After an interview, I entered Nanjing Tongbao Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. and was randomly assigned to the first factory (DSC) department, and then started a three-day training. Tongbao Optoelectronics has a complete training mechanism. From production safety and environmental safety courses to 6S management and quality assurance courses, the training courses are detailed and rigorous. Through the training, I got to know the management model of the legendary Taiwan-funded enterprises. What impressed me the most was the various assessment mechanisms and rules and regulations, the details, the clear rewards and punishments, and the hierarchical management... And after the assembly line operations and experiences in the following days, I deeply realized the physical and mental exhaustion of these workers in the repetitive mechanical operations and the constant thoughts. The desire to leave.

3.11-14 Training

Semi-military management of employees

Employees are under strict management and monitoring, "Here you must learn to give up everything It’s a small problem, so restrain yourself.”

"You can eat as much as you can, and you will be fined for wasting it", "Smoking is allowed only in the playground area in the whole factory, and violators will be deducted", "You cannot take out your mobile phone in the clean room, and you are not allowed to pull the dust-free clothes "Open, mouth, nose, and hair must not be exposed." You cannot leave your post to go to the bathroom for more than 15 minutes at work... Everything from production operating procedures to food, clothing, housing, and transportation are clearly stipulated. If you make a mistake, there are disciplinary regulations.

Some people describe this Taiwan-owned management system as "semi-military", and the same is true for the well-known Foxconn.

Work number is closely related to destiny

Demerits and point deductions are one of Tongbao Optoelectronics’ disciplinary methods. The disciplines set by Tongbao Optoelectronics for employees are all linked to rewards and punishments.

Each employee has a job number, and managers can record the job number of disciplinary employees on any occasion, which will be linked to promotions, salary increases, bonuses, etc. If an employee is recorded for violating SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) or 6S [i.e., Seir-i, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shit-suke...], it will be affected The advanced ones will be selected, which will affect their promotion; some will also receive corresponding bonus points based on their job numbers because of their outstanding performance or suggestions for improvement. Therefore, the work number is closely related to everyone's destiny.

Tongbao Optoelectronics also has a reward system, but according to employees, the reward points are not as good as the deducted points. Most of all, rewards are given to improvement proposals (i.e. rational suggestions) put forward by employees, such as those that improve processes, save costs, increase efficiency and have significant results.

On duty on 3.14

Full protection in the dust-free workshop

Finally put on dust-free clothes and entered the dust-free workshop.

First change into slippers on the first floor, then go to the second floor to get dust-free clothes and shoes, and then go through the security check and enter the locker room on the third floor. In the locker room, follow the training procedures, including a mask, hair cap, electrostatic bracelet, latex gloves, dust-free clothing and dust-free shoes.

After putting on my clothes, my whole body was covered tightly except for my eyes. As I wore glasses, the air I breathed filled the lenses. Over time, my breathing felt a little unnatural.

Before entering the workshop, you have to pass through the air shower room, and only three people can enter at a time. Going to the bathroom, the steps for washing hands are also very particular. First wash with water, then wash with alcohol, then rinse with water, dry before entering the workshop.

It takes at least 15 minutes for an unskilled employee like me to go from the first floor to finally arriving at the work station.

The clean room is a space with constant temperature and humidity. The temperature is around 22°C all year round, and the lights are on for work part of the day and night.

Walking through the empty workshop and arriving at the work workshop is like a scene from the movie "Resident Evil". Employees wearing numbered dust-free uniforms are busy on the assembly line. Here, the code on the dust-free suit is the only sign that distinguishes everyone.

"Please say hello before you leave"

A group of four people, including three other workers, were assigned to a class with the monitor named He Ju. During the assignment, I heard the employees in the class raise their heads and talk to each other: "Here we come again. I don't know if these few will work for a few days before leaving." What a girl did on the assembly line was: holding a piece of tweezers to pick up a piece of her little finger nail. A cover-sized film is attached to the corner of the LCD product. It takes less than two seconds to apply a film. Repeatedly, each product flows past her eyes like time... When the monitor introduced the rules in the class, he said that garbage must be classified and put into the trash can. Each trash can has its own fixed position, and an electrostatic bracelet should be inserted when working... The monitor finally warned: "If you want to resign, please remember to say hello to me, and don't leave quietly."

