The occupations you see in Sidulan Village are closely related to the functioning of the city – courier loaders and unloaders, delivery workers, cleaning workers, cell phone accessory salesmen, airport ground staff, movers, most of whom have no choice but to be in intensive contact with the mobile population, delivering take-aways and deliveries to all corners of the city, carrying passengers to various destinations. They have contributed to the mobility of the city and now have to bear the cost of mobility. The work is not always permanent, and many people will rush to two jobs a day, or even more.
You just have to keep working like a machine.
The village of Xidulan in Shunyi is not big, so if you try to walk, you can walk around in half an hour. In those brick or cement-colored houses, there are more than 4,600 residents, most of whom are migrant workers. Every morning at 6 a.m., they come out of the village one after another. Delivery man Bai Xiaoguang is one of them. He starts to take the first order without breakfast, and works at night until he can’t receive any orders, usually at 22:00 or even 23:00. One of his roommates works the night shift at the logistics park, and they hardly meet – he goes to work in the morning, his roommate returns from work, and when he closes at night, his roommate has already left.
In the last six months, these two occupations have been in the news in a special way: appearing in the itinerary of confirmed cases announced by the Beijing CDC. in the June 2020 outbreak that spread from Xinfaodi, a delivery worker was diagnosed, and the flow survey showed that he worked from 0700 to 2100 daily, receiving an average of about 50 orders per day and picking up his wife from work on his electric bike. in the Shunyi outbreak in late December, a The patient, surnamed Wang, worked at a trading company during the day from the 12th to the 19th, and went to the Shunfeng bulk transfer yard to drive a forklift part-time at night. on December 20, at 10 a.m., he accompanied his wife, who had been discharged from the hospital for a follow-up visit, and went to the transfer yard part-time again that evening. on the 21st, his wife also joined the part-time job, working from 22 p.m. to 2 a.m. The short lines of the announcement reveal an exhaustion that is hard to breathe.
At 3:00 a.m. on December 26, the village was sealed – the previous day’s nucleic acid test had yielded positive results for four people, including the couple who worked the night shift at Shunfeng – Bai Xiaoguang and roommates were in the rare position of having nothing to do. The same was true for the other 10 workers in the house, who shared a 120-square-meter rental house. Bai Xiaoguang sleeps on a 1.5-meter bed with a wall on one side, surrounded by screens on two sides, and a table with a plug and kettle on the other. The room was dark, and his personal belongings were only some portable clothes and a quilt.
Because of his frequent job changes, he basically has to move to a place closer to his workplace every other year. His roommates came and went in the same way, said another part-time worker in Sidulan village, “Some of them left just as soon as they got acquainted and didn’t know where they went. “The epidemic has made life even less secure – because of the village closure, Bai and her roommates had time to talk, and once they exchanged ideas, they found out that they didn’t make any money in 2020. Return to work would be later than in previous years, “afraid to go out after the danger, but also to the country trouble”, back to Beijing, isolation, looking for a new job. “Maybe people are not recruiting, or did not resume work, just work in this place for two days, that place for two days. Each job needs to be re-adapted, “it is not good to change jobs, temporary workers usually have to nucleic acid testing and other proof, anyway, this year it is more difficult. “At the end of the year just settled down, we have saved up a good effort to do a good job, closed the rent to go home to see the children, the virus swept back, and the quarantine, can not resume work.
In Xidulan Village, the occupations you see are closely related to where the city runs – courier loaders and unloaders, pancake fruit vendors, janitors, cell phone accessory salesmen, airport attendants, movers, they have no choice, most of them need intensive contact with mobile people, they contribute to the mobility of the city, but now they have to bear the mobile The cost. Many of them have to work two jobs a day, or even more. The patient surnamed Wang, who works two jobs, would not be a surprise to Sidulan Village.
Many people on Zhihu have asked whether they should work the night shift at the transit center because they are in debt or will not be able to pay the next semester’s tuition. The responses at the bottom were all “no”, “this It’s not something you can afford if you’re mentally prepared. This is a job that is said to require “one day off three days The work of the “but the patient surnamed Wang once worked 10 days in a row.
