Seeing how polite the man was, the female secretary smiled and said, "I'm Xiao Ling from the food factory."
"Oh, then we're family, aren't we? We're all in this together, sharing everything from food and clothing to shelter and transportation," Su Yu joked.
Xiao Ling laughed too, finding Su Yu quite humorous.
Su Yu took a piece of dried sweet potato out of her pocket. "Have some. The meeting will be long, and I'll be hungry later."
Xiao Ling took a piece and took a bite. Su Yu also took out a piece and started eating, chatting as they ate.
Su Yu asked curiously, "This is my first time here, I don't know anyone. You must have been here many times and are very experienced. You know all these people?"
"Of course, I know them all." They just didn't talk much.
"That's great, I don't know anyone here. Hey, could you point out a few people to me? It's so embarrassing to be completely clueless and not recognize anyone later."
Since they had nothing better to do, they ate and chatted. Xiao Ling casually pointed to a few people, "The one in the gray shirt with patches on the sleeves and new leather shoes is Secretary Liu from the shoe factory's union. The one with the bald head is Secretary Lin from the garment factory. And that one..."
After the introductions, Su Yu had almost remembered everything.
After pointing to a few others, Xiao Ling then pointed to a few comrades who were smoking with their windows closed not far away.
Several men were smoking over there, seemingly standing separately, but Su Yu noticed that their positions were quite clever, or rather, they were subtly surrounding one of them. To put it nicely, it was like a star being fawned over; to put it bluntly, they were flattering him.
Seeing this, Su Yu chuckled. Don't underestimate being a secretary; there are rules and regulations. Secretaries also have their own circles. Although they're all secretaries, there's a ranking system, determined by their respective superiors.
A middle-aged man wearing glasses spoke up, "Secretary Song, after the meeting, let's find some time to get together. It's been a long time. Our leader is inspecting various places, checking on the transportation issues of the vehicles below."
Xiao Ling said, "This is Secretary Gao from the transportation company's labor union."
Another person with a middle parting laughed, "Yeah, I think so too. The last time we got together was last month, I think. We've got a lot of steelmaking work going on lately." He was clearly from the steel mill.
"This is Secretary Zhou."
The fat man nodded, "Take me with you too, our state-run restaurant has employee discounts." It was clearly a state-run restaurant.
"This is Secretary Zhu. They're eating well at the state-run restaurant," Xiao Ling said with a look of envy and jealousy.
"Hearing you all like this, I'm going to have to teach you a lesson."
The young man surrounded by the others spoke up, flicking his cigarette ash, shaking his head and sighing, "As secretaries, our first priority is to consider the leader's work arrangements. What's the point of thinking about meals and gatherings? The whole nation is working hard. As secretaries to a leader, going out for lavish meals is just asking for gossip. It's unacceptable! You people who follow behind the leaders, why don't you learn from their spirit of hard work and frugality?"
“Yes, yes, Secretary Song, you’re right.” The others quickly chimed in.
Su Yu suppressed a laugh. She might have believed anyone else saying this. But looking at this young secretary, not very old, probably only twenty-three or twenty-four, while everyone else had a sallow complexion, he had fair skin, a rosy complexion, and was full of energy. He clearly lived a life of luxury. And look at his hand holding the cigarette—slender, white, and fair, a testament to a life of comfort. He was also tall; she guessed he must have been taking plenty of supplements. And he had the nerve to eat such a lavish meal!
This is a classic example of blatant lying.
"Who is this person?" Su Yu asked.
Xiao Ling glanced at it and said, "Ahem, I've never encountered this before either. I guess they're new." Their food factory wasn't a big one, and they didn't know everyone there.
Having noted down these names, Su Yu prepared to leave. She wanted to find out which leader this Secretary Song was, and see if she could be of any use. With so many people fawning over her, she must be doing quite well, right?
The meeting was about to begin, and the others gradually entered the conference room. The leaders had finished their private conversations, so going in now wouldn't make any difference.
Seeing that everyone had left, Secretary Song quickly said, "I'm planning to have dinner at the Oriental Hotel tonight. It's been a long time since I've been there. Do you want to come?"
The fat man said, "Secretary Song, didn't you just say that the whole nation is working hard? Why don't we go out for a big meal?"
"No matter how tough things are, we still need to eat. We're working for our superiors. How can we work if we're not well-fed? If we don't do our jobs well, we'll be delaying our superiors' important tasks!" Can't you see how many people are here? Don't you care about your image?
“…That makes sense.” The group immediately nodded in agreement.
Once inside the conference room, Su Yu began to subtly observe the attendees. To gauge the importance of a meeting, one only needed to look at the rank of the key leaders present.
Looking towards the podium, he thought, "Wow, not bad, even the vice mayor is here." Looking further, he saw that it wasn't just union officials present, but also some from other government departments. However, since the union was the main organizer, most of the attendees were from their ranks. Chairman Sun seemed rather ordinary among them.
Sure enough, it's much better to follow Chairman Sun to meetings than to stay cooped up in the factory doing manual labor. That way, I'll have the opportunity to meet people from the outside world. My horizons have broadened instantly.
When the meeting started, all the secretaries and assistants who had gone out to work finally returned to their seats.
Su Yu checked the seat cards one by one, and sure enough, the identities of the people she had met before were similar to Xiao Ling's. She didn't think much about the others; she only had her eye on the fat man. She had just overheard him saying he could get insider pricing at restaurants. And then there was the man with the middle parting. Liu Mei worked at the steel mill; maybe she could use him later.
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