Father-in-law's Stinginess

The next morning at nine o'clock, Fang Bai slung his bag over his shoulder and headed out.

Inside the bag was five thousand yuan, which he planned to use to buy a pager.

In this era, not having a decent communication tool was really inconvenient.

Having grown used to ultra-thin touchscreen phones, Fang Bai had no love for the brick-like Big Brother devices.

If he spent twenty or thirty thousand yuan on a Big Brother, with his hindsight from a later age, he'd think that person was a complete sucker.

Twenty or thirty thousand yuan—that could buy half a house.

Spending the price of a house on a tacky brick? Hah, how foolish.

Besides, Big Brothers were too bulky. A small, refined tool like a pager was far more convenient—it could sit discreetly in a pants pocket, low-key.

Alright, Fang Bai couldn't afford a Big Brother, so he was just sour grapes.

But still, to be fair.

Clipping a pager onto your belt looked utterly ridiculous. Fang Bai would never do that.

Fang Bai rode his brand-new bicycle with a carefree air, a sunny smile on his face, blending into the lively streets.

To buy a pager—there were no pager specialty stores back then.

Places like electronics shops, digital stores, or fixed-line phone service halls usually had a few pagers for customers to choose from.

Fang Bai found a digital store selling pagers. When he asked, they only had one model.

It was an alphanumeric pager, which could beep or vibrate and display both letters and numbers.

With this kind of pager, you had to call back to find out what was going on.

No Chinese character display?

That was the kind that could show Chinese characters, letters, and numbers all at once.

With that, you wouldn't need to hunt for a payphone to know the message—it was much more convenient.

"Miss, don't you have the ones with Chinese character display?"

"Sorry, sir, we don't. A lot of people ask, and you're not the first. The most advanced we have right now is this digital display. With the early analog signal pagers, users could only receive a call signal and had to call the paging center to get the callback number."

"...Fang Bai suddenly felt less thrilled. Without Chinese character display, it would be a hassle to use.

Numbers stood for certain meanings—like 520 meant 'I love you,' and 101 represented the surname 'Li.' You often had to look up code books to know what they meant.

It seemed Chinese character displays hadn't been developed yet.

They weren't out now, but they'd probably come soon. The peak lifespan of pagers was short; in a few years, mobile phones would appear.

So, should he buy one or not?

If he was going into business, he had to.

Fang Bai chatted with the salesperson and eventually paid for a Motorola pager.

The Motorola pager cost 1,380 yuan, the network access fee was 600 yuan, the number selection fee was 300 yuan, and the monthly rental was 30 yuan, usually paid for a year upfront.

Excluding the monthly rental, the whole set cost 2,280 yuan. Fang Bai felt a twinge of pain.

The pager price was about the same everywhere, but the activation and monthly fees varied a lot, and sometimes there was no number selection fee. Fang Bai didn't haggle over it—as a businessman, he had to let others take their cut.

Wasn't he doing the same to others? A TV that cost less than a hundred yuan to make, he sold for over a thousand. His markup was even worse, almost pure profit.

So Fang Bai just grumbled a bit about the inconvenience.

His pager number was "127-1009527," an automatic and manual service combo. Using a landline, you dialed 127 followed by the seven-digit number, and the pager would display the landline number directly.

After buying the pager, Fang Bai left the digital store and clipped it onto his belt.

At first, he thought clipping it on his belt looked silly, but now it felt pretty convenient.

And it was quite fashionable.

Still, he wasn't used to tucking his shirt into his pants, which made it look a bit less stylish.

If he tucked it in, his pager would be on display, giving off an air of success that naturally stood out—more impressive than wearing a Rolex or a gold chain, since most people couldn't recognize a Rolex, but a pager was instantly identifiable.

Wow, that guy has a pager. His family must be in business.

That's what people would think.

After walking a few steps, Fang Bai decided it was better to tuck his shirt in.

It wasn't to show off the pager, but because tucking it in helped him blend into this era.

Everyone else tucked their shirts in and clipped pagers to their belts. He couldn't be the odd one out, sticking out like a sore thumb.

In business, you had to show your strength.

Sure enough, once he tucked his shirt in, more passersby glanced his way.

With a confident smile, Fang Bai rode his bicycle to the Jiayu Processing Plant.

Qin Donghai was busy working. When he saw Fang Bai arrive, he wiped the oil and grease off his hands with a rag and greeted him with a grin.

"Brother, I haven't seen you in days. I couldn't find you anywhere."

"I had some things to take care of. I just bought a pager—here's my number, 1271009527. Just page me if you need anything."

"Not bad, a Motorola brand. Mine's the same." Qin Donghai glanced at the pager on Fang Bai's belt; the brand and model matched his own.

The two exchanged pager numbers and chatted about the workshop's production status.

Jiayu Factory would finish the Hengli Company order tomorrow and then start on the Boli Company order.

His father-in-law said it was hard to find workers now—every factory was scrambling for skilled labor. Even with a slightly higher wage, people didn't want to take night shifts.

So far, he'd only hired one driller and was still urgently looking for a lathe worker.

"Listen to me—offer more money to recruit. Out-of-towners need room and board included, and you should raise Old Master's pay too.

I figure wages will jump again after the Spring Festival next year. It's already year-end; raising them a few months early won't hurt. If workers leave and you can't find replacements, you'll lose money on idle orders. I'll pull in more orders—we won't run out of work."

Fang Bai urged him. Factories with any decent scale were growing wildly, drowning in orders and fighting over skilled workers.

Most skilled workers in Wen City worked for themselves, rarely for others, so recruitment usually targeted migrant workers.

His father-in-law had that typical Wen City boss stinginess—he paid enough, higher than factories in other provinces.

But other benefits were mediocre. Forget about weekends off; overtime was constant.

In fact, across the entire private sector in Jiangnan Province, workers rarely got two days off a month. One day off was considered decent.

The high wages were only because they couldn't find workers—a reluctant raise, not voluntary.

If productivity went up, they'd cut the piece rate. They wouldn't pay especially high wages, but they wouldn't squeeze too low either.

There was a good side: they almost never owed wages, the canteen food was relatively decent, and they weren't afraid to spend money on the factory.

But those were just basics—things any enterprise should provide.

Fang Bai had also considered whether, if he started his own business, he'd be a pure capitalist or a great entrepreneur who worked to improve employee benefits.

He definitely leaned toward the latter, but it was very hard to achieve. The business had to be highly profitable, or it was all empty talk.

Qin Donghai thought over Fang Bai's words and found them reasonable. "Alright, I'll talk to them."

He worried that if he raised wages for new hires without bumping up the old master's pay, the veteran would find out, compare, and feel resentful—maybe even jump ship.

Fang Bai was right. If he could make money, why compare wages with other factories?

If an extra hundred wasn't enough, offer two hundred. Someone would be tempted to come work.

Each worker could generate thousands in profit for him every month. A little extra wasn't a big deal.

The more he spent, the more he earned.