Chapter 12: A Tycoon-Level Enterprise

In the 21st century, you naturally went with the flow. When you first met someone, calling them ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ was never wrong. Once you were more familiar, joking around with a ‘Manager Zhang’ or ‘Manager Li’ was fine too. But Zhang Yifu hadn’t quite figured out the proper forms of address in this era yet. He didn’t know whether he should call someone ‘Comrade Wen’ or something else. Calling him ‘Brother Wen’ directly felt a bit too informal.

“Just call me Tianming,” Wen Tianming said with a laugh, scratching his head. “Or Little Wen is fine too. That’s what everyone calls me.”

“Then I’ll call you Brother Tianming.”

“No, no. I saw your resume. You’re actually half a year older than me.” Wen Tianming smiled as he took Zhang Yifu’s luggage, walking as he spoke. “Calling each other brothers is fine in the workshop, but here in the office area, it’s not quite appropriate.”

“I see.” Zhang Yifu quickly seized the chance to ask for advice. “I just started working. There are a lot of rules I don’t understand. Is there anything else I should pay attention to with forms of address?”

“Nothing that needs special attention,” Wen Tianming mumbled. “For leaders, just use their title. For example, if you see the Factory Director, call him Director Niu. If you see a Section Chief, call him Section Chief. If you see a workshop supervisor, call him Director. For older colleagues, call them Old Zhang. For younger comrades, call them Little Zhang. For people your own age, just use their name.”

“Shouldn’t I call you Comrade Tianming?”

“Haha, no, unless it’s a formal meeting or when writing documents.”

“That’s good,” Zhang Yifu said with a smile. “I’ll be relying on your help a lot in the future. Thank you in advance.”

“No need, no need.” Seeing Zhang Yifu’s polite manner made Wen Tianming quite happy. He had thought university graduates would be arrogant and aloof. The Technical Department Section Chief at the factory, who only had a college diploma, already acted so high and mighty, let alone a university graduate. But upon meeting him, he realized this graduate wasn’t any different from his peers. He joined in with a joke. “Yifu, you’re the university graduate our Director Niu fought for three years to get. Everyone in the entire factory is waiting for you. It’s not my place to look after you.”

Hearing this, Zhang Yifu felt a bit embarrassed. “How could it be three years… that’s too exaggerated…”

“Not at all!” Wen Tianming said excitedly. “Every year there are only a few power engineering graduates, and they all get taken by the higher-ups. Our factory couldn’t get an application approved at all. I heard this year a graduate volunteered to come to a power plant. That made our Factory Director overjoyed. He called the higher-ups every day and that’s how he got you.”

“That’s a lot of pressure,” Zhang Yifu said teasingly.

“Don’t feel pressured. Our Director Niu is a great guy. You’ll see when you meet him soon.”

As they were talking, the two walked out of the small train station. Wen Tianming led Zhang Yifu to the back of a black Santana and opened the trunk to start loading the luggage.

“A car?” Zhang Yifu was stunned again. In this life, he had never ridden in a car before. He couldn’t even bring himself to take a minibus taxi.

“The factory only has two cars. One is for the Factory Director, and one is for receiving important guests.” Wen Tianming patted Zhang Yifu’s shoulder and laughed. “Aren’t you an important guest?”

Zhang Yifu could only give an awkward smile. His heart was half pressure, half gratitude. He was already starting to look forward to meeting Director Niu.

Along the way, Wen Tianming drove while explaining the factory’s situation to Zhang Yifu.

The Jibei Power Plant was now the main force supplying electricity to Jijing. 70% of the plant’s total power generation was transmitted to the capital. During the economic transition, the capital’s heavy industrial facilities were gradually being relocated to the surrounding areas. The Jibei Power Plant was currently operating at almost full capacity, prioritizing the capital for everything. During power shortages, the city’s own power supply would be cut first.

As someone from Jijing in both his lives, Zhang Yifu couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty towards the people of Jibei. But he also understood this was an unavoidable national condition. The only way to solve this was to liberate productive forces and increase power generation. This was also the first thing he aimed to do in this life.

As for the power plant’s organizational structure, it wasn’t much different from Zhang Yifu’s understanding. Although the titles had changed, the functions remained the same. The top leaders were the Factory Director and the Secretary. Below them were the Deputy Factory Directors, the Chief Engineer, and so on. The departments were divided into the Administrative Office, the Finance Department, the Fuel Department, the Operations Department, the Technical Department, etc. There were also the Maintenance Workshop and the Production Workshop, further divided into shifts like First Shift, Second Shift, Third Shift.

Personnel-wise, office cadres made up a very small portion. Most were workshop workers. After all, the level of automation in this era was limited. The power generation process required a lot of manpower. Just the on-duty operation workers numbered over a thousand.

Zhang Yifu couldn’t help but let his imagination run wild. An enterprise with 5,000 people, what did that mean? Those big companies from his previous life were probably about this size. Power plants in this era were still self-managed, not subject to too many restrictions from higher authorities. In this environment, calling it a small society was not an exaggeration.

Half an hour later, the car had already entered the power plant area, moving into the living quarters. Separated by a wall, it was like two different worlds. In the neatly planned living area, over a dozen rows of red-brick buildings were arranged in an orderly fashion. The roads were wider than those outside. Facilities like markets, a cinema, and schools were all complete. This living area was basically a small city, reminiscent of a university town from his previous life.

Seeing Zhang Yifu’s surprised look, Wen Tianming smiled. “It surely can’t compare to Jijing, but it’s perfectly fine for living.”

Zhang Yifu sighed. “In terms of prosperity, it can’t, but it has its own charm. Spacious and comfortable, a different kind of beauty.”

“As expected of a university graduate. Hearing you say that makes me feel a bit proud.” Hearing Zhang Yifu’s praise, Wen Tianming was clearly in a good mood and started boasting proudly. “Let me tell you, people from the neighboring city always crowd into our factory area on weekends. Our dance hall is big, we have lots of restaurants, and movies are released here earlier than in the city.”

A true tycoon-level factory. Director Liu hasn’t treated me badly. Zhang Yifu managed to hold back this sentence and didn’t say it out loud.

Soon, under the watchful eyes of the guards, the car entered the actual factory grounds.

Compared to the power plant Zhang Yifu was at in his previous life, this place actually wasn’t small. Whether it was the giant boilers that looked like small mountains or the rows upon rows of warehouses and workshops stretching as far as the eye could see, everything felt familiar to Zhang Yifu.

At that moment, several boiler units were operating at full speed. Steam from the top of the cooling towers was released into the high sky, gradually disappearing.

Thermal Power Plants released two types of emissions. The white water vapor released from the short, stout cooling towers was harmless to the environment. The darkish combustion exhaust, like sulfur dioxide, came from the tall, thin chimneys.

Looking at the black and white smoke, Zhang Yifu wore a pained expression.

As an old comrade, just from the emission speed of the two types of smoke, he already had a preliminary understanding of the plant’s production efficiency. In his previous life, the power plant he worked at, though a 1.2 million kilowatt class, didn’t have such a large volume of exhaust emissions even at full load. Moreover, most of that steam was recirculated, even used for heating.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing Zhang Yifu’s expression, Wen Tianming looked slightly puzzled. “Don’t worry, the exhaust is directly released high into the air. It doesn’t really harm us. The white stuff is just steam, it’s fine.”

“Mm, I know that. Right now, it’s really a time focused on the economy. There’s no spare energy to prioritize the environment yet.” Zhang Yifu looked out the window. “Our plant’s Coal Consumption for power generation… it’s probably over 400 grams, right?”