Reborn as a landlord in Shanghai

Chapter 3 Indifferent Complaints

As it was time for work, the shop's employees, Uncle Zhou, Uncle Jiang, Grandpa Dong, and Aunt Liu, had all arrived. At this point, there weren't many customers, and Mao Xiaoyu, who was known for her low-key approach, started to act like she was invisible. By the time the other two apprentices, Liu Jun and Zhang Lei, arrived, almost everyone in the shop had come. The reason for saying almost everyone was that Mao Xiaoyu's parents hadn't come yet, but as the boss and boss's wife, they certainly wouldn't compare to the employees.

As an employee of the store, the first thing to do when you arrive is to change into a white uniform. The uniform is similar to the white uniforms worn in hospitals. Of course, not everyone can wear this white uniform. As an apprentice, you can forget about having a uniform; you just wear your own clothes.

Once the clothes are on, the four technicians usually check their worktables to see if there are any problems with the clippers and scissors. After confirming that there is nothing that needs to be replaced or supplemented, everyone gets busy with their own tasks.

For example, some people like to drink tea, so they will boil water and brew a pot of tea first; some people like to read newspapers, so they will go outside to buy a newspaper.

Some people like to be clean and will shave their beards to make themselves look more energetic.

As for those who have apprentices, they might teach their apprentices some basic movements to lay the foundation for shaving heads and beards later on.

Just like the three apprentices in the shop, although they are all called apprentices, each of them has a master. For Mao Xiaoyu herself, her master is her parents.

The other two apprentices, Liu Jun, were Aunt Liu's apprentices, while Zhang Lei was Master Dong's apprentice. These two usually followed Aunt Liu and Master Dong around, helping out.

Of course, although he is an apprentice to one person, when the shop gets busy, he will be treated as an apprentice to other masters. If other masters call for help and his own master is not busy, he will go to help, since the shop provides meals and wages.

Of course, as apprentices, Mao Xiaoyu and her two companions didn't usually have much to do. Like now, since there were no customers, they didn't need to serve any customers. So at most, they would lend a hand, sweep the floor, and wipe things down with the four masters.

Then the masters take a break, and the apprentices also take a break. When customers come in for big services, the apprentices will help the masters with coloring, straightening, and curling. That's when the apprentices will have something to do.

Of course, this work isn't done for free. After all, the masters give a certain percentage of the earnings for helping with these tasks. For example, if a master earns 50 yuan for coloring a hair, they will usually write on the order that 3 or 5 yuan should go to the apprentice. After all, the apprentice spends time helping with washing hair, cleaning, and coloring.

Of course, if it's not your apprentice, the master chef doesn't need to help. After all, if he doesn't need to help, he doesn't have to share the money with the apprentice. But sometimes one person can't handle everything. After all, there are people cutting hair here, washing hair there, and people waiting to have their hair blow-dried. If you don't share the money, you have to do it all yourself.

Therefore, as a master chef, unless he is particularly not busy, he usually lets his apprentices help him with the work. After all, he can make things easier by giving the apprentices a small share of the earnings. If the apprentices do a good job, the master chef doesn't need to do anything at all. He just needs to lead the customers to their seats, help them choose the colors, and mix the colors. The apprentices will take care of everything else from start to finish.

In the end, the credit goes to the apprentice, and the lion's share is also theirs. The apprentice gets three or five yuan, which is quite satisfying. After all, it's a skill that you can learn by doing. You need to practice a lot to become familiar with it. If you don't do it every day and just watch, you can't learn it.

This shows that barber shop apprentices are much better off now. After all, apprentices in the new century don't have to suffer as much as they did in the old days.

Many things in barbershops are now modernized, such as electric water heaters and solar water heaters for boiling water, ensuring a timely supply of hot water every day.

Unlike twenty or thirty years ago, when even boiling water required a charcoal stove, barbershops used to have a row of charcoal stoves outside to ensure hot water for shampooing. In winter, they would send an apprentice to ensure the supply of hot water, and his daily job was to boil water.

In addition, apprentices now also receive wages, although the wages are not much. The base salary plus commission is only three to five hundred yuan a month, but it is much better than in the old society.

