Haichuan Thanksgiving Season – Expressing gratitude to friends and mentors along the career path 【Career 010】

Thread Content

This post was last edited by leileienn on 2016-2-19 at 19:15. A few days ago, I saw in my social network account a photo album about my alma mater shared by a classmate; the background music was \"Those Years in a Hurry\", which touched me deeply. Thinking that it has been over two years since I graduated and that I haven’t achieved much yet, I really miss Xi’an and long for my former university classmates and my college days. Then I created a group and invited my former close classmates to join; everyone had countless hardships and deep feelings of longing to share. There are so many people to thank along my career path since graduating. Before graduating, I signed an employment contract with my partner at a large state-owned enterprise in Chongqing; after graduation, I set out on the path to earn a living, filled with passion and curiosity. Although I had known beforehand that the company was located in a remote area, I never expected it to be in such a secluded place. Being new there and not familiar with the surroundings, my low tolerance for stress led me to almost collapse. Thankfully, my partner was always by my side; he did all the hard work on the journey from home to Chongqing. When we arrived at the dormitory, it was mostly him who took care of everything – he was the one who arranged everything by himself. At first, neither of us knew how to cook, so he spent every day figuring out how to prepare meals, and when he wasn’t sure, he would call his parents for advice. I am grateful for everything my partner has done for me. I never think it’s obvious that one should do things for the other; when someone is willing to give without expecting anything in return, we should cherish that even more, rather than taking it for granted. The company has several branches, and some people were assigned to a subsidiary right away, including my family member; as for me and many others, our assignment hadn’t been determined yet. We first attended the onboarding training, and later we found out that those assigned to our group during the training were likely those with better academic grades, who would be sent to a branch located further from the headquarters – apparently part of a project in collaboration with Bayer. I was very worried; we had joined this company precisely because we didn’t want to have to work in different locations after graduation. So I called the lady from the human resources department who had taken care of us and explained the situation to her. She said she would try her best to help me make the adjustment, but it wasn’t guaranteed. I was extremely upset at that time; we even thought about quitting if that’s what would happen, just to avoid having to work in such a remote place. Fortunately, in the end, due to a new project, with so many people there – over a dozen of them – I was successfully assigned to the same branch as my spouse. Before we arrived, there was a group for new employees, and in that group I met a guy who helped us a lot. Before returning home after graduation, we sent our quilts and other items to the new company, and he helped us collect them on our behalf. As soon as we arrived, he came to see us, told us many things, and gave us a lot of advice. Thank you, Brother Yu! After the military training, we were assigned to the workshops of various subsidiaries. As it was a new project, everyone had to learn new skills every day; the workshop technicians provided training, and the team leaders took us to the sites to observe the cleaning processes. I would like to give special thanks to one of the deputy team leaders – he always answered all my questions. Once, he invited us college students for a meal and spoke to us at length. He especially advised us to use Haichuan, saying that there are many experts there who will share their knowledge without reservation no matter what the question is. It was the first time I heard of Haichuan; although I didn’t register for it right away, I did so after changing jobs, and from then on I fell in love with Haichuan. Thank you, Brother Bin, for introducing me to Haichuan – it has been extremely beneficial for me. When I first joined the team in the workshop, there was an experienced worker in our group; I found him to be quite mysterious. As expected, his life turned out to be quite interesting. He was a college graduate from the 1980s, and after graduation he was assigned to this state-owned enterprise. At first he was placed in the electroplating factory, but the managers there wouldn’t let him leave. At that time, the electroplating industry was very prosperous along the southern coast, and due to family reasons he wasn’t able to leave. Later, when the electroplating factory closed down, he was transferred to a compound fertilizer factory. It was said that he even became an assistant to the factory manager or deputy manager at some point. However, because he was too honest, he was demoted to the position of workshop supervisor. When the compound fertilizer factory also closed down, during the reassignment process he was assigned to work on a cooperative project abroad, which meant he missed out on some opportunities. As a result, when he started working on this new project, he had to begin as an operator. The workshop offered him positions such as team leader or safety officer, but he refused them. He thought he could at least work as a technician, but the workshop wouldn’t allow it, so he didn’t want to argue further. Then I proposed to take him as my mentor. At