02 Want to drag me into the sea? !
"Giving someone a bath?!"
Ni Yue's brain froze, and he immediately thought of his cousin's red chest, and the slightly trembling voice she had heard on the phone last night when she said she was busy...
My mind instantly conjured up a pornographic and cheesy scene. Could it be that my cousin had really given up on making it and gone into the adult entertainment industry?!
And you want to drag me into the sea with you?!
Unable to conceal her disdain, she frowned and asked, "The kind that gives people massages and oils... taking a bath?"
"What are you thinking about?!" Zhang Chenling was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. "Giving someone a bath, and calling it a bath!"
"Bath help?"
"Hmm~" Zhang Chenling broke off another clove of garlic and put it in her mouth. "The target of the bathing assistance service is mainly for people who have difficulty bathing, such as disabled or semi-disabled elderly people who can't take care of themselves, and young people who are bedridden due to illness!"
"Oh..." Ni Yue understood, but it still felt a bit abstract. She only knew about people who had trouble getting up.
She has had almost no contact with people who have difficulty bathing, and has never heard of anyone around her worrying about bathing their family.
"Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist. They live in corners you can't see."
Zhang Chenling wiped the garlic juice off her fingertips with a tissue, picked up the chopsticks to scoop up the frozen tofu, but it was already cooked into a mushy mess and could not be picked up. She then turned to scoop up the mutton, but found that it was also overcooked.
Ni Yue was confused and didn't want to pick up his chopsticks. "I thought something as private as bathing was done by family members. How can someone cheat here?"
"You're so full of life now, so of course you don't know how difficult it is for the elderly, the weak, and the disabled to get a bath!" Zhang Chenling said as she fished out the mutton. "Some people are paralyzed in bed and can't move, so they can't bathe. Even if they can move, some people don't dare bathe at home because they don't have assisted bathing facilities, for fear of hurting themselves! These difficulties can't be overcome by relying on family alone, not to mention that some people live alone without family around! ... It's 2020, and there are still people bedridden for years without a bath. Can you believe it?"
Ni Yue glanced at the mutton piled higher and higher on the plate, his expression still blank. "...But Shanghai is so developed, are there still elderly people who can't take a bath?"
"Oh, you're half right!" Zhang Chenling put down her chopsticks. "Shanghai is indeed developed, but the more developed the economy, the longer people live, the more serious the aging problem becomes, and the more problems elderly care faces. The elderly care industry needs to be more refined. We can refer to Japan for this..."
Two years ago, Zhang Chenling went to Japan to investigate new trends in the domestic service industry. However, during the trip, she unexpectedly discovered that the local elderly care industry was much more developed than she had imagined.
One niche area that caught her eye was assisted bathing! With the help of bathing assistance agencies, the vast majority of elderly people in Japan can take a bath two or three times a week, usually in a soaking bath.
This touched the nerves of Zhang Chenling, who had loved taking baths since childhood. Her intuition told her that this level had definitely not been reached in China.
So during those days in Japan, she inspected the business during the day and went back to the hotel at night to research the current situation of assisted bathing in China online. The conclusion she came to was exactly the same as she had imagined - assisted bathing is a blue ocean in China!
The discovery made her shudder.
The day before returning to Shanghai, she reached a preliminary cooperation intention with a Japanese bathing assistance agency, planning to make bathing assistance a new business of the company in the future.
But not long after she returned from the inspection, a real estate company offered a high price to acquire Zhang Chenling's housekeeping company. After careful consideration, she seized the opportunity to cash out.
Then I moved to Hainan to start a new chapter in my life.
Then I failed to start a new copy of my life, and came back to Shanghai to restart my life.
“…So when I started this business, my first thought was to start the bathing assistance business I had always wanted to do!”
"I understand!" Ni Yue understood his cousin's original intention. "Then what can I do? Market analysis? 5-10 year strategic planning? Product strategy report? Third-party business cooperation plan?..."
My brain was working fast as I reviewed the work I had done in early childhood education institutions. In fact, many jobs are similar and can be seamlessly connected across industries.
Her heart began to surge with excitement, and all kinds of ideas, strategies, plans, and roadmaps collided passionately in her mind. She wanted to take out her computer immediately and make a PowerPoint presentation of more than ten or twenty pages, as her first business plan as a new partner!
The next second, she pictured her cousin and herself going to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange together to ring the gong for the listing several years later. Tears of joy filled her eyes, and she had to gently cover her face to avoid being photographed by the media with her mouth wide open and tears of joy. That would look very unprofessional...
"...Cousin! What are you thinking about?"
His thoughts were interrupted by Zhang Chenling's roar. She was looking at him with a confused expression: "Don't be so naive, okay?"
"Huh?" Ni Yue looked like he hadn't woken up yet.
"You think of starting a business as too idealistic, too glamorous, too grand! Let me tell you, my startup team is currently short of one person. Including you, there are only three of us. It's a makeshift team, and we don't even have an office! The business is still in the trial phase, so all the tasks you listed are unnecessary! Right now, the most important thing to do is just one thing—roll up your sleeves and get to work!"
