Chapter 3 003 Trouble
People inside and outside the factory argued for three whole days over the housing allocation policy.
A very small number of workers in the factory were making a fuss about the unfairness of the housing allocation. Guan Yuehe did not participate in the trouble at all, but she was still implicated.
The worker who caused the disturbance was Dong Dachui, an electrician who had been working at the factory for three years. He had many children and lived with his parents and brothers. He felt that the factory should provide him with housing.
The problem is that Dong Dachui worked at Zhuoyue Garment Factory for three years. For the first two years, he was a temporary worker for the power grid, essentially a loanee from the grid. He was only transferred to Zhuoyue Garment Factory last year, meaning he only worked there as a permanent employee for a year.
The factory has considered workers who have needs but do not meet the requirements. The documents state that the dormitory buildings cannot be completed all at once. The buildings currently under construction will be allocated to eligible workers first, and the next batch of eligible workers will be allocated after the remaining buildings are completed.
Dong Dachui kept shouting that it was unfair.
Guan Yuehe listened for more than ten minutes at the door of the Housing Management Department office. Dong Dachui was still angry and would slam his fist on the table of Section Chief Mo of the Housing Management Department every few words.
Those two inside are not easy to mess with. Guan Yuehe glanced down at the completed form and decided to avoid them for now.
With a turn of his foot, he entered the purchasing department office.
"Yuehe, I was just talking about you. The first dormitory building is expected to be completed and distributed in May. Do you want to order furniture? We have a partnership with a furniture factory, and it's cheaper if the company makes a group purchase."
As Gu Mannian spoke, he gestured for her to find a stool to sit on.
Guan Yuehe turned around specifically to ask about this, and without even looking for a stool, she quickly ran up to him and asked what styles of furniture he had.
"I'll ask their purchasing department for a list another day, and you can choose from it."
Looking around, Gu Mannian whispered, "Don't worry, with our relationship, I'll definitely find you something cheap and good."
Guan Yuehe snorted. She knew there was a lot of money to be made in the purchasing department, right? Not only could they help relatives and friends buy goods from other places when they went out to purchase goods, but they could also get some benefits on the side.
He often says that going out to buy things is pointless and tiring? Only a fool would believe that!
but......
"Yeah, we've worked together for three years now. Given our relationship, it would be unreasonable for you not to help me pick out the best ones, right?"
Gu Mannian chuckled sheepishly and called her outside to talk in the open space outside the office.
Guan Yuehe was looking forward to it, thinking he had some mysterious good news for her.
Who knew!
Gu Mannian scratched his head and tentatively began, "Yuehe, your sister..."
"Hey! Stop it!" Guan Yuehe rolled her eyes at him, annoyed. "How many times have I told you? Don't come to me with this kind of thing. If you can go after her, then go after her."
"No, it's just that we haven't had a chance to get to know each other yet. This weekend, let's invite Xu Chengcai, and you can invite your sister too, and go on a spring outing, okay?"
Guan Yuehe looked completely bewildered. "This weekend? I'm not going. It's cold and boring."
Where else can we go for a spring outing? The city of Beijing is so limited; there are only so many places to visit. Going fishing is a better option than a spring outing.
Seeing that he was still persistent, Guan Yuehe added, "If my sister knew that I was secretly arranging blind dates for her, she would chase me from home to the dormitory with a stick and beat me up. I won't do that."
This wasn't the first time Gu Mannian had been rejected by her. She was usually easy to get help with other things, but when it came to her sister, she became like a hedgehog, refusing to help at all.
Thinking of another possibility, Gu Mannian's heart skipped a beat, "Your sister doesn't already have a boyfriend, does she?"
Does he still have a chance?
ah?
Guan Yuehe hadn't thought about it in that way.
“When I went back last month, my mom asked her, and she said she still didn’t have a boyfriend.”
There are quite a few gay men pursuing her, but she hasn't shown any inclination to like any of them.
But she doesn't spend much time at home, and her relationship with her sister is just so-so. Her sister would never talk to her about topics like what kind of gay men she likes.
Gu Mannian stamped his foot. "Why don't you go back and find out?"
Guan Yuehe: "...Can't you go and find out for yourself? Why are you coming to me?"
Gu Mannian thought to himself: He did want to ask a matchmaker to come and inquire, but wouldn't that scare the person away? Besides, with Yuehe as the middleman, wouldn't it be better to find opportunities to get to know each other better and cultivate feelings?
Dong Dachui stormed out of the housing management department, still fuming, and didn't notice Guan Yuehe standing not far away.
"I'm not going to argue with you anymore. Help me ask about the furniture. As for my sister... well, we'll talk about it later."
After saying that, Guan Yuehe rushed to the housing management department.
Gu Mannian, who was behind him, couldn't stop him and sighed heavily.
Given Guan Yuehe's frequency of not returning home even once every ten days or half a month, and besides, when is it?
—
After submitting the application form, all that's left is to wait for the dormitory building to be built and then draw lots.
Not all apartments are allocated through the lottery. Someone like her, unmarried with no children, and whose parents already own a house, can only get a single room. But Section Chief Mo said that even a single room is 18 square meters.
Although she still has to go to the toilet in the hallway in the morning, she is very satisfied with living alone in an 18-square-meter apartment!
Section Chief Mo couldn't help but remind her to tighten her grin.
"You should enjoy good things in secret, you know?"
These past few days, he's grown several gray hairs because of the housing allocation issue.
While it's rare for someone like Dong Dachui to slam their fist on the table in a fit of rage, there are many who openly or covertly complain. Others, who were single before the housing allocation policy and list were released, were arranged to go on blind dates and get married within three days, claiming they wanted children this year and therefore had to be allocated housing as if they were married with children.
