The Leisure Life in the 1970s

62

Chapter 62 62. Zhao Mei's Family

At the end of the year, Zhao Dagang was very busy in the military. Sometimes he was so busy that he couldn't even go home. He slept directly in the military dormitory. Xiao Li naturally slept there too.

Song Jin's machinery factory also received several orders for agricultural machinery. He worked overtime every day. As for whether he was doing any other special work, Qiao Zhenzhen didn't know. Anyway, he came home very late every day during this period.

A live-in nanny was also found quickly. It was introduced by Grandma Wang. She was a temporary female worker in the textile factory, Zhao Mei, known as Aunt Zhao. She was nearly 40 years old. Her husband died, and she was alone with her two daughters, one was 16 years old and was in high school, and the other was 5 years old and followed her. Every day when she went to work, she would leave the daughters at the gate of the textile factory to play by themselves.

Grandma Wang was the head of the women's department of the textile factory when she was young. After retirement, she occasionally went to the factory to collect retirement supplies. When chatting with everyone, she heard about Zhao Mei.

The factory is not doing well now, so it plans to reduce the number of employees. Temporary workers are the first to be affected, and Zhao Mei is one of them.

Originally, the factory thought it was not easy for her to take care of two daughters alone, and Zhao Mei worked very hard, so they did not want to lay her off. However, when it came to their own interests, everyone's sympathy might not be so obvious.

Among the laid-off staff, many people reported that Zhao Mei often took leave and delayed work. Why should such a person be laid off instead of them? Therefore, they were dissatisfied.

The factory had no choice but to add Zhao Mei to the list of laid-off staff.

Zhao Mei had a difficult birth when giving birth to her eldest daughter. Although both mother and daughter survived in the end, she was injured and thought she would never get pregnant again. However, she unexpectedly got pregnant with her youngest daughter. At that time, her husband died unexpectedly. Zhao Mei was heartbroken. Moreover, she was an elderly woman and had a miscarriage. After the birth of her youngest daughter, she was weak and sickly. She spent almost all her family savings on medicine and medical treatment.

Zhao Mei often took leave to take care of her sick daughter, but she never thought that this would cause her to lose her job.

Without a job, how would she pay for her eldest daughter's tuition, her youngest daughter's medical expenses, and how would they live in the future?

The eldest daughter took the initiative to say that she didn't want to go to school anymore and wanted to go out to work and help take care of her younger sister, but Zhao Mei couldn't bear to see her daughter, who always ranked first in the grade, ruin her future like this.

So Zhao Mei went to the factory several times to ask the factory leaders, but under the pressure of public opinion, the leaders had no choice but to give her 20 yuan in compensation, but they did it secretly and didn't dare to let anyone know.

It happened that Qiao Zhenzhen was planning to find a live-in nanny at this time, so Grandma Wang wanted to introduce Zhao Mei to her.

Qiao Zhenzhen heard that Zhao Mei's eldest daughter ranked first in the grade every time she took the exam, and she liked her, so she agreed to meet Grandma Wang first.

When Qiao Zhenzhen talked about this at the dinner table, Song Dabao and Song Xiaobao looked at each other and thought, Goudan and the others were right, Mom just likes students with good grades. It seems that they have to work harder in the future. It is not enough to be in the top three in the class. They must be the first in the grade like Aunt Zhao's daughter.