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My Experience as an Employee at a Design Institute

Aug. 9, 2022 |   By Hanmei, a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Minghui.org) I work in a design institute that is a subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise. The design institute is mainly engaged in the design and construction of petroleum and chemical projects.

Before practicing Falun Dafa, I used to be a competitive and strong-minded person who refused to be taken advantage of by others. My health was poor as a result. Since cultivating in Falun Dafa, I have gradually been able to take things more lightly, and remember what Dafa teaches when conflicts arise. I am able to restrain myself and not act like an ordinary person.

“I Thought You Were a Technical School Graduate”

I came to this design institute after graduating from university, and I was assigned to designing all the outer piping. This was known to be an undesirable job, because it was not overly technical, and was not part of the core design. Therefore, one could not become part of the backbone of the technical work force or earn design awards. Second, it did not require training overseas, so one would not earn extra money or be given bonuses. My colleagues in that team gradually left.

One colleague told me, “You can go to the director to ask for some other work, and when you are too busy with the other work, you can then push away this work. This way you will be able to get out of it. This is how everyone does it.”

Another colleague told me, “The job you are doing was assigned to a few other people before you came. None of them wanted to do it.”

But my heart was not moved. New employees were coming and going. So it turned out that I had to constantly train new people. Most of them would leave for other jobs after completing just one project. It was like a training ground for new employees.

In other fields, the people who train the new employees are all respected by those employees. But not in this job, because whoever was assigned to this field was unhappy. I had to bear their moods, teach them, and also take the responsibility for their progress and quality of work. The director of the department saw all of this, and at the end of the year, he gave me a bonus.

A shrewd and capable colleague in another field saw that I was always doing this kind of work, and thought that I was a technical school graduate and couldn’t do other things. Later, she learned that I was a graduate of a key university, better than all their universities. She said to me, “I thought you were a technical school graduate! Why don’t you change fields? You are taking such a loss. You can work with me and I’ll help you.” I just smiled and didn’t say anything.

Simple Drawings

When designing the outer piping, the more effort one puts into it, the simpler the drawing looks. There were dozens or sometimes more than 100 pipes, and they all needed to go to various workshops throughout the whole factory. If one didn’t take the time to work things out, there would be a lot more turns and angle joints needed. It would then require a lot more money for the materials and man-hours on the construction site, as well as cause bad flow in the pipeline, and possible clogs.

With so many pipes, it would take a few more days to figure out how to eliminate as many intersections as possible. When I saw something that wasn’t designed well, I would not be satisfied until I had fixed it. When I spent a few more days on the drawings, it would save others a lot of time and money.

My drawings always looked so simple that my colleague said they looked like newly made noodles in clear water. But, since they looked so simple, the managers thought that my work was easy, and so they would pay me less. When people didn’t make the effort to straighten things out, the drawing would look really complicated, as if the work was difficult. But others didn’t understand this.

Giving My Experience to Others Unreservedly

The institute gradually started to use models for design in 2007, so it was necessary to build a database of models to support it. The developer said that I was very serious about my work and hoped that I would build the database. I agreed to change fields.

The institute then used external personnel to do all the outer pipeline designs, because the managers thought this was a simple task. But, later on when there were quite a few major design errors, the institute began to pay attention to it, and arranged some senior personnel to do the design. When I was doing it, no one paid much attention to it, resulting in low pay.

When I started working on the database, someone told me that several people had already tried to work on it, and they all gave up because it is difficult. They advised me to stay away from it. But I thought that since I had already agreed, I should give it my best effort.

Because it was a new field, there was nothing to reference. Most designs are in fact based on previous ones, and could be done by improving or expanding on previous designs. But this database needed a lot of start-up work. In order to be responsible, I had to be very patient and spend a lot of time. There was not enough manpower, but no one was willing to help. So I had to do it all by myself. Since it was new, and most people, including the director, didn’t understand it, they all thought it was something easy, and so I was given a smaller bonus. But the person sitting next to me saw how busy I was and he went to speak to the director about it. The director said that he couldn’t find people who were willing to help me and asked me to find people myself. But because the compensation was so low, people didn’t want the job. So I ended up doing it all by myself.

After 10 years, the database became very mature, and I no longer needed to spend so much time on it. Some colleagues noticed that there was no need to work overtime or travel, so several people wanted to join me. Among them, a female colleague acted the fastest. She told the director that she could take over my work when I retire. The director agreed. So I had to teach her everything as I worked.

Nowadays, people don’t respect their seniors at work. Those seniors who aren’t in management tend to be ignored by young people. All the young people want from the senior employees is their experience, and at other times, most young people act as if they don’t exist. So some senior employees aren’t willing to pass on decades of accumulated design experience to others.

I also have this tendency. Even though I taught her everything and always answered her questions, I always felt it was a bit unfair, especially since the director did not give me any compensation for training her, while others were given training compensation. So I always struggled mentally with this.

But, I told myself that this kind of mentality was not in line with Dafa. Dafa teaches us to cultivate ourselves well, and not ask others for anything. My xinxing isn’t high enough at the moment, but if I don’t reach the standard, I’ll definitely regret it when my xinxing improves in the future.

I said to myself, “Don’t think about it. Today I’ll just give her all my experience.” With a click of the mouse, everything was sent to her. Afterwards, I felt very light, and didn’t let ordinary thoughts into my mind.

Dafa practitioners are the easiest to manage at work. It is rare for any Dafa practitioners to be picky when they are assigned work. If more people practice Dafa, it will elevate the morality of the whole society.