Courier industry daytime work is to receive and dispatch, every day at 5, 6 o’clock in the afternoon, the truck from the business office, arriving at the transit site is usually 6, 7 o’clock in the evening, or even later. The next morning before 6 o’clock, the truck has to set off again to the next station. What happens in between is the work of those night shift workers: scanning, sorting, loading and unloading. There is silence during the day and lights at night. The loud roar of the conveyor belt, the voice of the team leader or captain yelling at the employees, and the sound of the trucks backing up make up the hustle and bustle of the transfer yard. In summer, the temperature reached over 30 degrees, the ventilation fan was better than nothing, the water drank turned into sweat, and the unpleasant smell wafted in the air. In winter, Xiaohong, who worked part-time for a day, remembers the transit yard empty and leaky, “very cold, to work in a down jacket. “
No matter which specific job you are engaged in, it is essentially repetitive and you have to work non-stop like a machine. The forklift work of the patient surnamed Wang is more technical and will pay 8-10 yuan per hour higher. The loading and unloading Bai’s roommate does, on the other hand, is purely physical work: people are trapped in a few square meters of van, setting up items delivered by conveyor belt as space-efficient as possible. (In the large transit yard, more than 30 kilograms of express is very common) If you want to be lazy for a while to go to the toilet, when you return, the express will be piled up like a mountain, even forcing the conveyor belt to stop running and the captain began to scold loudly. People here come and go in non-stop rotation. Winter is a Beijing courier company transit yard outsourced labor company with the shift captain, even if bad temper, he also kept in mind not to easily say heavy words to familiar face this guideline, “try to stay on it. “And in Chengdu transit yard did management Zhang Qiang remembered,” a group of part-time workers, today see, tomorrow also see, the day after tomorrow to all raw faces. “
At midnight there will be a meal, 10 minutes to eat, come back and continue to work. The second half of the night is the most difficult, the darkness seems to never end, hands cut by the edge of the sack or box, sore shoulders, waist like to break, thighs lose consciousness, the human will will be broken. Zhang Qiang remembers that early in the morning when the work was finished, the workers’ faces looked like schoolchildren who had just finished school. After the agency took away about 30%, a night of exhaustion was worth more than two hundred dollars.
The next day, he went out to work as usual
For many workers in Shunyi, it is not uncommon to engage in a part-time job in addition to the original job for more income. Bai had worked as a security guard for two companies at the same time – the first from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. as a regular employee, leaving an hour to eat and change after work, and working part-time from 9 p.m. to 12 p.m. in another building. The two jobs together can earn 7,000 to 8,000 a month, leaving 1,000 for himself and the rest to his wife in Hengshui, Hebei.
The company asked its employees to be on duty for seven days a month and paid half salary. In order to subsidize his family, he found a part-time job in a mask factory for 160 yuan a day.
He is 30 years old, has a simple face, and his wife rents a room of about 15 square meters with a monthly rent of 1,000. 6:30 a.m. at the mask factory, the bus is not yet running, so he gets up at 4:30 a.m. and leaves at 5:00 a.m., walking for an hour to work. Walking on the road just slightly light, behind him there are constantly large trucks passing, he recorded a video, saying to himself, “the early bird has the worm to eat, a good day starts with refueling! “
On the first day, he was responsible for cutting off the raw edges of the masks, and after two hours, his right hand with the scissors was already red and swollen, and there were two large blisters on the hands of other workers. At lunchtime, he picked up the phone with his painful hand and always felt as if it had fallen off crookedly. When he finished work at 2:30 p.m., he had cut 1,310 masks, which did not meet the performance requirements, and some skilled workers were able to cut more than 4,000 masks. The supervisor warned him that he had cut a lot of masks and that he would have to pay a lot of money if it was reported. The next day, he was assigned to put logos on the masks and box them. Again, the work was repeated over and over again. He and the rest of the group packed more than 200 boxes a day and was finally told that each person had to be counted separately. That night, he was informed in the WeChat group that he was fired and the factory gave him a settlement of 320 yuan in wages.
He went back to interview the Jingdong wine sorting work, piecework counting money, a piece of 8 cents 5, if broken liquor, but also compensation, he thought about it, did not go. In June, the company resumed full work, but no wages have been paid so far.
