Summer work experience‖shoe factory

It’s hot summer again, and I’m lying in the air-conditioned room and taking a nap. The cicadas outside the window were singing at the top of their lungs, and I suddenly began to recall what I was doing in the summer before I had a job.

During the summer vacation when I was a child, I mostly remember going to my grandma’s house to eat watermelon. Later, my family started raising sheep, and I herded sheep for several years. Later, when I was in junior high school, my parents went out to work, so I went to play with them during the summer vacation. While they were at work, I would watch TV and sleep in the rental house.

After junior high school, I worked three summer vacation jobs. One was in a shoe factory in Shishi, Quanzhou. The other two times were in Fuqing, Fuzhou, where my parents worked, once in a restaurant and once in a hardware and electronics factory.

The time I went to the shoe factory was in 2009, during the summer vacation of my sophomore year in high school. At that time, we hardly had any make-up classes during the summer vacation, so we took the holidays when they should. At that time, my uncle opened a braised food shop in Shishi, Quanzhou, and invited my brother and I to play with our cousins ??during the summer vacation.

My uncle has a fixed store and a food stall store. This location is next to the lively shoe city, and the business is pretty good. A group of us kids were in the food stall store, helping to carry the plates and clear the tables.

One night, one of his old customers came to have a late-night snack and asked his uncle: "This large group of children in your family is very lively. Do you want someone to work in my shoe factory during the summer vacation? The work is very busy." It’s simple and works by piece, but it takes a lot of time.”

My cousin is more familiar with the store’s business and has to stay in the store to help. My brother is a boy and the food stalls often need to move wine, so he can move it. If you want to go, I will go. My uncle asked for my opinion, and after calling my parents to agree, I went to work during the summer vacation.

Shoe factories are small family workshops that make branded shoes. The boss is from Jiangxi, a partnership between two brothers, and the employees are all familiar to us. They had a handyman who went back to his hometown to spend the summer with his children. All other work was assigned, but there was still a small process that was not smooth, so the boss hired me as a temporary worker.

Here, I witnessed how a pair of shoes was born. Because it is a foundry, the preliminary work is done by the brand company, and here you only need to complete the prescribed processes. First, according to the pattern making, the corresponding pattern is cut from the large cloth. This is the original shoe upper, which is usually completed by very skilled workers.

By drawing the locations of accessories on the shoe, workers who make shoes mark the lines and add corresponding accessories, such as rivets, shoelace holes, car tongues, and other decorations. After completion, the quality inspection personnel will check and accept it. If it passes the test, it will be put into a special oven and put on the shoe mold to fix it.

After molding, the finished product will be tasted and checked again. If there are no problems, it will enter the next process to fit the sole. After the soles are attached, the entire pair of shoes will undergo final polishing. After inspection again, the shoes will be installed with shoe stretchers and placed in shoe boxes for delivery.

My job was very simple, erasing the silver pen lines where I originally drew the accessories. I was given a small stool and a box of pens, and I followed the quality control worker. After they checked that there was no problem, I wiped off the marked silver line.

Although it seems simple, repetitive work is actually very challenging. One is that a pair of shoes sometimes has a lot of marks, there may be seven or eight places, and with repeated wiping, a certain place will sometimes be missed. If a large number of products are found to be unqualified during the quality inspection, I will be asked to rework them all myself. I was asked to do this once a few days before I went there. Just once, I struggled for several hours, and then I no longer dared to be careless.

Another thing is that the erasing pen ran out of water very quickly, but they purchased it based on the amount that the handyman used before. I only went there for half a month and already used up a month’s worth of it. . As a result, the boss lady was full of distrust in my work. She sat next to me several times and watched me wipe it, making sure that I really used it until there was no more water before letting me throw it away. (It was later confirmed that the leather of the new order was more absorbent than the previous one, so the erasing pen quickly ran out of water, and the boss lady let me go.

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I was also very disgusted with this behavior of the boss lady, and even called my mother to complain. My mother took this opportunity to educate me: "No money is so easy to make, boss lady." We need to control costs. Work is like that. If you don’t study hard, you might continue to shine shoes in the future!”

The boss said it takes a long time, and it’s really a long time for me as a first-time worker! , I go to work at eight in the morning, have lunch from 12 to 1 in the afternoon, have dinner from 5:30 to 6 in the evening, and basically work overtime until 10:30 to 11 in the evening. But in that area, these working hours are normal, and my uncle’s braised food stall is basically open until after 2 a.m.

I don’t remember exactly how many days I worked. In short, that summer vacation was finally coming to an end. On August 25th, my uncle told me that I would have my last day of work on the 26th, and after settling my wages on the 27th, I would be allowed to work on my own. We’re going to buy clothes, and then we’ll go back and get ready for school on the 28th.

Finally, the day came for the paycheck. I slept beautifully until the afternoon. Before the paycheck, I went to the workroom to say goodbye to everyone. The workers who make shoes are all young men in their 20s. They often chat with me. Sometimes I feel very sleepy because I haven’t slept enough. They will also give me snacks to keep me refreshed. They are still on my QQ account now. Friends.

A pair of shoes costs 2 cents. My worker settled the payment for more than 1,880 yuan, and the finance department asked me to confirm and sign. Finally, I was given 2,000, saying that my boss told me to round it up, and he praised me for being able to endure hardships and work hard. After receiving the first pot of gold in my life, I couldn't bear to spend it at all. I only spent a few dollars to treat my cousins ??to a popsicle, haha.

As my first job in life, it made me truly realize how difficult it is to make money. Not only are the hours long, but sitting in a workroom with an oven every day is so hot that I almost suffer from heatstroke. I miss school so much, with the electric fan above my head making a creaking sound and the teacher standing on the podium explaining knowledge endlessly.

If you don’t have to endure the hardships of studying, you have to endure the hardships of life. This is my first-hand experience of working during the summer vacation.