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Elevator Maintenance Worker
Elevator maintenance and servicing — this is the nominal job description of an elevator maintenance worker. Of course, in reality, it’s not like that. I applied for elevator maintenance work at a monopolistic enterprise, attended training, then worked for a while, and then quit (the reasons will be explained later). This job is different from my previous jobs.
The biggest difference is that the monopolistic capital’s control and suppression over maintenance workers is relatively lenient. The probationary monthly salary for this job is 4,500 yuan (social insurance included, so take-home pay is slightly less), and the working hours are 7 hours + 1 hour for meals and rest (surprisingly, it’s a real eight-hour work system). Moreover, during work, it’s mainly two people on shift. Besides monthly inspections, there are no “superiors” appearing around the maintenance workers. Clocking in simply involves taking six photos with the watermarked camera next to the elevator every day. When the station master is more relaxed, workers can even log in with my account, wear a helmet, just show the top of the head to punch the card, and then leave early.
The work content depends on the situation. The most basic task is signing the maintenance card and then using a mobile app to take photos of various parts of the elevator and upload them. Since each team manages about 130-170 elevators, and they need to be inspected every 15 days, some maintenance workers directly use another phone to take several photos of the elevator and then upload the screenshots, pretending to have checked the elevator, otherwise, it’s hard to finish the work. Then, it’s dust sweeping and repairs. Repairs are usually not done by new hires but by experienced workers who have undergone additional training. Some “more advanced” technical workers don’t do maintenance; they wait for ordinary maintenance workers to report faults before going out to repair. If there are no faults, they stay at home idling. Newly repaired elevators on construction sites tend to be very dirty and need dust sweeping. The interior of the car is always very clean, but the top of the car, the sliding rails of the elevator doors, the machine room, and the bottom pit—places unseen by users—are covered with thick layers of dust and various trash, which is hard to describe.
Overall, it can be said to be a relatively relaxed job. Compared to my previous work, this job even gave me a feeling of being “bought off by the bourgeoisie”—although this kind of work isn’t really bought off by surplus value, it’s just that the control and suppression are less than in other jobs.
The economic crisis of the middle repair is causing the bourgeoisie to go bankrupt and pushing them into the ranks of workers. Bankrupt bourgeoisie, although forced to work, still despise labor in their minds, so they prefer comfortable elevator maintenance jobs—I met a few former bourgeoisie workers during short working hours and chatted with them.
During training, we were grouped in threes and assigned to clean dust at construction sites. These were newly built office buildings on the outskirts of the city, with streets in front and farmland behind (probably in such remote places, the land rent for construction and agriculture are about the same). The bourgeoisie responsible for training us showed us the machine room, bottom pit, and top of the elevator car, introduced the various components, recited safety procedures, then let us go dusting the elevators. It was called “paid training,” but it was still exploitation. Additionally, we had to use our phones to answer questions for the training exams.
My coworker Z is a former bourgeoisie worker in his fifties. He used to be a technical worker in a factory, and because he was about to retire, his residential complex replaced its elevator (funded by middle repair subsidies, with no cost to the owners). He wanted maintenance work and joined the training. Another coworker L is a middle-aged worker who has done many jobs, such as ride-hailing, appliance installation, etc. Both of them have many petty-bourgeois habits. When we chat on the top of the elevator car, they love talking about various cars, like buying second-hand cars for fun.
I talked more with coworker Z and felt that he had some petty-bourgeois democratic ideas. On the first day of training, we discussed our family situations. He said that last night he saw his child being assigned a huge amount of homework by Lao Jiu, and it wasn’t finished even by 10:30 pm, so he directly let the child sleep. Then he criticized Lao Jiu in the class group, saying, “Why do you assign so much homework? Lao Jiu doesn’t coordinate among subjects, and each subject assigns so much.” During training, Lao Jiu called him back, and Lao Jiu was very disgusting, saying, “Only your family reported this issue,” “We teachers will coordinate it.” After hanging up, he complained to us that too much homework causes children to spend all their time on study and homework, with great psychological pressure, which is not good for children.
