Multiple "re-employment" by a middle-aged man
At his strongest strength, Liu Zhihua, who is 1.65 meters tall and weighs 105 kilograms, can easily flip a 150 kilograms of cotton compression bag. He farms the ground, lifts rocks, carries sand, and moves bricks, all of which are hard work.
Nowadays, squatting has become a laborious task. His right leg can't bend back, so he can only squat down with his left leg. Every time he goes to the toilet, he takes longer than others.
"The energy is always used up." Although Liu Zhihua was prepared in his heart, the accident came too early.
In 2015, 49-year-old Liu Zhihua fell off a 4-meter-high ladder on the construction site and broke his right leg.
This is an ordinary accident, not life-threatening.
But for a man who struggles to change his life for money, it is enough to become a turning point in his career.
After exhaustion
In the eyes of his wife, her husband Liu Zhihua was conscientious and not good at words, even to an irritating level.
Even after he was disabled at work, he didn't know what to fight for.
The head contractor drove him to the hospital to prescribe some painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs and drove him back home.
The wife asked in front of everyone, "Does it hurt?" He sat on the bed and laughed, and answered "Does it hurt."
That night, his wife saw Liu Zhihua move around with her right leg and stayed up all night.
I went to the hospital for a check after daybreak. It was a ligament rupture and required surgery.
After the contractor came to visit again after the operation, Liu Zhihua still smiled cautiously, "It doesn't hurt..."
He was identified as a Grade 8 disability. According to the Work Injury Insurance Regulations, the employer needs to pay him 11 months of wages.
He should get 80,000 yuan.
The place of work has exhausted excuses, and his wife cannot find a person who "can speak well".
She ran back and forth with construction companies, law firms, safety supervision bureaus, petition offices, etc., from summer to winter, arguing, arguing, and even swearing.
Six months after the fall, Liu Zhihua received a compensation of 40,000 yuan.
The money barely covered his daily expenses for recuperating his injuries for more than a year.
When Liu Zhihua entered the labor market again, his "resume" was updated: male, 50 years old, farmer, weak eyesight in his right eye, disabled right index finger, a nail in his right leg, no special labor skills, second-grade education.
The once biggest employment advantage, strength, no longer exists.
Someone recommended him to be a security guard, but he felt incompetent and afraid to apply.
The security guard has to check his physical fitness, and he has to record the license plate and adjust the monitoring. He doesn't know all the words, and the computer can't operate it, "it can't get it."
According to someone's introduction, he went to the oil field to apply for a meter reader and was told that he was over the age limit.
After returning, he found out that a restaurant was short of people and went to apply for a dishwasher.
The lady boss looked up at him, "How old is it?" "50."
Liu Zhihua returned without success again.
Then he inquired.
The way to find a job is the same as in the past. It is introduced by relatives and friends, but the circumstances are quite different.
His first official job was to build roads in Shanxi with his fellow townsmen at the age of 20. He was able to earn five to six hundred yuan a month. He is a little proud of the salary he mentioned until now. At that time, the monthly salary for similar jobs in the local area was only about 150 yuan. .
At that time, he was full of strength. As long as someone introduced his work, he would go there with the young and middle-aged people in the village.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 285.6 million migrant workers nationwide in 2020, 51.1% of them are employed in the tertiary industry.
The proportion of migrant workers over the age of 50 continues to increase, but there are not many jobs available for men of this age group.
The service industry prefers women of the same age who can work as babysitters, cleaners, waiters, and shopping guides, while most men can only work as security guards and drivers.
There are also differences in salary treatment.
"The world has changed," Liu Zhihua felt a little unbalanced.
He always remembered the time when he was earning work points. For the same day's work, a man would count two more work points than a woman.
In Liu Zhihua's view, going out to earn money shouldn't be something a woman has to bear—except for the year he fell ill with hepatitis.
In his description, he "harmed" his wife to work for him in Tianjin for a year.
The traditional gender division of labor has naturally been inherited from Liu Zhihua. He still uses the old saying "outside old man" to call his late father, which means a parent who earns money outside.
