Construction site, various aspects of life

After reading "Sunset Tiantongyuan" by the young writer Wang Yunchao in "One" last night, the atmosphere of heavy metal rock came to my face. Fang's words outline vivid scenes, where singing and dancing flourish, and people drink and drink. I have always wanted to write an article about urban life at a construction site. Every time I pick up the pen, I am afraid that the material is not rich enough, that it is not profound enough, and that it will be misunderstood. In fact, it is still incomplete now. I just suddenly felt that when you want to do something, just do it yourself. Why worry about it?

The people who want to express their gratitude today have a resounding label: migrant workers. I have been dealing with this group of people for three years. Some people say that the student union of the university is a place for business and officialdom. I indulged in adultery there for four years, and then graduated. I came to the construction unit with the mentality of continuing to indulge, thinking, No matter how bad it is, there will always be dozens of workers below. However, I am glad that I can wake up from my lust. I have come and gone and seen hundreds of people who can be called by their first or last name. In the consciousness of mainstream culture, this is a vulnerable group. Hot social topics such as migrant workers, left-behind children, and empty-nest elderly are all related to this group of people. Inextricably linked. I tried my best to convince myself that I would only make an objective narrative without subjective emotions. The main thing is that for these hundreds of people, my emotions can be said to be mixed.

The relationship and identity between workers can basically be summarized like this. The contractor (not usually called that now, they also have a resounding title: subcontracting boss) is responsible for accepting projects with the cooperating construction units and arranging personnel. , machines, tools, and preliminary preparation funds are brought into the site. Most of the process is basically remote control command, confirming the project volume and final settlement every month), leading the team (the person in charge of the site, responsible for communicating with technicians, arranging workers to work, and subcontracting The boss's on-site agent), the big worker (who has skills, and occasionally has the bad temper and disdain of a craftsman), and the small worker (hands him a hammer, carries a pipe, and does whatever the big worker tells him to do).

? Let’s talk about the contractor first, Boss If he was not satisfied with the scene, he would call and order him to come over and rectify it. Under his naive appearance, at the age of 17, due to his poor family, he left his hometown to work as an apprentice with a master. He became a middle-class worker, a big worker, and a class leader. After broadening his horizons, he chose to form his own team. Go out and do it alone. He owns a car and a house, gives his only daughter the best education, and has purchased real estate for his daughter in first-tier cities. He is considered a successful person. Such stories should be the predecessors of many people who are now bosses, and also inspire a generation. However, Mr. However, I have also seen the innocent smile on his face when he worked overtime to help with the project and returned to his dormitory at 8pm when he saw the rice in the rice cooker was cold and ordered boiling water to soak it in. He would also For the sake of face and peace of mind, I would be strong in front of everyone, and then wipe away the bitter tears in a quiet corner. I would also come to the project on time on the 1st and 15th of every month to pay the workers this month’s living allowance. . In the past three years, we have not received any reports of migrant workers collectively asking for wages under Mr. After thinking about it, I realized that not all contractors are as fucked up as in the news reports. Most people, although they care about everything, still have their own rules and regulations.

? Mr. Y, Boss X’s on-site supervisor, manages all the people and work areas of Boss After working as an on-site leader for countless times, Mr. Y should be able to maintain a stable position here. Every day when he goes to work, he arranges things here, coordinates things there, supervises workers, has a bottle of wine in the evening, and goes to the mahjong parlor to play a few games of mahjong when he is tipsy, day after day. day. Regarding income, a supervisor once told me this: "The annual salary is 100,000 yuan, and I take care of the meals at noon."

Such a group of people will actually have their own grievances. The on-site management is not in place. We young and energetic technicians will scold them in their 30s and 40s as if they were grandchildren. They can't talk back. If they talk back, they will talk to the boss; if the following still If you encounter a master with a bad temper who refuses to obey orders, you will suffer from both sides.

These two types of people are no longer traditional migrant workers. Traditional master workers will bring you the earthy smell coming from the pavement. Walking into the living area, the first thing you smell is the strong smell of feet and musty work clothes. What you see are broken beer bottles and messy displays. What you hear is Wang Feng’s roar and Zhang from the inferior speakers. Yu's suffering. Among these people, the main ages are in their early 20s and around 50 years old. In comparison, the 30 and 40 age groups should be in the minority (perhaps it is an illusion deceived by appearance, the 30/40 group is subconsciously classified into 50). Therefore, the common nicknames of these people at the construction site are 20 groups of small X and 50 groups of old X.

People in their 20s are considered the new trend in the construction site. They have basically never had any exposure to higher education and stepped out of the society. They are generally proficient in online games and earn the necessary money by simply and crudely moving bricks. Satisfy yourself. ?Little C, who was born in 1987, has been with us for two years. He gives people a naive and honest impression. He has never been in love. Recently, he fell in love online with a woman who is two years older than him and is said to work in a hotel. I don’t know this. Whether the unfounded love at first sight under the youthful hormones is love, I don’t know whether this kind of love-like thing will hurt him, but after seeing the status of his circle of friends, I silently approached Mr. Y and said, everyone Yue Jianjian can only give him living expenses and cannot borrow any money.

