Author | Nanfengchuang reporter Zu Xiaoqian
Intern | Huang Shanying
Editor-in-Chief on duty | Huang Mingting
Chen Chunmei, who once worked in the management of a Fortune 500 US-funded foreign company, is about to expire as an intern at the age of 42 It’s been 10 months.
She passed the law exam with high scores and is now a trainee lawyer. She has a brisk tone and bright eyes. She gets up at 5:30 every morning to study and exercise. Then she walks into the law firm with exquisite makeup and is on the second curve of career development. The beginning was full of energy.
But before she decided to take the judicial examination at the end of April 2022, she was caught up in a landslide-like mid-life crisis and was at the lowest point in her life - 40 years old, a drifter in Beijing, a mother of two children, unemployed and living close to home. Three years ago, although the child's father was still making money, the family's life was difficult because there were still mortgages to repay and elderly people to take care of.
When people reach middle age, it is not uncommon for their life trajectory to change. If we consider the standards of the company where she is employed, Wu Fang, 41, in Zhengzhou, Henan, has a longer "vacation period". From 2012 to 2020, she did not work for 8 years. During this period, with the booming development of e-commerce, she was alone He built his Taobao store from 0 to Crown, and due to the rise of new platforms and traffic shifts, he switched to physical stores in 2015. At the age of 36, the investment failed and the store was closed.
She is currently watching the popular drama "We Are Not Kind Enough". In the drama, the 39-year-old bright and capable Rebecca practices independently and takes over planning projects according to her own wishes. Her account deposit is approximately NT$620,000 (approximately RMB 140,000). But if you want to retire at the age of 50, you need to save at least NT$20 million. The female supervisor played by Rene Liu warned her: "People will grow old and money will depreciate. At the age of 40, you have no right to think about the things you like. At the age of 40, you can only think about things to prepare for a rainy day."
Wu Fang took a screenshot with a heavy heart.
seems to be a coincidence. In the first 10 seconds of the episode, there is an architect certificate, and the voice-over touches her heart: "Hey, what is your next goal? How much pain must you go through in order to reach that goal? Have you calculated it?" In order to work steadily in the current job of construction company data clerk and have the opportunity to take the initiative, Wu Fang has entered the fifth year of preparation for the Second Construction Engineer Qualification Examination.
The women of the "post-80s" generation have witnessed the changes in world affairs and the expansion and bursting of industry bubbles. They have stood in the spotlight, and have also encountered society's selection and fate's tricks. Amidst the chaos, they got up early to do research and returned to work. Like Scarlett surviving the disaster, she lay beside the fields of the destroyed manor, chewing hard on the muddy radishes that she had no time to wipe with her clothes.
They tell the world that the second half of life has just begun, and they still have the skills to exchange value with this cruel market. What is precious is not just a certificate, but also the determination to stabilize oneself and grasp life in the rolling tide of the times.
01
18 hours a day
Since finishing the subjective exam in the spring of 2023, Chen Chunmei no longer wants to walk into the 24-hour library at her doorstep. Test takers always like to laugh and say, "As soon as you do the questions, you become a person without civil capacity." When passing by, she recalled the tense atmosphere around the clock during the preparation period, and her stomach always felt honest.
Before the age of 35, her life was always upward. She graduated from an ordinary university in Shandong with an English major. After failing the postgraduate entrance examination, she stumbled to Beijing in order to fulfill her dream of a prestigious school. However, she entered the Fortune 500 with a popular foreign language major at the time and worked as a salary earner with good benefits and low work pressure. In more than 10 years of working in a foreign company, getting married, having a daughter, and buying a house came naturally, and my monthly salary increased to more than 20,000.
She and her husband are very optimistic about their income levels and believe that they are fully capable of raising two children. In 2018, she obtained her MBA from China University of Political Science and Law, hoping to seek a career breakthrough. She became pregnant with her second child while studying. She never expected that the change in the situation would be transferred to her personal work so quickly. In 2019, she was suddenly laid off.
In the spring of 2022, when her youngest son was almost three years old, she was determined to find a "confident and busy life" after having "frustrated him" for nearly three years.After begging the principal of the kindergarten to accept her son, she submitted thousands of resumes, but most of them came to nothing. Only two small companies with a salary of several thousand yuan notified her of interviews, but they were not hired in the end. At the end of April, she desperately considered the law exam as the last straw. At this time, there were only four and a half months left before the objective exam in September.