I was quite surprised after hearing this, thinking that this person is quite different from the typical Confucian family head. I said that Lao Jiu’s assigning so much homework isn’t for the students’ benefit. He agreed, saying Lao Jiu only cares about the class’s grades and doesn’t care about children’s health— the interests of teachers and students are fundamentally different (roughly). Then he said that now the depression rate among Chinese people is very high, especially among students, and he doesn’t want his children to develop psychological problems.
Following the topic of student depression, Z mentioned that his wife is Lao Jiu in elementary school. She saw a child whose family’s control over the child was extremely severe (being picky about homework, even family members leaving the child alone at home to go out with his brother). When the child was in first grade, he could live normally, but by third grade, he became severely depressed and couldn’t live normally. Z also expressed some vulgar opinions, such as “No wonder Chinese students lack innovation spirit.”
I said that now teachers treat students as enemies. Chairman Mao said in 1964 that the school system should be shortened, and no more intensive exams. Look, when you were young, your coursework was so light, but now students have so much. In 1964, students’ coursework was probably even less than when you went to school, but Mao said to reduce the burden and let students learn real skills through social practice and production. He laughed after hearing this and said, “Didn’t expect Mao to say such things, quite right.”
Later, he said that Chinese society is now “involution” starting from schools, which drives the social atmosphere to “involution” as well. I countered that “involution” doesn’t start from schools but from social polarization, where parents want their children to climb up through the gaokao, leading to “involution” in schools. Z agreed verbally but didn’t continue this topic. I wonder how Z views his own children? Judging by his strong petty-bourgeois ideas, he probably sees his children as some kind of private property. He’s not an extremely opportunistic parent, but he hopes his children stay healthy physically, and through academic opportunism, find a comfortable job far from labor, to continue the “warm little family” life. So, although he’s dissatisfied with Lao Jiu, he still discusses with L whether to invite Lao Jiu for a meal to “repair the relationship.”
Later, Z and L talked about buying second-hand cars, mentioning Japanese cars, and he told me, “If you want to buy a car, Japanese cars are also worth considering—if you don’t have an ‘anti-Japanese sentiment’.” I said Mao once said that the common enemies of Chinese and Japanese people are Japanese fascists, and there shouldn’t be any “anti-Japanese sentiment” when seeing Japanese things. He laughed again, and I could tell his laughter meant “If I knew you thought like that, I wouldn’t have joined the armor.” Then I explained how bourgeois monopoly over the means of production exploited workers, leading to overproduction crises. Before the war, Japanese class contradictions were sharp, and the bourgeoisie needed external expansion and plunder, which led to invading China. The Japanese people have always fought against the reactionary government (citing examples of crab boat workers’ working hours and conditions). Actually, now Japanese factories in China (where Z used to work) have better working conditions than domestic companies, mainly because Japanese people’s struggles forced the bourgeoisie to retreat.
When talking about Japan’s pre-war economic crisis, Z directly said, “This is just like China now,” and I didn’t know how to respond. We were having a meal break outside, and it wasn’t good to openly say that middle repair is fascist. Later, he talked about China’s current economic crisis, saying that many newly built houses can’t be sold and are only mortgaged to cement factory capitalists to reimburse building materials, etc.
Then I said that if this continues, a new war might come. He hoped not—he came to this job for social security and retirement benefits. We didn’t continue this topic, partly because the meal break ended and I had other things later; partly because I felt we weren’t very familiar, and if we kept talking, it might touch on Z’s core interests—his decades-long bourgeoisie life and possibly comfortable retirement. Could he really accept that? I hesitated and decided not to pursue it further.
Later, I added Z on WeChat because he was going home after training. We parted ways.
After training, I officially started work. My shift partner was a bankrupt bourgeoisie S. He used to be a designer at a certain architectural design institute, lost his job due to the collapse of middle repair land finance, and came here. He is the one who taught me how to log in with workers’ accounts, only exposing the forehead to take photos for clocking in. Over the next few days, we took turns punching out for each other, so one of us could leave early. He also told me that if I had an interview, just tell him, and he could help me punch in for a day. “With such a low salary, I wouldn’t work so much for him,” S said.
