Driver: In the 1980s, the golden rice bowl meant that one person’s salary allowed the whole family to have enough food, but now times have changed and it is no longer the same. Why?

"The track is still there today, but the old driver is no longer there." This familiar limerick has been a hit both on the Internet and in real life, and is often used to satirize people who do not obey traffic rules. The driver who caused the car accident.

Today, being a driver has become an ordinary profession, but the evolution process is somewhat mysterious.

Drivers were once "superior"

In today's highly developed world of high-speed rail and airplanes, trucks are still the first choice for many businesses to transport goods. Because the transportation cost of airplanes is relatively high, and railway transportation is limited by the country’s railway construction, trucks are still the most popular method of transportation.

An experienced truck driver can deliver goods to any place designated by the merchant, and compared with air transportation, the merchant does not need to pay high transportation costs.

The salary of a truck driver is relatively considerable. Fortunately, compared with the heavy work tasks, the effort and reward are directly proportional. Along with the salary, truck drivers sometimes need to travel long distances to transport goods within a specified time. Some even need to cross mountains and ridges and cross no-man's land. The degree of danger is evident. Despite this, in the 1980s, becoming a driver was still a career that most Chinese people dreamed of.

In China in the 1980s, cars were still an extremely rare means of transportation. In most rural areas of China, many people don't even know what a car is, let alone the profession of a driver.

Driving schools can be seen everywhere in society today. The number is staggering, but the quality of driving school instructors varies. You must know that the process of training a driver at that time was extremely strict. It required step-by-step teaching by experienced drivers, and the process was extremely long. From "apprenticeship" to "downhill", it took as short as 3 years and as long as 5 years.

The strict training process coupled with the small number of cars makes the driver's salary very considerable. Moreover, at that time, people generally regarded drivers as "skilled workers" and their social status was relatively high, so drivers became a coveted profession.

However, the entry barrier for drivers was very high at that time, and ordinary people had no chance to get into contact with cars. In this social background, for most people, becoming a driver was even more impossible.

It is worth mentioning that the vast majority of cars were public property at that time, and the driver did not need to be responsible for the refueling, maintenance and repairs of the car. Therefore, drivers at that time only drove and received a good salary every month.

In view of such generous benefits, people also regard the driver's profession as a "golden rice bowl." In those still-not-rich days, if you were lucky enough to become a driver, it would be enough to "bring honor to your ancestors" and "bless future generations."

However, society will always move forward, and no one can stop the wheel of history. So how did the driver profession fall from the altar?

Reform and opening up promote development, and the reputation of "drivers" is gradually dimming

History has entered the 1980s, and for Chinese society, a great social reform is about to begin. Within a few years, the spring breeze of reform and opening up spread across the country, and people's lifestyles also underwent earth-shaking changes.

During this period, many foreign companies have entered China, including many internationally renowned automobile manufacturers. This not only solved the employment problem in our country, but also injected a strong force into China's automobile manufacturing industry. vitality.

China and the world worked together to improve the level of its own car production. The group of car owners began to expand. The first group of people who became rich through hard work began to regard owning a car as a sign of success. .

As the number of cars gradually increases, the demand for drivers is also slowly expanding. Many bosses have begun to recruit drivers from the society. As a result, the entry threshold for drivers has begun to lower, and the status of drivers has begun to decrease. Also began to waver.

In the 1990s, reforms continued to advance in depth. After the turn of the millennium, our country joined the WTO. The abundant employment opportunities made people's lives more and more prosperous, and many families began to plan to buy a private car.

With the emergence of more and more private cars, the country has begun to formulate more complete laws and regulations to regulate the behavior of car drivers.

Today, able-bodied Chinese citizens can drive on the road as long as they pass the driving license test. In other words, everyone can become an experienced driver.

This is completely different from China in the 1980s, and the profession of "driver" can be said to have completely "fallen off the altar" from now on. But the "tragic" fate of drivers does not end there. Now society's view of drivers has begun to develop towards the other extreme.

I believe everyone has read the book "Camel Xiangzi" when they were children. Xiangzi lived in old China and made a living by pulling a rickshaw. Nowadays, many people have begun to use this character image to compare drivers to the "Camel Xiangzi" of today's society.

For online ride-hailing drivers like taxi drivers or other platforms, people have mixed reviews. Some people believe that there is no distinction between high and low professions, and everyone who supports themselves through their own efforts deserves to be respected.

Some people also believe that being a driver is not a decent job, or even an "inferior" profession, because most drivers are not highly educated and can only support themselves by driving for others.

There is no "golden rice bowl" in the world, and everyone should be prepared for danger when living in peace

Recently, the country has been emphasizing "awareness of worry," but awareness of worry is not a hot word that has only emerged in recent years. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Mencius, our great thinker and educator, had already made relevant discussions.

Mencius warned the world thousands of years ago that people survive because of their sense of worry, but they lead to destruction because of their greed for pleasure. The example of the driver's profession going from "the altar" to "being invisible to everyone" once again confirms this point.

Today, when almost everyone is crazy about taking the driving license test, being able to drive seems to have been a basic skill, just like drinking water and eating. It’s hard for us to imagine what a popular profession driving was in the 1980s.

But society is not stagnant. The once high-paying professions are now "lost to everyone", which makes people feel sad. But this also enlightens future generations on the importance of being prepared for danger in times of crisis.

The status of a job that once seemed like a "golden rice bowl" has even surpassed that of an "iron rice bowl", attracting countless people. However, society never determines its own development direction based on the consciousness of a few people.

The so-called "golden rice bowl" will always be a "ephemeral flash in the pan" in the long river of history. It may cease to exist at a certain moment. Therefore, there is no "golden rice bowl" in this world, but a certain one. These jobs have adapted to the development of society and therefore become shining.