He is a young man full of optimism about life, talking about “seven months without pay” in a relaxed tone on the phone, while his wife’s study abroad company His wife’s study abroad company was also in a bad way and hadn’t paid her for two months. The price of housing in Beijing is so high that they took out a loan to buy a house in Tianjin last year to plan for their future children, “to try to raise the starting point of the children a little higher. “The mortgage is about 10,000 per month, and this year it will be paid off mainly by borrowing money,” we overestimated our ability at the time. “He went to university, full of ambition for the future of life, after graduation, only asked the family for 2,000 yuan, before he was a skilled construction worker, but he believes that the ceiling of skilled workers is very low, do marketing despite the current income is less, but can often deal with people from large companies, can learn more He believes that these things will come in handy in the future – although he can’t say exactly what they will be used for now.
In October, the security guard job on the evening shift stopped hiring part-timers, so he simply quit the first one as well. When he saw that some workers could earn 9,000 yuan a month, he also set his goal at that number. The company’s main goal is to provide a solution to the problem of the problem. “The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. I thought I’d never send it again, yes, I felt absolutely no takeaway, too tired. “But the next day, he still went to work as usual.
So far, the two months’ income from delivery did not meet his expectations. After 8 years in Beijing, he has worked as a restaurant waiter, lobby manager, traffic warden and pieceworker in a hot rolling mill, and 9,000 yuan still seems so far away. He recently heard someone say that there is a job called ancient building decoration, that is, in the park for the antique building paste paste brick and tile, income can reach 9,000 yuan, he thought after the unblocked may be able to try. I found him on a short video application, sealing the village during the period, friends around him told him, shoot short video conversion rate is high, you can have some income, he registered an account occasionally pat, “there is little money, one or two cents. “
Part-time workers Li Zhibo in a way is considered lucky. He is a temporary worker moving, the main business is for people who want to emigrate abroad packing furniture, the pay is also relatively more, 8 hours can earn 300 yuan, overtime 40 yuan per hour, a month can be eight or nine thousand. This year, such work is rare, he can only take some office relocation work, only about 7,000 a month. But the biggest benefit of moving for this group of people is that the employer will give them a decent takeaway order after the job is done, and he remembers the best one, with red meat to eat.
He sent two boxes of instant noodles to a security guard at the entrance of the village
As of today, six villages in Shunyi District have been assessed as medium risk areas by the city’s CDC. When you search for the names of these villages on short video software, you can see a lot of working people taking pictures of their houses that are a few square meters square, the background is usually very messy, and there is a man from East Magizhuang who likes to lie on his bed and face the camera for a while, he writes, “I did a year of work for nothing this year, but luckily people are alive, earning money or not I will not say. “A lady from East Haihong village took a picture of the scene of the nucleic acid test, she said she was homesick, “This year is too difficult, let people earn some money to buy buns to eat. “In the group buying group of nearly 500 people in Xidulan village for living supplies, people would lament two sentences in between buying food, “It’s easy to live, it’s easy to live, life is not easy “, below someone replied, “difficult brother we will all be better, we experienced the same, cheer. “
People have repeatedly lowered their expectations of life, “now this year you see what to do is not easy, stable, safe and sound is good, there is no need for so much,” Li Zhibo said. Zheng Xia Peng has always wanted a child, this year’s conditions have made him retreat, his parents are old, wages can not be paid, mortgage payments can not be paid, in July his wife was also hospitalized to remove a teratoma in the ovary, due to the epidemic, the hospital does not allow bedside, he could only let his wife go to the hospital alone.
They recorded on video the night before admission to the hospital, respectively, his wife put toilet paper, water cups and a change of clothes into a black backpack, Zheng Xia Peng to the camera, some uneasiness, “since the doctor does not allow to accompany the bed, that means the risk of surgery must be very small. “He asked his wife, scared, his wife shook his head, with a joke to defuse the tension,” to that old man is of no use hahaha “During that time, his most profound feeling is,” in this city can support each other to go on is the two of us. “
“A person to a person back, what mood? “
November holidays, he returned home to Zhangjiakou to help his parents harvest corn, the family more than twenty acres of land, most of the machine to collect, there are seven or eight acres of loose land to rely on manual break. The other day, his father called, said the price of corn this year is good, more than 90 cents out of the sale, sold more than 30,000, asked him, to call him some money? He refused, even though he hadn’t received a paycheck for seven months.