Salary According to Tongbao Optoelectronics employees, if you work overtime for 3 hours a day on weekdays, you will get 1.5 times the salary; if you work overtime on Saturday, you will get 2 times the salary; you will have one day off every week on Sunday.

I arrived at the factory at 7:30, changed into dust-free clothes and entered the workshop. I lined up and waited for the morning meeting. It happened to be 8 o'clock, which was the starting time for the second batch. The working hours of a day are 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon, and 3 hours of overtime. Until 8 o'clock in the evening, for 12 hours, everyone was in the factory.

3.15

Work for a full day

Complete mechanical movements throughout the day

Repeat the morning's work in the afternoon. It is no longer the use of consciousness to control the operation of the hands, but the formation of habits. My eyes are sore from staring at every LCD screen.

Fortunately, my body has gradually adapted to wearing dust-free clothes, and the shortness of breath that I felt when I first put them on has been alleviated. But I started to feel stuffy in the workshop. In the closed space, it felt like the air was still.

For this product, the daily task is 3,000 pieces. For the burning process, we worked as a team of 4 people. Not counting overtime, we burned more than 2,000 chips in 8 hours of normal working time.

This is a very simple math question. Even if it is calculated based on 2,000 pieces, each person burns 500 pieces every 8 hours, which is 62.5 pieces per hour, so one product must be completed every minute. of burning. Under normal circumstances, it takes one minute to burn each piece. This means that you have to work very hard to complete the task.

Moreover, on the assembly line, no operator can be lazy. The assembly line will not stop, and products will continue to come to you. Once your movements are slow and you feel a little hesitant, you will be overwhelmed by the products. The nerves continued to be tense.

Later on, every time I burned a piece, I felt like a minute of my life had passed. For employees, such an hour only brings back 6.32 yuan. For these female workers, who are only about 20 years old, doing one mechanical movement all day is all they have to do.

Repeated actions on the assembly line

The job I was assigned was burning. It is said that this batch of processing is LCD accessories. The workers in the same workshop are very friendly. They don't show any boredom when facing different new workers every day.

Burning is a very unfamiliar word. But for front-line employees, you don’t need to know the meaning behind doing it, you just need to know how to do it.

The burning procedure is relatively simple. After adjusting the test instrument, place the product on the card slot of the burning machine, press the electrode wires, clamp the chip wires firmly, cover it with only the display panel exposed, and then Turn on the switch and power on, enter the debugging state, then adjust the contrast of the display up or down until the contrast is sharp and soft, and then press the burn button. Turn off the power again, take out the product and put it in the box. This series of actions takes about a minute.

New and old employees provide one-on-one support. The monitor assigned me to Sister Guo. Looking at her eyes and listening to her voice, I think Sister Guo must be over 30 years old. Looking at her work shoes again, they are already turning yellow.

Although the operation is simple, Sister Guo still teaches patiently. In her opinion, I can't make any mistakes. If I make a mistake, she will be implicated.

In less than 10 minutes, after being proficient in the operation, I started working normally on the assembly line. One morning, I repeated the movements taught by Sister Guo.

15 minutes to fill your stomach in a hurry

Lunch time is only an hour. When it was time to get off work at 12:30 noon, we lined up at the door. When the bell rang, everyone rushed to the exit like a wild horse.

The small space of the locker room was suddenly crowded with people. There were dozens of small cabinets in every square meter of space, which meant that this square inch of space had to accommodate dozens of people changing clothes at the same time. After I changed my clothes and walked out of the second factory gate to the cafeteria, there was already a long queue at the cafeteria window. The hunger pangs after physical exertion leave my stomach feeling particularly empty.

After finishing the meal, it was only half an hour before going to work in the afternoon. If you deduct the 15 minutes of getting dressed before going to work, you only have 15 minutes to eat.