This job isn’t always comfortable either. Our first stop was a newly built wealthy residential area, with four-story houses, but the elevators only stopped at the 1st and 4th floors—because those houses are basically two double-story villas stacked together! When S and I carried blow dryers and lubrication barrels into the neighborhood, S looked a bit envious and said if he still had money, he’d buy a house like that. Then he calculated that the new neighborhood was in a remote location, so the prices shouldn’t be too high. Since the houses aren’t selling well now, developers have to do fine decoration to compete, which can save some renovation costs later. I found it very abstract.
Although outwardly glamorous, the design is actually stupid. The elevator shaft is in front of the house, the staircase is at the back, with no corridor connecting them. If the elevator breaks down and you need to go to the top control panel (using a key to open the panel on the top floor to see the main switch and emergency operation controller), you can only go up from the staircase, or through a fire passage with a dog hole on the roof, or pass through the owner’s house.
Once, the elevator really broke down. We climbed up the stairs, but I couldn’t get through the dog hole. S went in and found it was blocked with debris. So he had to go through the owner’s house. No one was home—still under renovation—so S opened the roof window to get in.
Later, the elevator issue was resolved. When it breaks down, just cut the power and restart. But stupid owners complained to the property management, saying they saw workers S entering on their surveillance, and demanded “an explanation.” The property staff usually get along well with us, but when something happens, they become just messengers for the owners, asking in the group chat what’s going on. We explained everything, but the owner kept insisting, “If you keep doing this, I’ll call the police.” S and I were very angry. I thought, “Then you should climb the stairs, and if you want us to repair the elevator, you’re not happy, right?” S sighed, “Doing this work really doesn’t seem human,” I said, “It’s because we’re not human that those guys can live in such big houses and live ‘like a person’.” S agreed.
Later, we didn’t bother that owner—of course, he didn’t really call the police. But I felt very annoyed. I told the property management in the group chat that we were there to repair the elevator and didn’t damage anything, and that passing through the owner’s house was due to poor house design. I didn’t say it very harshly, but S asked me to withdraw the statement. I thought S still needed to continue working, and if the property kept making things difficult, it would be very uncomfortable for him. So I listened to S and retracted.
One day, S and I went to a remote place where there was no takeout. For lunch, we found a noodle shop on navigation. Riding past construction sites and workers’ small stalls, we entered a neighborhood and found a noodle shop with the lowest price of 22 yuan. Both S and I had a strong petty-bourgeois intellectual mindset, thinking that if we came and looked at the menu and then left, it would be “undignified.” So we forced ourselves to order the 22-yuan noodles, eating a meal worth two meals of the working people. Later, I thought it was wrong. Since S and I are both among the workers, we should overcome bourgeois ideas and eat at roadside stalls with construction workers. Eating noodles for 22 yuan actually reinforced bourgeois “dignity”—which is just the dignity of exploiters who can share surplus value and spend extravagantly—and these ideas might even spread among workers. It’s completely contrary to Marxist principles.
Later, I asked S if he wanted to go to roadside stalls. He was afraid they’d be dirty. I said that workers at the construction site also eat there, and it’s not very dirty. He still didn’t want to go. Later, I went to roadside stalls and Sha County, and S bought a coupon on Douyin for half price and continued to eat at that noodle shop.
My elevator maintenance work didn’t last very long. One reason was that a one-way commute took 1.5 hours, which was quite far; another reason was that I felt uneasy signing my name inside elevators whose interior decoration only workers could see. When S and I were in the wealthy neighborhood, we found that most elevators’ emergency lighting was out, and some couldn’t even use the emergency call. The station master told us in the work group not to tell the property management about faults, not to write them in the maintenance record book, because the elevators were installed by our company, and if the property management knew, they would complain about our poor service. Just saying it in the group chat was enough. Also, some elevators are very difficult to evaluate. For example, in that wealthy neighborhood, once the safety circuit is triggered, the elevator will break down and only restart after power is cut. I thought that if something happened to the elevator, the monopolistic capital would definitely spend money to suppress it, but if they couldn’t suppress it, they might just force us maintenance workers to take the blame.
