Sister Zhang and Chen Qiangwei agreed to meet at the state-owned hotel at 9:30. Chen Qiangwei arrived ten minutes early and Sister Zhang was already waiting at the door.
Seeing Chen Qiangwei, she greeted her warmly, "Qiangwei, you're here. Push your bike to the backyard first."
Sister Zhang was in a hurry to reunite with her husband. Without saying a word of courtesy, she parked her bicycle and took Chen Qiangwei to identify the person.
"Our manager's surname is Wang, and he's also in charge of purchasing. You've already met him last time. We're mainly going to meet other people and say hello."
Chen Qiangwei nodded to show that she understood, "Thank you, Sister Zhang."
From the chef in the kitchen to the waiter in the front hall, Sister Zhang took Chen Qiangwei to greet them one by one and gave a brief introduction to both parties. After a busy time, Chen Qiangwei roughly matched the names and faces of the people.
Everyone then realized that Sister Zhang had transferred her job, that today was her last day of work, and that she would be going to the next city to reunite with her husband. Everyone congratulated her.
The state-owned restaurant has two floors, and the first and second floors are divided into two rooms. The first floor is divided into the kitchen and the front hall, and the second floor is Manager Wang’s office and the chef’s lounge.
A balcony-sized space was separated between the kitchen and the front hall. This was where Chen Qiangwei and Su Lifen worked. A two-meter-long cabinet with a one-meter-high top was built there.
This is both the ordering window and the service counter. You usually order and pick up your food here. Order on the left and pick up your food on the right.
There is a yard of about 40 square meters behind the state-owned hotel. There is a door between the backyard and the front hall. The backyard is where employees park their vehicles.
The Beicheng District State-Owned Hotel has a total of nine employees, seven regular employees and two temporary employees. The staff are as follows:
Manager: Wang Kaifu, both manager and purchasing manager.
There is one master chef: Pang Daliu, who is responsible for the restaurant's main dishes and main dishes.
The second chef is Xie Daoyi, who is responsible for the restaurant's rice noodles, dumplings, buns, steamed buns and general dishes.
There are three kitchen helpers: Lv Hongping, Yang Huangui and Zheng Daqian. Among them, Lv Hongping and Yang Huangui follow Master Pang and assist Master Pang, while Zheng Daqian follows Master Xie and assists Master Xie.
In their spare time, Lv Hongping and Yang Huangui also assisted Master Xie and earned money making buns, steamed buns, dumplings, etc.
There are two helpers: Aunt Li and Aunt Liu. They are mainly responsible for the hygiene of the restaurant and the cleaning of pots, pans, vegetables, etc.
There were two waiters: Chen Qiangwei and Su Lifen. Their job was relatively easy. They took orders, issued tickets, collected money, and informed the kitchen of the dishes they had ordered. When the kitchen was ready, they just had to call out from the window. The dishes didn't even need to be served.
When she was a guest in the past, Chen Qiangwei’s mentality was: What are you so arrogant about? You have no awareness of serving the people at all.
Now as a waitress, Chen Qiangwei's mentality becomes: How great! Isn't this the job that everyone envies in the 21st century? I get to get off work and leave on time, I get a good salary and benefits, and I don't have to worry about other people's feelings when I go to work.
Due to time constraints, everyone simply greeted each other. Chen Qiangwei couldn't figure out the other people's personalities for the time being, and this could only be discovered slowly in future work.
The working hours of state-owned restaurants are: 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, with a two-hour break in between, and 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
Although the state-owned restaurant opens at nine in the morning, it does not open to the public until ten.
Considering that it was unsafe for Chen Qiangwei to travel back at night, and seeing that Chen Qiangwei was quick to learn and had flexible hands and feet, Manager Wang told her not to come to work in the afternoon and to use the weekend to solve the housing problem.
State-owned restaurants include lunch and dinner, but not breakfast or accommodation.
After thanking Manager Wang, Chen Qiangwei happily rode her bicycle out of the backyard. Gu Anyang was already waiting in front of the state-owned hotel. He had specially taken half a day off and would take Chen Qiangwei to see a house later.
Chen Qiangwei asked, "Have you eaten?"
Gu Anyang nodded and said, "I ate it."
As soon as he finished speaking, Gu Anyang's stomach roared in protest.
Gu Anyang's face flushed. "I didn't have much of an appetite at noon, so I just had two bites."
In order to see Chen Qiangwei as soon as possible, he just ate two mouthfuls of food and ran out in a hurry.
Chen Qiangwei handed an oil-paper bag to Gu Anyang. It was her lunch. There were some buns left from the ones she made this morning, so they each got one. Chen Qiangwei also bought one for herself.
"Eat quickly, then go look at the house. The cabbage and pork filling tastes pretty good."
Gu Anyang opened the oil-paper package and ate while walking. "I have an appointment with them. Let's talk while we eat."
After making inquiries from many sources over the past few days, Gu Anyang found three relatively suitable places for Chen Qiangwei. Two of them are the staff housing buildings of a nearby factory, which are the most popular buildings among employees nowadays, and one is a small courtyard with its own entrance and exit.
Chen Qiangwei skipped over the building and headed to the courtyard. The soundproofing in the family compound was poor, and cooking was done in the hallway. Everyone was constantly in sight, and there were no secrets in the building.
For her future money-making career, Chen Qiangwei didn't even consider the tube-shaped building.
Gu Anyang was a little surprised. His coworkers said that nowadays female comrades all like to live in tube-shaped buildings and no one wants to live in a bungalow.
The cannery also has a family compound, but there are only two buildings, and there are too many people and too little food. Their wives urge them to work hard every day and strive to get a house in the building as soon as possible.
After quickly finishing the buns, Gu Anyang pushed his bicycle and took Chen Qiangwei to see the house. The small courtyard was not far from the state-owned restaurant, about fifteen minutes' walk and about six minutes by bike.
The small courtyard is a truly small courtyard. It only has three houses in a row, one of which is also a living room. In front of the three houses is a small courtyard, which is only half the size of the backyard of a state-owned hotel.
Although the small yard is not big, it is well maintained, the house is clean and tidy, and there is a piece of land in the corner of the yard where some seasonal vegetables are planted.
The owners of the house are an elderly couple in their sixties. The old man has retired and the old woman has always been a housewife. She now lives in the factory’s staff quarters with her son and daughter-in-law.
The two daughters-in-law became pregnant one after another. Now they are about to give birth. In order to supplement the family income, the couple rented out the yard.
I heard from the old man that this small courtyard was the old house of his ancestors. It has always been well maintained and was even specially renovated a few years ago.
The old lady glanced at Chen Qiangwei and Gu Anyang cautiously. "Are you a couple? Where do you work? Doesn't your company provide a dormitory?"
It's no wonder she's cautious. Last month they heard that a pair of lovers had left their families and rented a house outside. Later, when the two were having sex in the room, the man's wife and her family members caught them in bed.
Not only were this illicit couple paraded through the streets with their worn-out shoes hanging on their backs, but even the person who rented a house to them was also punished and severely criticized by the neighborhood committee office.
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