Trapped at home at the moment, their wish is even simpler: to fill their stomachs. Zheng Xia Peng and his wife stocked up on onions, winter squash, sweet potatoes and cabbage before the village supermarket closed, “No meat? ” I asked, “We are both okay with meat, not too fond of “, he replied. Bai Xiaoguang’s roommate bought three boxes of instant noodles in the supermarket, which constituted their meals during the quarantine period, to be finely calculated, “if you eat only one meal a day cook three bags, eat two meals on two bags per meal. “His home heating temperature at about ten degrees, electric mattresses consume a lot of electricity, he rarely spared to open.
The night of December 31, Li Zhibo decided that the New Year’s Eve has to eat something good, he group purchase some pork, stewed with potatoes, and scrambled an egg, the whole one or two old villagers, “not drunk “. After eating, he casually found a party on the video site to watch, and played a video to his wife, playing and tired, and fell asleep. Zheng Xia Peng hoarded food is almost finished, the thermometer at home shows 16.3 degrees, he and his wife are wearing down jackets. At noon on the last day of the year, the two cooked noodles in clear soup to eat, no vegetables or eggs. In the evening, they welcomed the New Year with a pot of sweet potato porridge.
In the midst of hardship, they were still able to empathize with others. 58 Tongcheng on a part-time worker in the town of Nanfaxin declined our invitation for further interviews, but he wrote in his reply, “Our test results are negative okay, it is positive or a close contact, but also an innocent. “Zheng Xia Peng ordered 5 pounds of bananas, 3 pounds of oranges, bananas delivered all black, he stressed, “the staff is quite hard, it may be that the backlog of goods is too much. “
Li Zhibo hopes we can help him inquire about how he can donate some money to the security guards who help them guard the village, “We still have heating in the house, comfortable when people are still on duty outside for us. It’s not easy for us to work outside, and I feel that they (also) work hard. Do you have a phone number? Or just donate in cash, or buy some supplies. “The next day, he sent two boxes of instant noodles to a security guard at the entrance of the village.
In any case, the new year has finally arrived, and early in the morning of the 1st, Xidulan Village gave dumplings and dumplings to every household, “finally there is meat to eat,” Zheng Xia Peng lamented. He cooked two bags of pork and caper dumplings, feeling like the Lunar New Year, “this dumpling eaten than any time to feel. “On the 3rd, the village issued another 300 yuan voucher to each person, which can be unsealed to collect cash from the designated place. Previously, every New Year’s Day, Zheng Xia Peng and his wife will go to the Yonghe Palace to pray for blessings, this year they can only stay at home, his wife’s New Year’s wish is the company’s arrears of wages can be issued as soon as possible, he hopes to earn more in the New Year, life has stabilized, to have a child.
The 8-year-old son is the spiritual support of Li Zhibo. In the past, when he called, his son always asked noisily, “When will Dad come back? Slowly, the question became, “Is Dad done working? “It feels like the kid just grew up,” he said. He tells of the summer vacation in 2018 when his wife brought his son to visit him in Beijing and they went to the oceanarium to see a dolphin show, and his son was excited to take lots of pictures with the dolphins. That night they didn’t go back to Xidulan Village, but found a 200 yuan hotel nearby to stay. The next day, they went boating in the Summer Palace, and my son happily played in the water again, and these constitute the shining memories he has in Beijing.
Li’s New Year’s wish is for his wife and children to be safe and sound and (for the world) to stop the New Crown virus. Bai released his year-end summary through a short video: “This year is also rather miserable, except for the epidemic, which is an epidemic, and there is no serious work every day. In fact, I’m thinking of not being in Beijing next year, either to find a job in my hometown, or to toss something on my own. “Then he thought, the old home salary is not high, do small business traffic and not, “more headache “. Finally, he encouraged himself, “next year, once the epidemic, go! “
The afternoon of January 1, the municipal government Information Office held a conference on the prevention and control of the epidemic, calling on the residents of Shunyi non-essential not out of Shunyi, in Shunyi for the New Year, see this message, Zheng Xia Peng still with a characteristic humor, said he wanted to give himself a “cool”. And Li Zhibo is full of sentimentality, he is clear, if you really go home, it is not good to go to the hotel isolation, big thousands of dollars and gone, he is willing to respond to the government’s call, just “my heart is sour, I do not know how to say to the wife and children I don’t know how to tell my wife and children.
◦ The characters in the article are pseudonyms.
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