After getting married, Liu Zhihua began to learn to be like a father and become a man who earns money for his family.
He is used to this, although it is a lot harder now.
Until a neighbor who was doing cleaning told Liu Zhihua that the hospital lacked a yard sweeper, there were almost no restrictions, but the monthly salary was only 1,500 yuan.
Before the leg injury, Liu Zhihua's daily salary on the construction site was 240 yuan, nearly five times that of the job.
He thought about it, but took it.
a job
"It's 1500 yuan, but I only got 1200 yuan." Liu Zhihua didn't understand why.
In order to make up for the family, he began to work part-time in the inpatient building to transport garbage, earning an extra 1,500 yuan a month.
After a while, he applied for overtime and worked an extra hour every day at noon and afternoon, which would give him an extra 400 yuan a month.
In addition, a repair job was added, "for mops, nails, etc., an extra 200 yuan."
So Liu Zhihua worked 10 hours a day and brought back 3,300 yuan for the family every month.
He went to sleep after dinner, woke up at the alarm clock at 5:30 in the morning, moved his swollen hands and feet, and got up to go to work.
This job is open all year round. Even on New Year's Eve, he will pick up the broom on time at 7 o'clock in the morning.
After doing this job, there is always something in him.
When transporting more than 200 bags of trash on 12 floors of the inpatient department every day, the sour smell mixed with food, changing pads, medicines and vomit always got into his mask and clothes.
When his wife washes his clothes, she also shuts her breath and turns her head.
In addition to the smell, thin needles also peeked out of the black garbage bag from time to time, and pierced Liu Zhihua's palm.
The disposal of medical waste in the inpatient department is not always compliant. Liu Zhihua found that many needles were discarded by patients at will.
In any case, he must use his hands to firmly lift the bags of garbage from the bottom and put them on the cart to transport them away.
The colleagues he worked with seemed to be aware of the risks, and only carried the upper part of the bag each time.
One day, a middle-aged man walked past the trash can and threw the cigarette butt in his mouth on the ground.
Liu Zhihua, who was sweeping the yard, saw it, shouted "Master" and stepped forward to dissuade it.
The man turned and stared at him, "Aren't you just a garbage sweeper?"
Liu Zhihua was annoyed, "If you look down on me, you are equal to look down on your father!"
He put aside his harsh words and turned away.
The man caught up and poked the back of his head. Liu Zhihua turned around and pushed the man's hand away with a broom, and said something savagely: "I warn you, there is a problem with my leg, don't move me." The man Scolded and left.
Liu Zhihua won the victory, but he never "started a war" because of similar things.
The aura seemed to have been wiped out from the heart, "People just look down on you, and it's useless to say more." When someone throws trash at hand, Liu Zhihua silently swept away.
"I was doing sanitation for others."
Later, when the cigarette butt that fell from upstairs fell on his new grass-green shirt and burned his shoulders sharply, he just blew the holes in his clothes and continued to sweep the floor with his head down.
Money-making man and family
"Mofangzi" (the dialect means "no way"), whenever Liu Zhihua felt powerless, he would say this.
By now, he somewhat understood the saying that "50 knows the destiny".
"No money," "no power," and "no culture" are words Liu Zhihua often mentions when he talks about himself.
He has no friends, and he rarely interacts with neighbors in the lease.
He has no hobbies. In his spare time, he will look at his mobile phone and give the short videos of "drivers helping migrant workers", "scavenging old people and collecting money," and "beggars being ridiculed at parties" one by one "like".
In 2014, when "every household bought a car", Liu Zhihua owned the first motorcycle in his life.
"When people ride a motorcycle, we still ride a bicycle." He said, he was always a step late.
After entering the city with his wife to buy and sell bouncing cotton, they gradually had money in their hands.
Someone advised him to buy a house in the city, but he felt that he was a rural person and wanted to return to the village to buy a family business.
After the new house in his hometown was built, Liu Zhihua returned to live in a rental house in the city.
