I'm the youngest Level Eight fitter in the entire factory, and one of its first graduates from a top university.
The new factory director started playing politics, calling my technical achievements "individualism."
I didn't argue or make a fuss. Instead, I requested a transfer to the maintenance department, the laziest, cushiest department in the factory.
Everyone laughed, saying I'd given up and become useless.
Three months later, the factory's equipment maintenance rate had shot up from 75% to 91%.
The director panicked. His nephew's contracting company hadn't even opened yet, and it was already on the verge of going under.
He slapped down his hand, trying to kick me out for good.
I handed in my resignation on the spot. "I'm done working for you."
The whole factory was in an uproar. Everyone said I was crazy to give up my iron rice bowl.
I started out in a storage room in a courtyard house, with one battered lathe and three thousand yuan in savings.
A year later, my rice mills were selling across the province.
Two years later, they were being exported to Southeast Asia.
Three years later, when the factory director was led away in handcuffs, I was already the youngest entrepreneur in the province.
They all ask how I did it.
I say: With skill. With integrity. And with the help of my grandfather's six-hundred-year-old pagoda tree.