Overall, this job was quite comfortable and didn’t really serve as a means of labor reform. So, I resigned.
Later, I moved on to the next job to escape comfort, but I didn’t stay comfortable for long—because class struggle quickly found me!
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Bakery Work — Entered a Thief’s Den
A week later, I started working at a bakery. The shop was very small, with only the store manager, assistant, and two regular workers besides me. The shop required us to make some simple but very expensive pastries in the back kitchen (the back kitchen and front desk are separated by just a glass panel, and our work process is for customers to watch) with some words printed on them, used as gifts for dog owners or to pray for high exam scores for students. The ingredients were extremely low in complexity, with only the steamer being automatic; everything else was manual. However, the labor intensity was not high because, although there was a back kitchen, not many items were made fresh—most were packaged foods—so it could be considered a half convenience store plus a half back kitchen. Therefore, my work involved both business-style labor and productive labor.
Unfortunately, among the four people in the shop, the store manager and assistant are obvious in their roles, and among the two workers, one is an extremely disgusting thief, and the other is a quiet young man. I had conflicts with the first three scumbags, and in the end, I confronted them, was unlawfully fired. But that’s a long story; let’s start with the conflict with the assistant.
The manager is rarely in the shop, so the assistant acts as the boss. In terms of hypocrisy, she is the best; she never directly manages or suppresses us, but comes to the shop every day to engage in vulgar socializing with the thieves. Next is the assistant, who can perform but cannot hide her contempt—her disdain for the workers is bubbling beneath her calm face. One day, she asked a skilled worker to work overtime for an hour. She came over coldly and said, “X, can you work an extra hour?” The skilled worker was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, “If needed, I’ll do it~.” The assistant immediately changed her expression, grinning and saying, “That’s enough with your words!” Then she started talking about vulgar topics, like going to a concert—since interests aligned, they could socialize vulgarly and harmoniously.
To me, that assistant also looked down on me from the bottom of her heart—she loved hierarchy the most, even if she tried to hide it. If I made a mistake or forgot something, she would ask, “Aren’t you going to do XX?” I was initially unsure of her attitude, just feeling that her tone was off. I didn’t know how to counter her because she always attacked when I slipped up, and her tone was not urgent but sarcastic—like a sneer—so I would retort back, “Why are you so impatient?” I didn’t know how to respond. Plus, my desire for comfort hadn’t completely changed, and I didn’t fight back before leaving.
(I don’t know if anyone has ways to deal with this kind of sarcasm; it seems impossible not to retort.)
Later, two things happened. The first was that I needed to learn how to make pastries. The filling was quite sticky and often stuck to the spoon, making it hard to fill. During operation, I occasionally dripped some outside. Then the assistant, citing “evaluation” (because passing the formalization exam involved making pastries), disdainfully said, “You’re taking too long to make pastries, and there are many mistakes. I can only give you 50 points.” I interrupted her and asked, “Oh, besides taking too long, what other problems are there?” She didn’t answer directly, looked at her phone, and said to herself, “You’re learning too slowly…” and so on. Then, as if suddenly thinking of something to say, she picked up the pastry I made and said, “Your filling got outside, it’s disgusting! Xiao M (referring to the skilled worker), do you think it’s disgusting?” Filling isn’t something inedible, and the assistant is much more disgusting than the filling. As the foundation of her dominance as an assistant, the skilled worker didn’t attack directly but agreed, “Of course, the filling shouldn’t get outside; that’s a deduction.” After demonstrating her dominance, she continued giving a few pointers. I felt very annoyed, but because I was caught making a mistake and the other person’s tone was seemingly calm, I retorted again, “I look guilty because I got caught,” and fell silent.
The second was about opening early. Opening early meant preparing all the freshly made pastries, which was a lot of work. It was hard for a non-skilled worker to finish during working hours. The skilled worker kept telling me to come early if I couldn’t finish—completely servile, working unpaid overtime—and she had been doing this during her first two months. So when I opened early, I indeed couldn’t finish, and later, the assistant for the midday shift came and told me to come half an hour early if I couldn’t finish.