She had no extra money to sign up for classes, and was even reluctant to buy genuine books. She remembers clearly that on May 1st, she received a book on the legal exam that she bought for 110 yuan. Her husband helped take care of the children during the holidays. She studied the free online courses non-stop, but with no legal foundation, she felt like she was listening to a book from heaven. , and I haven’t studied intensively for a long time. On May 3, she started to have a high fever. She sat by the computer and thought, "What do I have left if I lose my ability to learn?" Her tears kept flowing, but she felt that she was not even qualified to cry.
After her fever subsided, she found a "stupid way". When the teacher said something, she would repeat it. Soon, she could understand it. She increased her study time to 10 hours a day and planned that her children would be able to learn more after returning to school. When she was in a state to catch up, the school was closed due to the epidemic, and she fell into panic again.
Fortunately, my husband was also working from home at the time, and the two continued to cooperate. Every morning at 6 o'clock, she gets up and drinks a cup of strong black coffee and goes to school at 9 o'clock. After her husband goes to work, she starts to supervise her daughter's online classes and takes care of her son. At 12 o'clock, her husband takes his lunch break and starts attending classes until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. After her husband gets off work at 6 o'clock, Then study until 10 pm and spare no effort to study for at least 9 hours.
finally waited until the beginning of July for the summer vacation. She quickly sent her children back to her hometown and began to practice non-stop recitation and real test questions from six in the morning to 12 in the evening. There is no break. At the end of July, she moved to the library. She gained 10 pounds from sitting for a long time and suffered severe pain in her lumbar spine. "To this day, I still can't lie down to sleep."
Psychological anxiety was a more severe test. Before the exam, she started to suffer from stress diarrhea. Even after the objective question scored 202 points and exceeded the score line by 22 points, she did not dare to relax: "I always feel that objective questions are about luck, and subjective questions are the real deal. "But due to the epidemic, the one-month period for reviewing the subjective questions was repeatedly delayed, and rumors made her uneasy.
She swayed between the dual uncertainties of her life path and exam time, and her psychological defenses collapsed again and again. The exam was finally postponed for six months. “It was the ultimate torture during that period.” During that six months, she broke a new low-end mechanical keyboard she bought while typing, “because it took a lot of force to press it, and the strength on her fingers They are much bigger than the average person."
Chen Chunmei will never forget the moment at 8 a.m. on April 22, 2023, when the scores for the subjective questions were checked. She sent her children to school early, returned home and turned on the computer. Her hands were shaking so much that she couldn't enter her information, and the blood around her body seemed to have solidified.
"Later my husband said that I had passed, but I still sat there blankly without any reaction. What passed? Did I pass? Is it really me? What is the score line?" Seeing the high score of 126 passed on the screen The moment I got permission to enter the new world of the legal industry, it felt like a century had passed.
She came to her senses and finally started to cry loudly: "I don't know why I'm crying, I just feel so wronged and wronged."
02
For Life
Wu Fang also cried once that is unforgettable.
On October 7, 2019, because she had no continuous working capital, she finally made up her mind to close the physical store that was losing money and prepared to find a serious job. "I will make money no matter what I do at work, and I will not lose any more."
The epidemic broke out suddenly. She stayed at home until mid-March 2020 before she had the chance to go out. It was equivalent to being completely unemployed for 6 months. She had no education. She came to Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, from the county seat after graduating from a technical secondary school to make a living. "Returning to the workplace after the age of 35 requires mental strength Both her health and physical fitness are declining, and there are really few opportunities. Second-tier cities are not as good as first-tier cities. Many jobs do not pay social security, let alone weekends and single holidays. "
Wu Fang's daughter has already entered elementary school, and she hopes to spend weekends with her. To spend time with my children, I finally had to choose a telephone sales job that worked from 8 to 6, with weekends off, and a monthly salary of 3,000, "selling two online courses."She just joined the industry and didn't know how to speak. The functional department strictly controlled telemarketing for anti-fraud purposes. "People either didn't answer or hung up." No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't complete the effective call duration assessment of 120 minutes a day.
One morning, she hurriedly rode an electric bicycle to work, and hit her leg in order to avoid an oncoming car. The driver of the car drove away regardless. She didn't care about crying out in pain. She picked up the car and "limped to clock in to work" even though it was bleeding.
In the afternoon, her daughter was waiting for her in the painting class. If she could not complete the sales task, she would not be able to pick up her child from get off work. "Everyone else can get enough, why can't I get enough?" On the side of the road after get off work, she was talking to a colleague whom she had only known for a few days, and couldn't help but break down and cry.
