The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 155 The Dilemma of Being Asked for a Person
After Guo Yuting finished preparing dinner, she called out from the backyard, and then plates of food were brought out from the kitchen.

Zhou Zhiqiang sat at the table with his son in his arms. After smelling the food, he said in surprise, "It smells delicious, Yuting. Your cooking skills have improved recently."

"Of course, cooking is not difficult. I often cook for myself when you are not home."

As Guo Yuting spoke, she served the dishes, and soon all the dinner was on the table.

She and Zhou Zhiqiang ate a mixed noodle dish, which was actually about 80% coarse grains with only a little refined grain added.

The little bit of refined grain in the house is probably all eaten by Zhou Bocai. The steamed buns are fluffy and soft, and even the porridge is just small dumpling soup made from white flour.

Although they had plenty of food stored up, they had to consider their son's growing appetite and other factors, so they couldn't eat to their heart's content.

Guo Yuting has now transformed from a "progressive young woman" two years ago into a devoted wife who is wholeheartedly devoted to her family.

Zhou Zhiqiang often works overtime and is away from home, but Guo Yuting takes good care of the family. She has never complained to him. At most, she feels that Zhou Zhiqiang is away from home for a long time, which makes the children feel a little unfamiliar with him.

Now Zhou Bocai has been taught to feed himself. Last year, when their son was a little over one year old, Zhou Zhiqiang and Guo Yuting discussed having a kind father and a strict mother at home.

As a result, his loving father often disappeared, spending half the year on business trips and the other half working overtime, leading Zhou Bocai to believe, from the time he could remember, that there was only a strict mother at home, and no loving father.

"Did Tian Dong just come over? What's up?"

After Guo Yuting sat down, she asked him what was wrong. She first broke off half a steamed bun for her son, then picked up some vegetables before picking up her own bowl and chopsticks to eat.

“They came to pay back the money, and then Brother Xiaojun said he wanted to treat us to a meal. He probably wants to repay us by mentioning that he had a baby. I’ll see if I can go. I missed his wedding last time.”

Zhou Zhiqiang casually said, "I'll see if I can send a packet of malted milk powder later, and we can share it with the others at the factory tomorrow. But you should share it with the neighborhood committee first."

His relationship with Deputy Factory Director Sun was so-so. He had just handed over his work to Sun Yifei today, and tomorrow he was going to adjust the vouchers. When Sun Yifei saw this, he thought that the job adjustment was just for the vouchers.

Moreover, as the deputy factory director, he was essentially the factory director, and his ability to transfer tickets with some of the lower-level directors always gave others the impression that he was using his power to intimidate them.

"By the way, I requested ten job openings at the factory. They are temporary workers, but they can be converted to permanent employees within two or three years."

Although the initial monthly salary was only twelve, it allowed me to learn a skill.

While eating, Zhou Zhiqiang suddenly remembered this matter and said to Guo Yuting, "There were originally ten spots, but when Tian Dong came over just now, I gave one to his wife; now that our family doesn't need Mao Pingping's help, let her go to work."

"I plan to give the rest to your subdistrict office. You can ask the director of the subdistrict office later."

"For our neighborhood office?"

Guo Yuting was taken aback upon hearing this, and then asked, "Can you give that? Your factory isn't in our district. Isn't this cross-district recruitment? Will your district's labor bureau agree to this?"

“I’m giving it to you personally, what do I need the district labor bureau to agree to? If you take those nine spots, things will be easier for you in the subdistrict office. I’m doing this for your own selfish reasons.”

After a pause, Zhou Zhiqiang continued, "However, you should tell the people in your subdistrict office that it would be best to give all nine of these spots to impoverished families or families of martyrs."

This way, I can have an explanation to the factory. If any new hires have problems, they will definitely be dismissed.

If a bunch of people with connections are brought in to the subdistrict office, and Zhou Zhiqiang were to dismiss them, Guo Yuting would have a hard time getting along with people there.

Therefore, the initial focus was on providing jobs to impoverished families or families of martyrs and soldiers. These families would definitely work hard if they had a job, and it also helped the neighborhood committee solve some problems.

These are temporary workers, not permanent employees, so they can be easily dismissed or fired.

For regular employees, even apprentices during their internship period, the factory has no right to dismiss them. The labor union needs to report to the labor bureau and the ministry, and the dismissal will only be carried out after the conditions for dismissal are confirmed.

It's much easier with temporary workers. The factory just needs to make a notification, meet with the Party Secretary, and the temporary worker doesn't need to come in the next day.

They are similar to day laborers, and can be replaced at any time.

"Nine job openings? Our director will be ecstatic! That would solve the problems of nine impoverished families."

Upon hearing this, Guo Yuting smiled and said, "These past few days she's been worried about the impoverished families in her jurisdiction. They have little income, and the odd jobs from the street office are getting fewer and fewer."
If there were nine job openings, it would be a huge relief for the neighborhood committee; by the way, could your factory assign some odd jobs to the neighborhood committee? Even manual labor would be fine.”

"This can't be assigned because they're not in the same jurisdiction. We always contact the local authorities."

Zhou Zhiqiang shook his head and said, "This has to go through the factory, but if the factory goes directly to your street office, then the local street office will come knocking on our door, and then it's hard to say what will happen."

There are many places in the factory that need odd jobs, especially porters. Sometimes dozens of porters are needed to help out every day.

However, this is not allowed across districts, as it would displease the local government.

------

The next day.

After getting up, Zhou Zhiqiang ate breakfast at home before taking a car to work at the factory.