Zhang Chenling's intensive attack was like a machine gun, which stunned Ni Yue.
"...What about me?"
"Come with me and be a bath assistant, helping people take a bath!"
“???”
Ni Yue didn't know that he was walking into a trap. The makeshift squad leader Zhang Chenling was worried about forming a team.
Originally, she had assembled a small team of three people: herself, and Xiao Ma Ge and Jiang Xiao Mei, who worked with her yesterday. Both of them were her former subordinates in the housekeeping company.
She had deliberately kept a low profile about returning to Shanghai from Hainan, after all, it was not something to be proud of.
But these two people heard from somewhere that Sister Ling had returned to start a business, so they took the initiative to find her and wanted to work with her.
So the team was successfully formed. Zhang Chenling contacted the Japanese bathing assistance agency and spent tens of thousands of dollars to purchase a set of equipment overseas. The three of them learned the entire bathing assistance process according to the training materials, and then began to post advertisements on major social platforms.
Sure enough, some people inquired about it and we received several orders.
Even with careful preparation, the first two orders were still hectic. Either I accidentally bumped the elderly person's head, or I didn't control the temperature of the bath water properly, causing the elderly person to cry out that the water was cold and hot.
Yesterday was our third order. We were gradually becoming more proficient and thought nothing would go wrong. Unexpectedly, the old man was too relaxed while bathing and for a moment he lost control of the door, resulting in a large poop in the bathtub...
In the evening, Zhang Chenling had just finished taking a shower and was blowing her hair in front of the mirror when she suddenly received a call from Jiang Xiaomei.
She hesitated for a long time before saying, "Sister Ling, I'm sorry. I just discussed it with my family and I feel that this job of bathing assistant is not suitable for me. Well, I'm not that noble..."
Zhang Chenling was silent for two seconds and replied, "We work in the service industry, and there's nothing noble about it. It's okay if you don't want to do it. Don't be too hard on yourself."
Jiang Xiaomei has left the group.
Brother Xiao Ma was not discouraged by the pile of feces. He had more life experience than Jiang Xiaomei. He had suffered in his early years, changed diapers for children, and taken care of bedridden elderly people at home. Naturally, his psychological endurance was much stronger.
However, Zhang Chenling is well aware that in Shanghai, where material desires run rampant and opportunities abound, the bathing assistant project is indeed unattractive and it is not easy to recruit people to join.
"That's how entrepreneurship works. It starts small, bit by bit," Zhang Chenling said, spreading her hands. "Besides, my funds are limited this time, so I can't start something big right away. What do you think?"
"I understand..." Ni Yue nodded.
However, this was very different from what she had imagined, and she couldn't help feeling a little frustrated.
Seeing that she was in a bad mood, Zhang Chenling said earnestly, "Of course, I'm not asking you to join us right away. We're short-staffed right now. We have several orders lined up, and they're eagerly waiting for us to take care of them. How can we afford to be short-staffed? So please help my cousin through this difficult time first. Once we recruit the right person, you can stay or leave as you wish! I won't make the decision for you. The initiative is in your own hands, okay?"
In all the years he had known his cousin, this was the first time he had seen her being so humble. Ni Yue thought that if she hadn't encountered any difficulties, she wouldn't have asked this question, and he really needed an opportunity to restart his messed-up life.
So he cheered up and agreed without hesitation.
In a flash, Zhang Chenling picked up her phone and pulled Ni Yue into the WeChat work group.
The group name is "Shangshan Ruoshui", which is also the company's brand name.
Ni Yue chuckled and said that the name of this group was very nice and that one could tell at a glance that it was for serving the elderly. Her mother Wu Xia's WeChat nickname for a while was "Shangshan Ruoshui".
Zhang Chenling also laughed. Her mother, Chen Hongmei, also used this nickname.
There are only three people in the group: Zhang Chenling with a landscape avatar, Xiao Ma Ge with a family of three avatar, and Ni Yue with a Nezha avatar.
Ni Yue greeted everyone in the group and added Xiao Ma Ge’s WeChat.
Zhang Chenling then threw a bunch of files, videos and web links in the group.
Ni Yue: Got it, I’ll learn it right away!
Although Zhang Chenling was sitting opposite her, her cousin instantly became the boss and she immediately smelled the atmosphere of class.
Zhang Chenling: You can first read the bathing assistance manual, then watch the video that explains the bathing assistance process, and then read other documents.
Ni Yue replied with an "Yes, sir" emoji, and then clicked on the "The Best Bathing Handbook: Water is Like a Water".
There is only one sentence on the title page:
Regardless of gender, age, wealth, beauty or ugliness, everyone has the freedom to take a bath.