Wang Xiaoxia, a worker from Shaanxi, also feels the same way. She told me about her work experience at the nearby Tianxiang Factory. "In the past, in Tianxiang, we had an hour to eat, and we could rest for more than 40 minutes after eating. In this factory, we only have less than 10 minutes left after eating. It was also very crowded during meals. Once, I came late and there was no food. I'm already very proficient in wearing Wuchenyi. "

One fried cucumber, one fried vegetable, one fried meat, just a few slices of fat. There were scattered pieces of lean meat and a bowl of soup. It was hard to tell what ingredients it was made of. Fortunately, there was an unlimited supply of rice.

Faced with such a lunch, I can only think that filling my stomach is the most important thing.

Just after eating, the work bell rang at 1:30 pm.

3.16

Work experience

The new girl was recorded in SOP

On the second day in the workshop, she was assigned again Several co-workers and a new girl were also assigned to the burning position and sat across from me.

Less than half an hour after my little sister started working, an employee with red epaulettes came over and said sternly: "You didn't turn off the power when you took out the product. Remember an SOP (explained in the training class) Violation of the SOP is a violation of operating standards). "Subsequently, the person in charge of the job, the assistant to the squad leader, the squad leader and other responsible persons came over to intercede, "She is new here on her first day, please give her a chance." But the intercession did not work, and "Red Epaulettes" walked away after issuing the ticket. "Red epaulettes" are production line inspectors and "workshop police" who check whether operators are operating properly. Memorizing an SOP is not only directly linked to the salary of individual employees, but also affects the collective honor of the class.

The little sister who was punished didn’t understand what happened, so she was stunned and stopped what she was doing aggrievedly. Other employees came over to inquire about the little sister and her instructor, constantly asking, "Why are you doing this so wrong?" and "How did you become a teacher?"

The little sister’s exposed eyes were red and her eyes were moist...

Announcement of various employee disciplinary meetings

Guo Sitting next to me The eldest sister is very afraid of the word "gathering". When she was teaching me, the thing she said most often was "This won't work. If you are photographed, you will be gathered together."

Sister Guo told me that all kinds of subtle irregularities may become the trigger for "gathering". For example, not inserting an electrostatic bracelet during work, product accumulation caused by too fast assembly lines, holding two products in one hand at the same time when packaging products, untidy workbench or foreign objects, etc. may cause "gathering".

What exactly does collection mean? It turns out that whether it is SOP or 6S, as long as someone makes a mistake and is caught by the relevant person in charge, it will cause a gathering, that is, he will be called by the section chief or relevant management to gather together for training. Collection is also linked to salary, involving one's own material interests and the honor of classmates.

Tongbao Optoelectronics also publicizes various punishments for employees. There are disciplinary notices and reward announcements almost every day.

This is also the reason why Sister Guo is cautious in everything she says and does, for fear that she or her apprentice, me, will do something even slightly out of line.

The life of "from eight to eight"

Different from the "nine to five" work of urban office workers, the life of workers here is "from eight to eight."

Co-worker Xiaoye (pseudonym) is a sleepover, and her day starts at 6:25 in the morning. After getting up, I bought two steamed buns to eat. I arrived at the factory at 7:30, changed into dust-free clothes and entered the workshop. I lined up and waited for the morning meeting. It happened to be 8 o'clock, which was the starting time for the second batch. The working hours of a day are 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon, and 2 hours of overtime. Until 8 o'clock in the evening, for 12 hours, everyone was in the factory.

Tongbao Optoelectronics has a library, table tennis room and other leisure areas, but Xiaoye said that he has never experienced it and does not have the time or energy to play.

The mechanical labor of constantly wiping the display gives Xiaoye an illusion from time to time. "As long as I see the screen or glass, I will involuntarily stare at it to see if there are any cracks or dirt." Things, I have an urge to wipe them clean."

Sister Guo’s life is basically the same. Sister Guo's family is in Nanjing, and the family of three is squeezed into a small single room with a monthly rent of 300 yuan. There is also a child in primary school at home. But I have to take care of my child's dinner by myself, because "I have to work until 8:30 every day, so I can't cook for my child. I can only spend more time with him on Sundays."