After all, in the old society, apprentices worked for free for two years, apprenticed for two years, and helped their masters earn money for two years. It wasn't until six years later that they could graduate. The problem was that when they graduated, they actually had no money. For the first four years, the master only provided meals. In the last two years, when they helped their masters earn money, the master's salary was actually about the same as the salary of an apprentice today.

Moreover, in the old society, once someone had completed their apprenticeship, they would receive a considerable amount of filial piety during festivals and holidays. It was clear that the saying "a teacher for a day is a father for life" was well understood. In contrast, nowadays, once someone has learned a skill, they are usually very polite to their master when they meet. Very few people would truly treat their master like a father for life.

However, this is also due to the social environment. After all, in ancient times, one could make a living with a skill, while in modern times, some skills can be learned in school.

Of course, even if you can't learn it in school, you can learn it by spending some money. In addition, if the overall environment is not good and a skill doesn't make money, many people think that they should not rely on their skills to make money, but rather quickly change jobs or skills. As a result, many people may have changed jobs many times by the time they retire, which also leads to people not having much respect for skills.

…………

Older people like to read newspapers, such as Uncle Dong, Uncle Zhou, Uncle Jiang, and even Mao Xiaoyu now has a habit of picking up a newspaper to read when she has nothing to do. Since the barbershop was not busy in the morning, everyone gathered together and started reading the newspaper.

"You know, the stock market has been falling for so long, it keeps falling and falling, when will it ever come back up?" Mr. Dong asked Uncle Zhou beside him, holding the newspaper in his hand.

Master Dong is 56 years old this year. Although he is quite old, he still looks to be in good spirits. However, he is planning to retire in the next two years because of his age. His apprentice, Zhang Lei, was introduced by a relative of his family. He plans to hand over the reins once he has trained him well.

Of course, it's unknown whether Zhang Lei will be willing to work here after learning the craft. After all, there have been quite a few people who have apprenticed here over the past ten years, and many of them, after learning the craft, are not used to this old-fashioned barbershop and have gone to work in glamorous beauty salons.

As for the stock market, well, it's a long story. As a local from Shanghai, I can say that when the stock market was booming, almost every family in Shanghai had someone investing in stocks.

However, the stock market is a place where leeks are harvested. As a leek in the field, when the stock market crashed in 2001, our old leek, Mr. Dong, was also trapped.

Several years have passed, and the stock price hasn't risen. Losing money still seems a long way off. Although so much time has passed and I've become indifferent to losses, I still can't help but complain when I see the stock price in the newspaper.

"Who knows? It's been falling for years already. Anyway, the stock market hasn't been doing well these past few years. No matter what stocks I buy, they don't seem to go up. Besides, don't you know me? I'm in the same boat as you. Your money's tied up, and so is mine. Who knows when the stock market will come up and let me break even!"

When Uncle Zhou heard Master Dong's question, he frowned and shook his head helplessly.

"I regret it now. I put over 100,000 yuan into the stock market back then, trying to make money from it. Only a blind person would think of doing that. If I had bought a house like Mao Jun did, the house prices would have increased a lot by now." Hearing Uncle Zhou's words, Master Dong couldn't help but envy Mao Jun and couldn't help but complain.

At that time, Mao Xiaoyu's father, Mao Jun, was almost prepared to invest money in the stock market. After all, the stock market was really hot in 2000. Every day, he heard people around him talking about what stocks they bought and how they were soaring. However, Mao Xiaoyu's mother strongly opposed it, feeling that Mao Xiaoyu was already grown up and had come to Shanghai from her hometown at some point.

Moreover, the living conditions at home are terrible. It's a 32-square-meter apartment with one bedroom and one living room, and there isn't even a toilet. Every day, we have to use a spittoon or go outside to use the toilet. It's bearable for the couple to live there, but if we bring our son back to live there, the child will be too old to live there, so the living conditions will be extremely inconvenient. Therefore, the living conditions must be improved.

In addition, Mao Xiaoyu's mother felt that she had mistreated Mao Xiaoyu. Since he was 6 years old, the family's finances had been really tight because they had just taken over the barbershop. So she sent Mao Xiaoyu back to his hometown to live with his grandparents, which would save a lot of money.