? Most people around 50 years old work hard to make money to support their families. Mr. S is the kind of person I met when I first came to the construction site. There are three children in the family, the eldest is a senior in high school. The younger two were in junior high school. When we were chatting, I handed him a cigarette and he said he didn’t know how to smoke. I tentatively asked him, Old S, did you smoke when you were young? He said he quit ten years ago. . I am a person with hypochondriasis, so I guess it is also due to the pressure of life. I should save when I can. Although smoking is not a healthy habit, at that time, all I saw was bitterness. When I first started working, Mr. S and his wife gave me the biggest impression. During lunch every day, they usually used a stainless steel mesh to soak a bag of instant noodles, and then put two cold steamed buns in the hot soup of instant noodles. Rolling over, one day I asked him, can I eat enough like this? S nodded shyly, yes, yes, yes. At that moment, I thought of my uncle who worked hard at home every day and the couple in front of me. So, I called my uncle and asked him if he had eaten. Then I went to the office to get the biscuits and instant noodles that were distributed during overtime, but I didn’t know how to give them to them correctly. Fortunately, two years later, I am listening to a co-worker talk about this couple. They bought a house in the county town of their hometown in Henan, and I heard that they planned to do some small business there to make a living. I still remember that before going home for the Chinese New Year, Mr. S struggled to collect his hard-earned money for the year. When he went home, he sent me a text message, "Mr. Tang, I'm on the train home, and my boss also paid me the salary." It’s clear, it’s a little more than expected.” That feeling is even happier than knowing how much year-end bonus Brother Feng will give me. A few days ago, I passed by the office downstairs and heard a worker I didn't know calling his child. The child wanted to buy tutoring books for physics and chemistry. The worker agreed, "Okay, okay, daddy will send you money after work." I thought. This should be an inspirational story, not like the viral joke on the Internet: "The father is carrying bricks at the construction site, and the daughter is eating Western food in a high-end hotel." I also know that in this society, there are still people who return to poverty due to education and return to poverty due to illness. phenomenon, but I think this father knew that only in this way would he not let his son inherit his father's legacy.

There are also talented people on the construction site. Occasionally, you can see artistic graffiti, limericks, and paintings on the painted walls. Colorful chalk mottles the newly painted walls. I will stop. , feeling the traces left by the workers, I am a voyeur. There, I can peek into the inner world of an unknown person, including the longing for my hometown, the moans of pain, the mutual teasing between the workers, etc.

What impressed me the most was the words "Office of such-and-such director, only by invitation" written in artistic fonts on the door of a warehouse, and a thatched house painted in red and blue chalk on a certain wall, with thoughts written on the door.

At the same time, there are also people here who are not enterprising (in fact, I don’t know if this word is appropriate to use here). What I call not being enterprising is the kind of numb and degenerate life. The living area at night is very much like Tiantongyuan in Beijing. There is a long queue of barbecue stalls, wine bottles are walking lonely all over the floor, people are jumping out in twos and threes to help each other walking along the S road, and there are even bottles of wine being smashed when they disagree... It seems that every time There is inevitably a red light district next to a workers' dormitory area. On every first and fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, workers in Mentinno City come and go in a hurry. Once I asked Mr. Z, is this kind of existence a natural law? He said, I can only say that this kind of existence has greatly reduced the crime rate in China. Speaking of which, let me mention the women on the construction site. There are still a few female workers on the housing construction project site, driving elevators, controlling tower cranes, and other tasks that do not require physical strength. The husbands of these people are usually also on the construction site, and the living area will be There are couples' rooms for rent, and families live in simple houses, which is considered satisfactory. There are also some hearsay stories about temporary couples in the couple's room, hugging each other to keep warm. I even heard that a certain hostess in the couple's room was dissatisfied with the hard work at the construction site, and used her slight beauty to start a flesh-and-blood business there... Next to every construction site, there are all kinds of messy things. In the mahjong parlor and chess and card room, the workers curled up with their left feet on the stools, holding an extremely choking cigarette between the middle and index fingers of their left hands. Their right hands reached back and forth into the card table, and from time to time they put their hands to their lips to pick up saliva. Xingzi counted the money, and then unnaturally picked his left toe with his right hand when he was free. Overnight, some lost one day's wages today, and some lost one year's wages and went home. In the coming year, there will still be singing and dancing like this every night...

? Bai Baihe has a line like this in "Home, Nth Power": Cheapity is an attitude, after seeing through the laws of the world. The reality of being down-to-earth and throwing away all moral cloaks will sting the world who are accustomed to seeing hypocrisy, but this is exactly the value of my existence, so I exist, so I succeed! In the end, she realized her dream and finally refused to sit down If you laugh on a bicycle, you can cry in a BMW. Do all the living beings who live in various ways on the construction site also have their own hard-working dreams?

?I once thought that I could see through the trivial matters in the world, but it turns out that I am not an understanding person either. The passage of time has erased a lot of idealized truth, goodness and beauty, but now, I will no longer be filled with righteous indignation because of the slightest bit of oppression suffered by workers, and I will no longer think that those who do not understand why I pay back my hard-earned money are the despicable despicable elements of the capitalists. Maybe, how many years later, I will be numb to that old man whose wife is hospitalized with brain cancer and urgently needs medical expenses for lack of salary. I will not watch a 22-year-old man who is the father of three children messing up in the cold wind of winter. Give me a cotton coat. Because you can't change anything, you can only remember the passers-by. Just promise yourself to be a kind person and yearn for world peace.