"Grandpa." Wang Shouren looked at the energetic old man with a smile.

"Why are you here! Come, come, come in." An old man pulled Wang Shouren into the room while calling out to the inner room, "Old woman, Shouren's here. Go get some hot water and make some tea."

The older woman rolled her eyes, but she was happy that Wang Shouren had come. She put down her work and went to the kitchen.

"How have you been lately? Is the factory having any problems?" The old man asked impatiently as soon as the two sat down.

"It is somewhat difficult," Wang Shouren nodded.

An older woman happened to come out with a kettle of water. When she heard what Wang Shouren said, she immediately said, "Isn't it good that you're in trouble? Your uncle is so idle, why don't you ask him to help you? It will save you from sighing and complaining all day long."

"Cough cough... What nonsense are you talking about!" An old man glared at an old woman: "Don't listen to your nonsense, tell me, what happened?"

Wang Shouren smiled, not minding at all, and continued, "Didn't I tell you about the assembly line before? I plan to implement this system. Right now, I'm short a few experienced workers. Do you think it would be convenient for you to go there and find a few more people to help out?"

Upon hearing Wang Shouren mention this, the old man frowned and his expression turned serious: "Shouren, your idea is good, and in theory, doing it this way can indeed improve efficiency considerably. But have you considered that this will make it difficult for workers to get promoted? In the future, your factory might not be able to find a single skilled worker."

“I know, I have plans for that.”

In essence, a refined assembly line breaks down a complex workstation into many smaller ones. This reduces the difficulty of producing workpieces that originally required extremely high precision. The advantages are obvious, but a significant drawback is that workers don't receive adequate training. This explains why master craftsmen are so respected in this era.

Putting everything else aside, just learning the whole set of things is an extremely complicated process.

It's like a senior blacksmith taking on an apprentice; that's a complete blacksmithing process, teaching from level one all the way up.

Unless your skill level is insufficient or you give up, your mentor will stop teaching you. Otherwise, you can continue learning indefinitely.

“As a normal worker, many people actually remain at the third or fourth level for their entire lives. Do you agree?” Wang Shouren asked.

"That's true." The old man nodded.

The reason why a level 8 worker is so prestigious is because it's very difficult to achieve; besides diligence, it also requires talent. Furthermore, in those days, few people were literate, so senior workers were extremely rare. Let alone level 8, even level 6 workers were top-notch performers in the workshop. Most people, by retirement, would only be at level 3 or 4.

“Therefore, not everyone is willing to learn these things,” Wang Shouren said. “Next, I should be working on more advanced lathes, so the workers won’t be so important anymore.”

“But you can’t just abandon the workers like this.” An old man got anxious when he heard this: “This is taking the capitalist road.”

"No, no, no." Wang Shouren waved his hands repeatedly: "Uncle, I know this very well. I set up two workshops, one is Workshop One, which is according to my own ideas, and the other is Workshop Two, which is specifically for training skilled workers. The operation difficulty of Workshop Two is much greater than that of Workshop One. In the future, if anyone wants to go in this direction, I will send them to Workshop Two."

Wang Shouren had actually planned this all along.

Workshop One is the standard, meticulous workshop, while Workshop Two is specifically for instruction. Workshop One follows a standardized model, while Workshop Two follows a personalized model. What is a personalized model? Simply put, it's handcrafted work. In the future, a motorcycle made entirely by hand will always be more expensive.

Using those shameless marketing tactics from those small businesses, Workshop Two is going for a high-end approach.

Of course, that's a matter for later.

In this way, workers can get promoted (with upward mobility, they won't cause trouble), factories can sell at high prices (and make a profit), and consumers can also get psychological satisfaction (by fooling fools). It's a win-win-win situation (Wang wins three times)!

"I see..." The old man understood what Wang Shouren meant.

As an experienced technician, his biggest fear was that Wang Shouren would cut off the path for technicians. Since Wang Shouren was aware of this, he felt at ease.

"So how many people do you need? How much salary do you want? Let me make this clear first, this salary isn't what I'm asking for, it's what I'm asking for on behalf of those old guys."

"Don't worry, old man, I'll make sure you're welcome. But I'm making this clear, I only want level 6 or above. If your skill level isn't high enough, there's no point in you coming." Wang Shouren chuckled.

Don't worry.

"Okay, then I'll leave this to you. I need to go back and clean the house."

"You're sleeping here tonight?"

"Yes, I've been sleeping here. I haven't been back for a month or so. I need to tidy up the house."

"Alright, then go ahead." The old man didn't try to stop Wang Shouren; there would be plenty of time to meet again in the future.

Just as Wang Shouren came out of Uncle Yi's house, Sha Zhu's door opened, and a woman came out of Sha Zhu's room. The woman was about thirty years old, of average appearance, with somewhat rough skin, but her face shape was quite nice. Seeing Wang Shouren, she paused for a moment, then gave him a simple, honest smile: "Hello, are you Uncle Yi's relative? I... my name is Wang Xia, I just married into this family..."

"Hello, you must be Comrade He Yuzhu's wife. My name is Wang Shouren, I live in the backyard, and I don't come back often. Do you have something else to do? See you later." Wang Shouren greeted him cheerfully and then walked towards the backyard.

Wang Xia frowned as she watched Wang Shouren's retreating figure. Before she could think further, she heard a drunken voice from the room: "Wife, go fetch some water..."

"Okay!" she replied, and without thinking much of it, went to fetch water.

Wang Shouren never expected that Sha Zhu would actually get married. However, this was probably a good thing; the woman seemed honest and kind, and probably wouldn't be too bad. It would save him from causing trouble later. He shook his head, dismissing his thoughts about Sha Zhu, and returned to the backyard house.

The entire backyard is now gloomy and eerie. Only Uncle Er and his wife live there now.

Xu Damao had moved out long ago. When he heard that Wang Shouren had made a fortune in the south, he secretly followed him there and never returned.