Tears are not only for the rush of time and minor injuries, but also for the huge pressure that hits every corner of life. In 2017, she and her husband bought a house at a time when housing prices and interest rates were at a high point, thus draining their wealth. It just so happened that at the end of 2019, when she had no income, the new house was delivered.
In the first half of 2020, she was busy with decoration. In order to save money, "only the most basic water, electricity, floor, and wall decoration was done. There was no bed, wardrobe or other furniture, so she moved her children into a new home and slept on the floor for more than a month." , even if this is the case, there is still about 100,000 yuan in renovation expenses. As soon as you open your eyes, you will face a monthly mortgage loan of 5,400 yuan and a renovation loan of 5,300 yuan.
With a large amount of fixed expenses hanging over my head, my half-lying husband went out to drive Didi part-time. "He is not a professional, he doesn't have many orders, and he earns relatively little." She could only be grateful that "at least the house was not in ruins", wipe away her tears and look for a way out.
Perhaps it was the "Law of Attraction", and the way out came quickly. In August 2020, she finally completed the sales task and simply resigned. Her cousin who worked in engineering knew her difficulties and came to introduce Wu Fang to a job. "There is a project that is recruiting people, are you going to go?" Wu Fang immediately decided: "Go!"
's cousin couldn't drive, so Wu Fang partnered with her and drove her around various construction sites. My cousin will also ask her to help when she takes on some small projects as "private work". If you only work on a fixed construction project, it may take 2 to 3 years to go through the entire life cycle and master the methods of editing and archiving data at each stage. However, Wu Fang was exposed to different construction stages of several projects at the same time, and his growth rate increased. With a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan, if you work part-time on a small engineering project, you can get an extra two to three thousand yuan a month. "For women in Zhengzhou, seven to eight thousand a month is already considered very high."
Wu Fang realized that she had entered an industry that required strong professional skills and enabled her to have a skill. My cousin has rich work experience. From 2013 to 2014, she passed two professional certificates in construction and municipal administration from the Second Construction University. At that time, certificates were scarce, and she could earn an additional income of about 30,000 yuan per year from being affiliated with the unit.
The most intuitive benefit brought by the second construction is the cash value. Wu Fang has to pay about 9,000 yuan a year for social security in Zhengzhou according to flexible employment. If you hold a certificate, even if the certificate is no longer as scarce as in the past, the employer will give you one yuan every year. For the subsidy of more than 5,000 yuan for this certificate, the employer will also pay social security for her due to the "integration of person and certificate" regulations.
In September 2020, she signed up to improve her academic qualifications. In October, she took the adult entrance exam and took a self-study college certificate. At the same time, she also started studying to prepare for the second construction exam. The second construction examination consists of three subjects: construction management, engineering regulations and professional practice. Among them, practice is divided into 6 majors. If you pass the exam in three subjects within two consecutive years, you can get the certificate.
Wu Fang chose to take the municipal major with lower project risk but higher difficulty first. At the end of October, she walked into the examination room for the first time with a trying mentality. She was only three or four points away from passing the regulations and management subjects. She seemed to have woken up from a dream when she was pushed to the middle of the river of life by a wave, and learned The confidence and courage to hit the water yourself. Since then, she has embarked on a long journey of studying for certification while taking care of her main and side jobs, and studying intensively from March to May every year.
03
Among the Torrents
If Wu Fang’s five-year research process were a movie, it would be a very montage.With her daughter around her, she gradually grew taller and wiser. The table in the old house turned into a new desk full of "middle-aged girl's heart" that she arranged on the balcony of her new house. Under the warm yellow desk lamp, the orchid grass spread its flowers and leaves, and she herself was on the balcony of her new house. I have been sitting in front of stacks of books and computers before June every year. Every time the camera flashes, the year numbers attached to the "Second Construction Engineer Qualification Examination Outline" will increase.
Those who shuttle in the further background may be her happy friends - from March to May, when the birds are singing and the flowers are fragrant, "they all go to Zibo to eat small barbecues and camp under tents with small lanterns hanging", And she still gave up all entertainment this year to get the certificate.
"I didn't care much at first, but I started to get anxious when I didn't take the exam for two years." In 2021, she only passed one subject of regulations. In 2022, she prepared for the management and practical exams at the same time, but failed in both subjects. The cycle is normal, back to the starting point, "Last year I felt that I had to take this matter seriously. I rushed to take the three subjects. I was too afraid of failure and the mental pressure was huge. I could only overtax my body."