Just go back once or twice a month to weed the yard and repair cracks in the wall.
The new house in his hometown gave Liu Zhihua a sense of belonging, but it became what he regretted most.
When "every family bought a house", Liu Zhihua realized again that he was one step too late.
Seeing that the little grandson is about to go to elementary school in the city, the daughter-in-law proposed to buy a house, but he could not help much.
In the words of his wife, “I can’t eat poorly, spend endlessly, I can’t plan, I’ll be poor all my life.” Liu Zhihua sat on the bed and sighed, as if he had done most of his life and left nothing.
He rented a bungalow in the south of Qingyang City, Gansu Province, facing south to the north. The shantytowns were surrounded by high-rise buildings, and the sun was not long enough for a day.
The furniture in the room was dim, and only the white double-door refrigerator that my son bought when he got married was particularly dazzling, and it was placed next to the bed.
The wife still remembers: When her daughter was in junior high school, Liu Zhihua worked in Shaanxi. Because he couldn't get any wages, he didn't go home for two years. In the end, he didn't get a cent, so he only brought back an old Yellow River TV set.
"(When he went out to work) His family didn’t care about anything. Two dolls were thrown to me, and the few acres of land. I followed them to build a house, hold bricks in the brick factory, carry firewood from the ditch, feed the pigs, what? It's all dry." His wife complained between washing and cutting vegetables.
Liu Zhihua listened to the side, but was silent.
He doesn't even remember the birthday of his son Liu Haijun, including the year he married his son, which is blurred in his memory.
Now, in all the memorable years, the only one that can make him blurt out accurately is 2015-the day when he fell off the ladder.
He attributed his situation to "no culture".
After realizing the importance of studying, I hope to put it on my son first, but Liu Haijun dropped out when he was in junior high school.
He could only clarify the consequences to his son, and persuaded him to learn the craft of roast duck-if he had a craft, he was better than himself.
Now, the hope rests on his 4-year-old grandson, but he dare not think about it. After all, "If you don’t read it, what's the recipe?" Liu Zhihua showed his kindergarten grandson the skill in advance: learn Repairing the car, "There are so many cars now, it must be fine." His eyes were extremely firm.
hope
Liu Zhihua set his retirement deadline of 60 years old, because at that time, there was probably no one looking for a job.
As long as he couldn't move, he didn't plan to "ask for the baby's money."
"Our family..." He paused, "I didn't buy a house or a car for his children..."
Liu Zhihua feels that at least we must now "not add chaos."
In the summer of 2021, at the age of 55, he quit his job in the hospital.
With the exchange of information in the cleaning circle, he quickly found a new place-cleaning in a newly opened gym, cleaning the swimming pool, men's bathroom and men's bathroom every day.
This is almost his most satisfying job at this stage: not far from home, a good working environment, few jobs, and a shift system.
It's just that the salary is not as good as before, 2500 yuan per month, but it is also regarded as the "highest salary in this line" for ordinary cleaners.
Money is not easy to earn, but it can be exchanged with time.
Before going to work, he will use the whole free morning to finish boiling water.
In order to save gas bills, he uses a stove to boil hot water-the fuel is also collected from the demolition ruins and construction sites in other time.
On October 19, just like a normal working day, Liu Zhihua got up at 5:30 in the morning, changed clothes and washed, put on the new leather shoes his son gave him, and went out.
He looked at the phone while walking, and found that a red envelope had been posted in the WeChat group, and quickly clicked on the screen, but didn't grab it.
When he was regretting, his right foot stepped into a pit-a floor tile was somehow missing on the smooth road, he slanted his foot and fell down.
His son took him to the hospital and paid a check-up fee of more than 500 yuan.
"Broken ankle," the doctor put him in a cast, "rest for at least 50 days."
His wife stuffed his new leather shoes with paper balls and put them back in the shoe rack.
The other side of the gym called and asked: "Can I still come to work?"
Liu Zhihua's career stopped again.
Intern Du Jiabing Source: China Youth Daily