Profile
The job's repetitive, but it can prove to be uplifting
By Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-10 10:14
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 Elevator operator Mao Xuemei (left) knows most of the people living in her building. Wang Jing / China Daily |
But one elevator operator, Mao Xuemei, 42, has settled her family in a narrow dwelling in a 30-year-old residential building in Beijing, thanks to the three years she's spent on the job. She is also planning to buy the family's first apartment with her salary of 700 yuan per month, without any social insurance.
Mao shares with METRO her everyday life, as well as her hopes and dreams.
6 am: Tasks at home
Mao awakens when it's still dark outside. Before waking her daughter and husband, Zhang Yue, Mao turns on one of the two elevators, programming it to operate on automatic so that morning exercisers can make their moves easily. (Though the building has two elevators, only one is used per day; Mao alternates between the two.)
She then prepares breakfast - boiled eggs, bread and milk - for the family of three before her daughter heads to middle school and her husband to work at a subcontractor for the Beijing Subway Co.
Their 13-year-old daughter walks to a junior high school, where she is in her first year. Husband Zhang takes Subway Line 5 to work.
7 am: The sit begins
Mao takes her seat inside the elevator and begins transporting tenants of the 12-story building on their way to work. This is one of the busiest hours. There are more than 70 households in Mao's building, an old-fashioned residential tower owned by a subsidiary of a State-owned enterprise located near the North Third Ring Road in east Beijing.
Along with families of employees of the enterprise, some young white-collar workers with jobs nearby also rent units from homeowners.
Mao knows most of the faces in the building. "Some people seem impolite, but most of them are quite friendly," she said.
9 am: Cleaning time
After most tenants have left their homes, Mao begins to dust the elevator. It is not always an easy task.
"Sometimes, the place is messed up with pets' excrement," said Mao. But it is still an easier job compared with tidying her cramped one-room dormitory on the ground floor of the building.
Mao's family has lived in the tiny dwelling for three years. There were two years when the three had to squeeze onto a 1.5-m-wide bed. At the time, Mao's niece from Mao's hometown, Tai'an city of Shandong province, lived with them.
There is neither air conditioning nor a kitchen ventilator. "It's not a good thing for our family to live in this narrowness forever. To save more money for our apartment, we also try our luck in the stock market," said Mao.
Last year, she urged her husband, who makes just over 2,500 yuan per month, to invest the family's 90,000 yuan savings in the stock market. The family lost 10,000 yuan last year in the bear market, but the family now has a little over 100,000 yuan in overall savings.
"We are still several years away from our first apartment," said Zhang.
10 am: The loneliest hour
Mao spends an hour alone in the elevator.
It's quiet, but she doesn't care to reflect on the daily grind or tally the number of trips up and down the building she makes each day. "I don't want to count because if I do it becomes more boring," she said.
To pass the time she usually plays games on her mobile phone and listens to Chinese songs downloaded to the gadget. She was upset for a week last April, when her first mobile phone was stolen after she left the elevator unattended for a brief period.
"It was a 2,700-yuan Nokia E66 model and I had just learned to operate the lovely thing," said Mao, not hiding her upset. "I posted a notice inside the elevator, but I never saw the phone again."
Earlier this year, Mao also lost her iron in the same elevator.
11 am: Ready for disaster
Just before noon, Mao begins to read the lifestyle pages in the Beijing Youth Daily. She also weaves for a little self-amusement during the lull.
Sometimes, she tries to engage herself with homemakers in the building, discussing the latest bargains at the supermarket or how to cook good soup for their hardworking children after school.
But the hours before lunch break are not always peaceful.
One morning last November, the heating pipes of an apartment on the 12th floor exploded and water flooded the entire building. Mao rushed to tackle the floodwater with a broom and dustpan. Her shoes were totally soaked.
"The rescue workers were too slow to move when I called them for help," protested the elevator woman. "If not for my effort, the elevators' circuits might have suffered fatal damage with the water flooding in."
2 pm: Tipping point
Mao can usually take an uninterrupted lunch break, but not when the elevator inspector makes a monthly check. She sometimes must tip the inspectors for them to give her a good report so that she can keep her job.
"Without the job, our family will not have the dormitory, which is free," she said.
4 pm: Break for shopping
Mao now puts the elevator on automatic for the second time. She goes to a nearby market to buy the family's daily groceries.
5 pm: Joyful sing-alongs
Mao's daughter returns home. She is allowed to play her favorite tunes on the electronic piano in their room while Mao cooks dinner in the kitchen.
"I enjoy singing to my daughter's tunes. That is one of the happiest hours of my day," said the mother.
6 pm: Dining together
When Mao's husband comes home, the family eats dinner together. When the daughter begins her homework, Mao usually sits next to her, watching her study or reading.
Occasionally Mao and her husband chat with friends via instant messaging. When they wish to watch the latest television drama, they will visit a neighbor.
11 pm: Bedtime badminton
At their daughter's bedtime, Mao and her husband turn off the lights in the room and get in a few swats with their badminton racquets. They play badminton until their daughter falls asleep.
Midnight: Quitting hour
At midnight, Mao turns off the elevator. On weekends, she leaves the elevators on all night for those returning from late-night parties.
But leaving them running all night sometimes brings great trouble.
One summer night last year, the family was awakened by police officers at 4 am. A tenant had gotten stuck in the elevator between floors, and summoned the police for help. Mao's husband, an electrical engineer, fixed the elevator and freed the tenant.
"We don't want our life to get stuck like that old elevator," said Mao. "Some day, we will be moving to a new and nice apartment of our own. A home - that's all we dream of."