She gets up at 5:30 every day to catch the first shift at 6 o'clock. Taking the subway, I rushed from my home in the northernmost part of the city to the project site in the southernmost part. After a busy day, I started studying at 8pm and went to school around 11pm. It was a full schedule, day after day. If you go to the doctor for endocrine disorders, the doctor bluntly says, "You know why." When I took the final test last year, "My hand was shaking as I wrote. I didn't even finish the law paper, so I definitely couldn't pass it. I had to finish the other two subjects to pass," Wu Fang said. While
is so diligent, Wu Fang also knows that the construction industry is showing signs of decline. During the period of rapid development of real estate, it attracted a large influx of employees. Now that the industry has tightened and there are too many monks and few people, some people are already chasing the next trend. "Many of those who have worked as Party A before and have certain abilities have switched to new energy and photovoltaics." industry." Construction units also prefer workers with their own certificates.
After the "July 20" heavy rain disaster in Zhengzhou in 2021, she felt that new projects decreased rapidly and the capital chain of many construction companies was broken. She was also affected. She originally had a credit card limit of more than 100,000 yuan to maintain her loan repayments. After the disaster, the small part-time construction site suddenly stopped working and has not recovered yet. Her income dropped sharply, and "the credit card couldn't hold on and it exploded."
She had to find another part-time job, and often worked at two or three o'clock at night. In winter, she wore a coat because she was afraid that her down jacket would get dirty and difficult to wash, which made her "very cold."
"When I was moving steel bars and testing blocks, I felt that life was very difficult. At that time, I was thinking, if I were to lose my job soon, would I have to learn to be a housekeeper or a confinement nanny? It is really realistic. Without any skills, I would just You can only be easily knocked down by the storm of society, but you still have to take the exam to maintain your own value. "With less than a month left before this year's exam, she is working hard to review and prepare to pass the exam, hoping to obtain the certificate as soon as possible.
Chen Chunmei’s negative voice about the legal industry often lingers in her ears. With the improvement in the passing rate after the reform of the legal examination in 2018, the number of license holders continues to increase, and “the rolls are severe”. Luck is a product of the times, but as an individual You can choose how to take responsibility for yourself. The biggest advantage of being a lawyer for her is the freedom of time. She can decide whether to handle cases as her main job or as a side job based on her business volume. The uncertainty contains more potential for her personal development.
Chen Chunmei is optimistic by nature: “When you meet someone, you first think that he is a good person. When you encounter something, you first think that I can complete it. There are more than 3,000 law firms in Beijing, and there is always a trainee lawyer position for me. There is no possibility of improving the situation.”
She always remembered an 83-year-old grandmother she met while handling cases when she first entered the industry. “After retiring from college, at the age of 80, I suddenly wondered if I could still do something. Serious things", so he took the legal exam and passed it, "it's not too late at all." She has formed a small team with two like-minded lawyer partners. When her internship expires in the second half of this year, she will practice independently and "has already signed several cases."
Wu Fang also feels that 40 years old is "quite young", and the "post-80s" generation has caught up with many changes. "When I was in school, I was suddenly not assigned a job, and when I was working, my retirement was suddenly possible. I will definitely work until I am 55 to 60 years old." The group of people who are about to retire.I passed the certificate at the age of 41, and the current policy is to use it until the age of 65. In the next 20 years or so, I will have an extra 10,000 to 20,000 yuan in certificate income every year, which is also worth it. "
The research seemed to have inspired the energy that had been temporarily buried in her body. "No matter how tired I am, as long as I go to bed, my mind will be awake again the next day." The awareness and enthusiasm for development and exploration have been restored. She plans to bring back her consciousness and enthusiasm for development and exploration in June. After passing the regulatory exam, I took some time off to play and then prepare for the electromechanical engineering certificate. “It’s not too late to start studying in August or September in the second half of the year. Once there is a time point, I won’t feel the hardship anymore.”
Wu Fang imagined that she would work hard for a few more years. , after getting over the dilemma of "being stuck here", "I can think about it after I turn 50." Maybe then she will lower her desires and change her house to "Kaifeng and Luoyang, which are very comfortable cities in Henan." ". She spent 1.3 million yuan to buy a 90-square-meter house in Zhengzhou that year, while her colleague just bought a new house in Kaifeng for only more than 400,000 yuan. "I want to go to a small city to live a slow life, travel, eat snacks...and then I also raised the child, and by that time she had graduated from college and could stand on her own feet, so I would live my life the way I wanted."
-end-
Editing | Typesetting by
| Promise
Produced by Nanfeng Window New Media
Wei Reproduction without authorization is prohibited
Follow Nanfeng Window to view more exciting content