I asked her, “Does that count as working hours?”—“No.”
Isn’t that just working for free?—“That’s because you can’t finish your work. Ask Xiao M and Xiao X; they both came half an hour early when they first started.”
So, scheduling me to come half an hour early means I start and finish half an hour early, and my working hours wouldn’t increase…—“It doesn’t count as extra working hours!”
That’s so stupid. This stupid assistant doesn’t reason at all; she’s just domineering.
After a while, I realized that those two workers initially came early; doesn’t that just prove that not finishing isn’t my personal problem? She wanted to use her skilled worker to pressure me, but it actually refuted her own point. “The noble” is just this stupid. I plan to wait until the next time she mentions this, then use this point to counter her.
(But before she could bring it up again, I was fired after a sudden incident and struggle.)
I was very annoyed with the assistant. My mindset changed a bit; I felt that if I didn’t fight for comfort, I’d be too suffocated to go on like this, so fighting was necessary. Since the fight involved debate, I decided to test the assistant further.
The shop doesn’t allow sitting except during meal breaks. The assistant stood at the front desk, and I took out a stool to sit at the back and package products.
Sure enough, she didn’t allow it and turned around to say, “Don’t sit there; there’s surveillance”—as if she was standing on the workers’ side.
I moved the stool to the blind spot of the surveillance. Then she didn’t let me sit, saying, “Look at who usually sits and works”—which exposed her.
Then I said, “The workbench is too low and inconvenient”—“That’s not allowed either.”
I continued, “Sitting doesn’t delay work”—“That’s the company rule!”
Keep attacking—there must be a reason for that rule. If sitting doesn’t delay work, why must I stand?—She clearly got angry but couldn’t answer my question: “I’ve already explained to you. If you keep doing this, I’ll call the manager!”
Sure enough, she’s someone who doesn’t understand reason—just a dog that only knows how to make workers submit. I thought that losing my job over standing or sitting wasn’t worth it, so I stood up and threw the packaging (which wasn’t really packaged anyway) on the table.
But unexpectedly, the final confrontation was caused by the skilled worker (who is an extremely despicable person), and it had nothing to do with the assistant. This story is already very long, so let’s leave it for the next chapter!
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Do retail stores now all have companies?
Wasting food is even more disgusting, you could say that. A pound of flour sells for dozens of yuan at a pastry shop because they can’t eat it after spreading a little filling. When farmers see this, they just throw a brick. Let the shop assistant say some reactionary remarks that look down on farmers and then refute them to make her feel guilty.
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Wait for the shop assistant to start the morning shift. When you’re on the afternoon shift, you can arrive near the shop ten minutes early, then take out your phone and secretly record her working when the shop assistant can’t see. Later, when she asks you to work overtime, you can refute her by showing the photos and saying she hasn’t finished her work either.
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It is a chain store, a certain pastry brand. Half of the products in the store are retail packaged foods, and the other half are simple handmade pastries sold at very high prices.
No way. First of all, do not film others without permission. Coincidentally, I confronted them because they secretly recorded a video of me sitting outside resting after coming out of the toilet, and then sent it to the store manager. They even arrogantly said, “Ah, just work properly with a good attitude during your shift.” When I asked them to delete it, they refused, saying, “WeChat is not a ‘public platform’,” and “Work needs to leave traces, otherwise report to the store manager for slacking off without evidence,” acting very recklessly as a dog for capitalists. Then I called the police, and only after the police arrived did they delete it — later, the store manager saw that I dared to resist her lapdog and then fired me.
Secondly, what does it matter if I film the store assistant working? They can easily say, “I was busy during that period because I took more orders.” Moreover, they don’t care about working unpaid; they just climbed up this way. At worst, they can also say, “Then I came early,” but it still doesn’t help.
The key is not just fighting back against the worker-slave store assistant; it must be clarified that new employees not finishing their work is not their problem, and they have no right to demand unpaid overtime from us.
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