Vanity Fair and City I (5)

A good job? A good job! A good job?!

Juliet works in a foreign company. Many people envy her because salary is much higher in foreign companies than that in other companies. Every year, thousands of ambitious graduating students seek every chance to enter foreign companies. It is a proud thing if they succeed.

However, Juliet told me the real life in foreign company: stress, fierce competition, work that can’t be finished…

Yes, as a white-collared worker in the office, she gets two-persons’ salary, but she does four-persons’ job. Nobody can finish the workload every day, so every night she has to stay up late to finish it. Work, work, work, her life is just to work.

Melanie works in a state-owned financial company. It is also a glorious thing if one can enter state-owned company.

However, Melanie was fired by her boss at last. It surprised me a lot, because…

Melanie’s father has a friend in power in that financial company. Her father used some money (of course a big sum), and her father’s friend used his power to help Melanie enter the company. Not everybody can enter state-owned companies unless you have power or background…and the problem here is that, Melanie has “some power or background”, but she still got fired…

“That’s because my power or background is not strong enough!” Melanie said. “There is always somebody who has stronger power or background.”

I am lucky that I work in the company I am working for now. It is neither a foreign company nor a state-owned company. It is not a big company either. When he knew I work in a private company, he frowned and asked: “Why don’t you work in foreign companies or state-owned companies? You are capable and you must be able to find a job in those big companies.”

I am sure many people have the same opinion with his. It is not a proud or glorious thing to work in small companies. I am vain and I did care about it before. But now I don’t mind any more. Yes, the company I work for is so-so in their eyes, but it is young and vigorous, my bosses are nice to me, and my job is very easy but my salary is not low. That’s good enough!

I am not ambitious. I am shortsighted. I enjoy my life now. I can finish my job every day easily. Then I can spend lots of time doing things I want to do. I don’t have to work over time, so I can get a part-time job. It is not a bad thing to earn more. And I read and write in my spare time. It is my invisible asset to have my readers. As long as I have inspiration I will keep writing (of course not in English). I know my readers will never abandon me as long as I never abandon writing. Compared to salary or money, it is more important to see that my readers love the world I create. When they leave messages to me, telling me they miss me and want to read the next chapter of my novels, I feel warm and happy.

Because of them I don’t feel lonely even though the two persons I care don’t read my writing. One of them dislikes reading and writing so he won’t read what I write. The other one doesn’t know Chinese.

So I try to write something in English. It is not a bad thing to do it. And my full-time job requires me to write in English too. I read nearly all of his writing; I hope one day he can read mine.