Do you think children are like cabbages? He says he wants them this year, so he wants them this year?
Some people even sent gifts to his home, and coincidentally, the Party Secretary who lived upstairs saw them... Just thinking about it gives me a headache.
Guan Yuehe grinned, showing her teeth, and left the housing management office, pretending that she had never been assigned a house.
In fact, I'm already thinking about what kind of curtains I should get for my own home.
—
On Sunday, Guan Yuehe went to the grocery store early to buy two pastries, and happily swung the thin rope back to Ginkgo Hutong.
As soon as she appeared, the elderly men and women at the entrance of the alley rushed over, scaring her so much that she wanted to turn around and run away.
She hasn't done anything wrong, why is she running away?!
Before she could call for help, a barrage of questions came at her.
"Yuehe, did your company really allocate you an apartment?"
"Oh, asking that won't help! The factory has already issued a list, how could it be fake? I specifically asked the security guard at the garment factory, and there's only one person named Guan Yuehe!"
Guan Yuehe: "......"
You guys have really done a lot of research!
"Yuehe, you talk to the auntie, maybe we should give the leader something..."
Guan Yuehe: "Hehe, Aunt Hu, don't talk nonsense, it's not true."
"You! Is Yuehe really that kind of person?!" Everyone in the entire Ginkgo Alley knows Guan Yuehe, the second daughter of the Guan family. She's a real miser. She keeps the lion's share of her salary, but she never contributes to the family, let alone buys herself anything big. She never buys new clothes or shoes!
Her aunt's younger sister came to her house to borrow money, but she didn't give her a single penny. Her sister-in-law gave birth to her niece, and all she gave her was a bag of brown sugar...
Before she was officially hired, someone at the garment factory gave gifts to the leaders to get her hired. Her family was anxious and urged her to come, but she wouldn't let them go, saying that the money would be better spent on buying her a meal of meat.
Anyway, they felt that Guan Yuehe was unlikely to give gifts to the leaders.
Besides, it's normal to use connections to get a house, such an important matter. Even if Guan Yuehe really did give one, it would still be normal.
However, people wouldn't ask it out loud.
Aunt Hu's mouth, as always, knows how to offend people.
However, the older woman who had just spoken up for Guan Yuehe turned around and asked her, "Yuehe, you have a good relationship with your factory leaders, right?"
Everyone around here knows that Guan Yuehe joined the Zhuoyue Garment Factory when it was first established. They figured that since she grew up with the factory, the leaders must have a good impression of her.
Otherwise, how could we transfer her from the workshop to the factory office?
Guan Yuehe took a deep breath and smiled, "Our factory leaders care a lot about the workers. They often go down to the workshop to understand the work and lives of frontline workers. You could say that every worker and leader in the factory has a very good relationship..."
People didn't want to hear her polite words and asked directly, "When is your garment factory recruiting next? How many people are you recruiting? What are the requirements for office positions? Yuehe, you can tell the older folks quietly, we won't tell anyone else."
"That's right! We have to prioritize the girls and boys of Ginkgo Hutong when it comes to work. We can't let outsiders know. You all need to keep your mouths shut."
"Absolutely!"
They were all practically patting their chests and making guarantees.
Guan Yuehe's lips twitched. Who would believe such a thing? If she said anything, by today, everyone in Beijing would know that Zhuoyue Garment Factory was hiring!
"Job openings? I don't know anything about it. Really! It hurts me to hear you ask me this, ma'am. I'm from Ginkgo Hutong too. If there were job openings, wouldn't I tell my own people? There really aren't any!"
"Don't worry, if there's any news from the factory, I'll run back and let everyone know as soon as possible."
"Okay, you guys keep chatting, I'm going home now. My second brother is coming over today."
Having finally squeezed out of the crowd of elderly people, Guan Yuehe dared not linger any longer and hurried home, quickly greeting anyone she encountered along the way before moving on.
Fortunately, there weren't many people in the front yard of courtyard number three, otherwise I would definitely have been pulled aside for a chat.
"Mom, Second..." Guan Yuehe stopped talking and greeted the two unfamiliar faces in the living room besides her parents. Following Jiang Guiying's introduction, she called them Uncle and Aunt.
The uncle and aunt who came had a strange expression, as if they were specifically greeting her. But they didn't say anything and just got up to leave.
After some back and forth, the canned goods, biscuits, and pastries they brought were stuffed back into the hands of the two men.
That's strange.
In just a few minutes, the two of them felt a mix of joy and anticipation, as well as disappointment and worry.
As soon as they left, Guan Yuehe couldn't wait to ask, "Mom, who were they? What were they doing here?"
Jiang Guiying sighed, "What else could they be doing? They're after your house!"
Guan Yuehe's eyes widened, then she stared at the two of them suspiciously, "You two aren't trying to set me up with someone, are you?"
Jiang Guiying: "His son is only in elementary school, what kind of partner are you talking about?!"
"Then why did you say you came for my house?"
She's been getting a lot of trouble lately; people are constantly trying to set her up with potential partners. But all they really care about is her house!
She hasn't even gotten the house yet, and one problem after another keeps popping up. She's starting to worry; what if people come knocking on her door after she moves into an apartment?!
"They're asking if you'd be willing to swap apartments with them. They'll live in your apartment, and they'll use their connections to get you a room in the left wing of the second courtyard next door. You should consider it. The apartment space you can get by yourself isn't much. If you swap to the wing in the next courtyard, you can convert it into two and a half rooms, which is much more spacious than your apartment. Besides, if you live next door, we can help you if you need anything... What do you think?"
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