After arriving at the factory, I first called over several workshop directors and discussed with them adjustments to the subsequent production division of labor.

The production of the new high-precision coordinate boring machine will definitely be increased, while the production of the old planer will be gradually reduced.

In the next two years, we may reserve one or two workshops for processing and production.

It is even quite possible that this planer will be manufactured by another machine tool factory or machinery factory.

Zhou Zhiqiang had a clear vision for the future of the Second Machine Tool Plant: to be a pioneer and leader in the development of high-end machine tools.

In the future, we will definitely strive to become number one in Asia and even number one in the world. If the Second Machine Tool Plant can achieve the status of number one in Asia, then even if some people within the plant want to cause chaos, the higher-ups will not allow any unrest to occur.

Such a great honor must be maintained.

However, the road ahead is long and arduous, and there are still about eight years to go. The Second Machine Tool Plant not only needs to consider meeting the needs of domestic heavy industry development, but also the export of machine tools.

They can't achieve the top ranking in Asia by focusing solely on domestic development. Only by expanding the influence of their machine tool factory can they achieve the top ranking in Asia.

However, how to export and what to export depends on the considerations of the higher-ups.

Zhou Zhiqiang only has the right to make suggestions, not the right to make decisions at all. However, the country has indeed been very keen to let their heavy industrial products "go global" in recent years.

The Canton Fair reveals a growing trend of heavy industrial products, including a significant number of machine tools, but few transactions are actually completed.

Foreigners are very pragmatic; they buy what's good and don't even look at what's bad.

Most of the machine tools that China brought to the Canton Fair were copied from the Russians' work, with some modifications added.

These changes are purely applicable to the domestic situation and may not necessarily apply to other countries.

So sales were so-so, not many; and those savvy foreigners who wanted to buy could just go and buy from the Russians.

Buying in bulk can get you a discount.

Unless they can't find any substitutes, like the small tractors and threshers from Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Equipment Factory, where there are no substitutes for their working efficiency and energy consumption, they will not purchase them in large quantities.

"Alright, let's arrange it like this for now."

After assigning detailed production tasks, Zhou Zhiqiang said to the workshop director in the office, "Although our factory is now directly under the ministry, before, among all machine tool factories, we were struggling even in the midstream, let alone the upstream."

But this time is different. The opportunity for development has been created. Whether you can make the factory the number one in the country depends on your efforts.

He didn't say he was number one in Asia because he was afraid the workshop directors would think he was bragging. In fact, Zhou Zhiqiang's goal was to surpass Aramco, Little Sunshine, and Defa to become number one in the world.

“During this period, if any workers are dissatisfied with the processing and you cannot persuade them otherwise, please come to me.”

Upon hearing this, all the workshop directors quickly nodded in agreement.

Sometimes they don't even have the confidence to face senior workers. Production tasks depend on them, but they can't yell at or punish the workers, and if problems arise, it's their responsibility.
Of all the cadres in the factory, only Zhou Zhiqiang had the confidence to keep all the senior workers in check.

Those senior workers only knew about the cadres by their titles, but they admired Zhou Zhiqiang's processing skills.

After the workshop director left, Zhou Zhiqiang continued his busy work on the technical research and development of high-precision universal grinding machines.

This also requires supporting manufacturers to help them with production; otherwise, having the technology alone is not enough.

What China's industrial development currently lacks is a complete supporting supply system. Once a product is developed and produced, it requires the development of many supporting technologies.

The high-precision universal grinding machine is giving Zhou Zhiqiang quite a headache.

There are also CNC machine tools ahead, and Zhou Zhiqiang has many cutting-edge technologies he wants to develop and produce in the future. Thinking about this, Zhou Zhiqiang feels that this is a long road ahead.

dong dong!

There was a sudden knock on the office door. Zhou Zhiqiang looked up and said, "Come in."

Then Zhang Yaoguo pushed the door open and came in, saying to Zhou Zhiqiang, "Boss, Section Chief Ding said he has something to report to you. You just said you were busy, so he asked me to come and ask first."

Zhou Zhiqiang immediately said, "Let him in. If Section Chief Ding comes to see me in the future, I won't need to ask. I'm available anytime."

"Yes, I understand"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yaoguo closed the door, and soon after, Ding Zhixue, the head of the technical department, pushed the door open and walked in.

"Factory manager, I've come to you to report something."

"what's up?"

"The technical department is short-staffed, and we've come to apply for manpower."

After Section Chief Ding finished speaking, he took out a work schedule, handed it to Zhou Zhiqiang, and continued, "The current shift schedule is already a bit insufficient. It would be best to add a few more technicians."

Even a technician who understands basic mechanical structures, can read blueprints, and is knowledgeable about machine tool technology is sufficient.

"Aren't you looking for mechanical engineering graduates who want to transfer to a technical college? And the last part says they need some work experience, right?"

After Zhou Zhiqiang finished speaking, he clicked his tongue. This Section Chief Ding was even more outrageous than he had been back then.

He knew to train new people himself, but this Comrade Ding Zhixue was different; he directly wanted the technicians from the factory.

"Aren't there a few people who are going to be assigned here soon, Section Chief Ding? We have to wait until they graduate."

"It's not enough, boss. Look at my work schedule. I've already arranged for those who haven't entered the factory yet, but it's still not enough."

Ding Zhixue quickly helped Zhou Zhiqiang open the technical department's work schedule, then continued, "Factory Director, our factory is going to recruit another thousand people; the current number is simply not enough."

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(End of this chapter)