Now that our financial situation has improved, and considering that Mao Xiaoyu is about to start junior high school, we'd like to transfer him to a school in Shanghai. However, if Mao Xiaoyu goes back to Shanghai and continues living in such a terrible environment, it would be unfair to our son. Therefore, we must buy a better house to improve our living conditions.

Because of this plan, Mao Xiaoyu's parents used their savings to buy a house, thus avoiding the stock market crash of 2001.

However, the plan was good at the time, but then the great-grandfather died, and then Mao Xiaoyu's mother became pregnant and gave birth to a younger sister for Mao Xiaoyu.

The younger sister was too young to take care of her son, so Mao Xiaoyu ended up attending junior high school in Yangshi for another three years. After graduating from junior high school, she returned to Shanghai last year.

Of course, this is also why the couple did not pay much attention to their son's studies. After all, in Mao's parents' view, even if he got into university, it wouldn't matter. Whether their son studied well or not didn't matter. At worst, he could come to Shanghai and inherit their business. In their view, hairdressing was a job that could be done for a lifetime, and the money earned was not bad.

However, this was the most basic thought of ordinary people at the time. Who knew that the environment would change so quickly, and that cultural requirements would become higher and higher. People without culture would always be at the bottom. Of course, even if Mao had no culture, he could still live much better than ordinary people because of his parents' wealth.

…………

"What's there to envy? Even if you hadn't invested your money in the stock market back then, you still wouldn't have bought a house. After all, you already had a house to live in, so why would you buy another one? The reason you regret it now is mainly because you've lost your money, so you wish you had bought a house back then. But that's just your hindsight."

"If we're talking about regrets, the barbershop was supposed to be sold off by the neighborhood, why didn't you buy it? Why didn't I? Why didn't Old Zhou buy it? If I were to talk about it, I'd regret it even more."

At this moment, Uncle Jiang, who was sitting next to Dong Ye reading the newspaper, couldn't help but criticize him.

Upon hearing Uncle Jiang's words, Uncle Dong and Uncle Zhou, who were sitting together reading the newspaper, fell silent. After all, when the state-owned enterprises were privatized, all three of them were in the shop, and each of them actually had the ability to take over the barbershop.

However, for various reasons, the Mao family eventually took over the barbershop. Now that they see the market price of the barbershop, it would be really unreasonable for the three of them not to regret it.

Mao Xiaoyu, who had been sitting next to the three men reading the newspaper with an air of indifference, couldn't help but shrink back behind them as she heard them talking about their house and barbershop. After all, she was afraid that their complaints would affect her.

However, in Mao Xiaoyu's view, what was there to complain about? It was all fate. None of the three of you were destined to make a lot of money or be business owners. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been stuck in your parents' barbershop all these years. Anyone with a bit of ambition would have gone out and opened their own shop, instead of still working for others.

Of course, Mao Xiaoyu wouldn't say that, as it would affect unity, and her family still relied on these experienced barbers for their livelihood. After all, this barbershop could add over 100,000 yuan to Mao Xiaoyu's family's income every year. In 2005, an extra 100,000 yuan a year for a family was already quite good.

Take the four experienced workers in the shop for example. Their monthly salary is only a little over 3000 yuan. In Shanghai, this salary is not bad. It's not the best, but it's not the worst either. As we all know, many factory workers only earn a few hundred yuan a month, a little over 1000 yuan.

Mao Xiaoyu's parents' salaries are actually about the same as the four of them, but with the barbershop's monthly profit of more than 10,000 yuan, Mao Xiaoyu's family's monthly income can reach more than 20,000 yuan. After deducting all kinds of miscellaneous expenses, they can save more than 100,000 yuan a year.

Not to mention, the barbershop raises its prices every year, which is more profitable than earning tens of thousands of yuan a year. Therefore, when she hears the three people complaining, Mao Xiaoyu won't say anything. She will just shrink back and try to minimize her presence.

In Mao Xiaoyu's opinion, let the three of you complain all you want. It's not like your family will lose a piece of meat. When business comes, you'll just have to get back to what you were doing.