too late to back out then,' Zhou Xinyu said.
Zhou Xinyu said, 'Yes,' and he knew full well that it would be naive to expect the mayor's secretary to come out and speak up for them.
There was nothing he could do, so he had to ask Zheng Lezhi to arrange another meeting with the mayor's secretary. The secretary listened to what he had to say without saying anything, and took him directly on a tour of the factory and the workers' housing area. The main points were two: the factory had good hardware, but the workers and their families were suffering.
This made things really difficult!