3.17-18

My co-workers

Only the work clothes number can confirm the identity

I only know people in the same position after working for a few days Sister Guo and Wei Hua on the other side of the assembly line. Wei Hua is the only male in this group. Not only are new employees like me experiencing the strangeness between co-workers, but even veteran employees who have been working there for a long time don’t know each other very well.

Once, a female worker ran over and said to Wei Hua: "Last time I saw someone on the street. He looked like you, but I wasn't sure and didn't dare to call." It is understood that the two of them *** They had been together for more than a year and became strangers after get off work. Because they were wearing work clothes, they had never seen each other's faces.

Experienced workers said that in the workshop, identity can only be determined by the work clothes number and back. Moreover, when working at Tongbao Optoelectronics, you only need to do your job well on the assembly line. There is no close interest relationship with other workers. The busy work makes people have no time to care about things outside the window. After get off work, everyone has his own business and goes back to his home.

Even the workers who live in the factory are not familiar with it. Wang Xiaoxia told me that the dormitories of Tongbao Optoelectronics are randomly arranged, and those with the same position do not share the same dormitory. "There are 10 people in our dormitory, but we rarely have the opportunity to chat together. Some of them work on the day shift, and some work on the night shift. Next month, you will be on the night shift, and I will be on the day shift, so we can hardly meet each other."

Experience process

Being physically and mentally exhausted to the brink of collapse

After a few days of experience, in addition to still feeling strange to the people around me, I felt very familiar with the thing at hand. I am very tired of the burning work and am almost on the verge of collapse.

Your eyes are already extremely sore. Various displays are your products. What you need to look at is not just one screen, but multiple screens. During the burning process, extremely bright and dazzling lights often appear. White screen.

My ears also seem to have auditory hallucinations due to the unique sounds of electronic equipment such as burners and electrical testing machines. Every time I burn a piece, after pressing the "Confirm" button, I don't know which electrical testing equipment. A long, harsh "beep" sound will be emitted.

Not to mention the backache. Sitting on a hard chair, you must keep your back straight. Only from this angle can you observe whether the screen brightness is up to standard. At the same time, you have to keep looking down at the product and your neck remains stiff. Even the anti-static bracelet with one end on my wrist and the other end plugged into the workbench made me feel like a tethered pet, with no freedom at all.

At this moment, all I can think about is how to escape from this place. Sit for a while, stand for a while, and keep changing working postures. Every time I finished burning a box, I would look up and count the time. After a few more minutes, I wanted to turn the hands of the clock directly to the off-duty time.

Under such high-intensity work, when I get off work every day, I am physically and mentally exhausted and fall asleep.

I am not the only one who wants to escape

I am not the only one who wants to escape. While we were gathering after get off work, two sisters, Zhang Li and Zhang Xiu, two co-workers who came in with me, expressed to me that they wanted to resign. "Working at this intensity for 8 hours is already very tiring. I want to take leave and not work overtime, but my boss always asks me why. I have nothing to do, but I just don’t want to work overtime, but this reason cannot be justified."

17 On the same day, her elder sister Zhang Li used her younger sister Zhang Xiu's illness as an excuse. After the squad leader interrogated the details, she finally asked for overtime leave that night. The two cheered. But on the 18th, the two sisters wanted to ask for leave again, but they couldn't find a better reason to respond to the squad leader's cross-examination, so they had to give up.

After leaving Tongbao Optoelectronics, three or four new batches of employees were hired, but some only worked for one day, and some left in less than a week.

Zhang Li also told me that she would start working night shifts in April. But in the first two weeks, in order to catch up on work, I canceled my Sunday holidays and worked for two consecutive weeks without a day off.

"As long as I have a little money or the ability to make money, I will not work here. Workmate Wang Xiaoxia said: "Money is certainly important, but without health, what do you use to make money and what do you do with it? Spend money? "

Two days of recruitment, three days of off-site training and a large amount of in-workshop training. Each person has a set of dust-free clothes and dust-free shoes. After a complex, time-consuming and costly recruitment process, we finally A skilled worker is trained, but only serves the company for a week or a month. I wonder if Wanshida has calculated the comprehensive personnel expenses such as recruitment and training for each new employee, and whether this price-performance ratio is appropriate.