first he was reluctant, but I told him that my spouse was related to him by blood, as there are few people with the same surname as him in Chongqing. So he agreed to be my mentor. He shared many things about his own life with me and gave me a lot of advice. Often, we were assigned to work in the same team. He was my first mentor in life, and I’m grateful to him for teaching me so much! Thank you! State-owned enterprises have a large number of employees; when we started working there, we all began as operators. Since it was a new project, there were many young people and college graduates among us. We had all just graduated and got along well with each other. On our days off, when we had nothing to do, we would go out together. At first we worked during the day, but later we switched to shift work. After each night shift (it was originally a four-shift system, later changed to two shifts per day; unfortunately, we were assigned to the night shifts), we would all go together to have breakfast. Everyone took turns paying for meals, and we visited almost every breakfast place in Maiciping, our living area. I was the only female among the college graduates, and everyone took good care of me. When it came to doing physical work, they wouldn’t let me get involved in that kind of task. There are two things that I will always remember clearly. The first thing is that back then we worked night shifts for twelve hours every day; after work, we would go home, have breakfast, and then sleep until evening. By the time it was time for dinner, we could hardly eat anything. So I was in poor health throughout that period. Once in the middle of the night I was extremely hungry, and there was nothing to eat at work. Only in the shift handover room were there two boxes of oranges given as New Year’s benefits. My colleague, whom we all called Wangwang, gave me one orange to eat, saying that if the owner complained, it would be his problem, and telling me not to worry too much and to eat quickly ； Another thing: once, at work, my phone ran out of battery, so I left it in the shift handover room to charge. After work, we took the factory vehicle back to the residential area; it was only then that I remembered I hadn’t taken my phone with me. The vehicle was about to leave in a few minutes, and I thought I could just ask my colleague taking over to help me get it later. But Wangwang, without even thinking, asked where the phone was charged, got out of the vehicle and rushed back to fetch it for me. I was really touched by that; I’m grateful to my colleagues who take care of me, especially Wangwang. Later, due to some personal reasons, the two of us resigned from Chongqing and came to my current workplace, which is in a small town in Zhejiang – a place that isn’t very developed. At first, I found it very difficult to adjust to this environment; the dormitory assigned to me was extremely dirty. I thought to myself that it was impossible to clean such a rundown and filthy place. It was my partner who stayed by my side, tirelessly helping to clean the dirty rooms. We were assigned to the technical department to work on process design, and we were placed under different supervisors. My supervisor was the deputy head of our department, but he wasn’t really involved in technical matters; his responsibilities mainly focused on quality inspection and quality control. He just held a position in our department. He was my second mentor; he was a great person. I spent a few months in the workshop, and both the workers there and the supervisors were very kind – they always answered any questions I had without holding back any information. At first, we spent our days getting familiar with the processes in the workshop; we didn’t have any actual work to do, so we just hung around and chatted with the workers. The tasks related to inorganic materials were relatively simple, so I quickly became familiar with them. But since I didn’t have any work assigned to me, I just spent my time wandering around. That’s when I started exploring Haichuan – once I got involved with it, it became like falling into an abyss from which it’s hard to escape. At the beginning of 2015, my spouse resigned because of the working conditions and because our family wanted him to return home (although it was already quite close from here). I stayed here alone; our plan was to leave once he had settled in. After he left, everyone took good care of me as well. It takes about ten minutes to get from our residential area to the company, and I walked there every day. My colleagues and supervisors would give me a ride whenever they saw me, so I’ve almost used every car in our company. Although I have a designated mentor, it is our department head, who is also the chief engineer of our company, who guides me in terms of technical skills. Whenever I have questions, he teaches me personally; if I make mistakes, he doesn’t blame me but instead explains the reasons to me and shows me how to do things correctly. I am very grateful for their selfless efforts in guiding me so much. After the New Year, I plan to resign. I talked to my department head about it in advance, and I could tell that he was quite reluctant to see me go, as he thought I did a good job. However, knowing that my family member isn’t here, he didn’t try to stop me. I thank everyone here for taking care of me; I’m leaving after the New Year, and it’s really hard to say goodbye. It’s been over two years since I graduated, and along the way I’ve received help from many people. I’m grateful to everyone who has helped me, and I will pass on this kindness and love to others!