——Zhang Chenling
Poof! My cousin's quotes! Ni Yue chuckled and flicked his thumb to the next page:
Professional ethics of bath assistants
Always put the customer's dignity first. During the service process, do not use any discriminatory or insulting language, do not show any contempt in your attitude, manage your facial expressions well, and do not get angry.
Customer needs and dignity are equally important. We should try our best to meet the reasonable needs of every customer and not be afraid of trouble.
It is not allowed to develop any relationship with customers other than bathing assistance service relationship, it is not allowed to recognize godfathers or godmothers, and it is not allowed to collect additional money or property.
…
Ni Yue looked up at Zhang Chenling and said, "Cousin, you wrote all this yourself, right?"
"Hmm," Zhang Chenling snorted. "The template is in the appendix at the back. It's all just repetitive stuff."
Ni Yue smiled, flipped through a few more pages, and his eyes stopped on a form: The order and requirements for facial and body cleaning operations.
It lists specific cleaning steps and precautions for several parts of the body, including the face, neck, arms, chest, abdomen, back and buttocks.
She read the table quickly and couldn't help frowning when she saw the word "perineum" at the bottom of the table.
While my cousin wasn't paying attention, I quickly smoothed my brows.
"Oh, right," Zhang Chenling took a few bites of food and suddenly remembered, "There's an order for bath assistance tomorrow morning. I was originally planning to do it with Xiao Ma, but now that you're here, we're going to force it!"
The working man's working spirit, after hearing this, Ni Yue simply gave up eating hot pot and buried his head in the work of preparing bathing aid materials.
late at night.
Ni Yue curled up in the quilt, staring blankly and unable to sleep.
There was always a faint musty smell lingering in her nose, which was the smell emitted by the old wooden furniture in the room. This smell reminded her all the time: Beijing has become a thing of the past.
But the pervasive musty smell seemed to aggravate the pain she felt from packing up everything from Beijing.
Just like the previous nights when she tossed and turned, she chewed over the pain in the darkness, but found it difficult to digest.
Turning over, she thought about the first bathing assistance tomorrow, and she felt both excited and nervous.
The latter may contain more ingredients.
Although she readily agreed to her cousin's request today, she still felt unsure. Bathing the elderly, the weak, and the disabled was not a big deal, but she was worried about what would happen if they had diarrhea. How could she be any better than that Jiang Xiaomei?
In the early childhood education center, she would occasionally see children pooping their pants. Even if there was a special aunt to help clean up, she would hide and retch a few times...
While I was feeling upset, I suddenly heard rustling sounds coming from outside the door.
She was shocked. This old house looked very old. Could there be rats in it?
I tiptoed out of bed and quietly opened the door a little - I saw my cousin's graceful figure pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
In the moonlight, you could vaguely see that she was still holding a beer bottle in her hand.
The customer the next morning was an aunt named Xu who was over 70 years old.
Her daughter found Shangshanruoshui through an advertisement posted by Zhang Chenling on Xiaohongshu. She said her mother suffered from severe depression and had recently developed a stiff body reaction. She lay in bed motionless every day and had not taken a bath for more than a month.
“Can older people also suffer from depression?”
Ni Yue was stunned when she heard this. She had always thought that depression was exclusive to young people.
Only young people get depressed easily.
For example, after three days of continuous exercise, she weighed herself and found she had gained two kilograms: "I was born a pig." She was scolded by her boss: "Okay, okay, you're right." She was schemed against by her colleagues: "You all came all the way here just to harm me!" Her favorite online novel character was killed off: "I can't cry anymore, take me with you..."
Not to mention the nuclear-level blows such as heartbreak and unemployment, there are so many "depressing" things in life. The fact that she has been able to survive to this day is probably because she is hanging on by a thread.
"You're just wasting your time and energy, complaining without any real reason!" Zhang Chenling rolled her eyes at her.
"Oh, when I was young, everything I encountered was like the sky falling. But when I get older and think about it, it's nothing!"
The driver sitting in the front turned his head to look at the two of them while speaking.
Three people were sitting in a white van. The driver was none other than Zhang Chenling's former subordinate and Shangshanruoshui's partner - Brother Xiao Ma.
Zhang Chenling always called him Xiao Ma Ge. In fact, they were of similar age. Xiao Ma Ge might be one or two years younger than her, but he looked a little anxious, with more wrinkles on his face and thinner hair. In addition, he was smooth and mature in his dealings with people, so everyone in the company liked to call him Xiao Ma Ge. Zhang Chenling simply called him that too, which was quite intimate.
"Since you are old and everything seems to be indifferent, what is there to be depressed about?" Ni Yue asked again.
Xiao Ma smiled. "Depression is quite complicated. From what I've observed, it has nothing to do with age or the person's qualities. It's probably most closely related to personality. Those who strive for perfection and set extremely high standards for themselves are more prone to depression. However, we can't just casually judge a customer. Knowing that she has this condition, we should be more careful when serving her..."
As he spoke, he turned the steering wheel to the right. After two more intersections, they would arrive at Aunt Xu's house.
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