1. In 1980, after graduating from high school, he had two employment choices: either work as a clerk at the street office or let his mother retire early and take over. He felt that working as a clerk was uninteresting and preferred to learn a trade in a factory, thinking highly of the worker class's status, so he joined the factory.
Today, if he were at the street office, he would likely retire at a deputy department level, and his retirement benefits would go without saying. He would have the confidence to chat with the aunties in the park.
2. In the mid-1980s, when he was around 25, the factory director was promoted to a leadership position in the management bureau. He felt he was underutilized in the factory given his skills in writing and drawing. So, he proposed transferring him to the bureau to work in administration. However, my brother thought that he could earn at least a few dozen yuan in bonuses at the factory, while the bureau would be a mere administrative office, so he politely declined the leader's good intentions.
Today, if he were in the bureau, he would likely be a middle-level cadre in a large state-owned enterprise. Although administrative ranks don't matter as much, the benefits surpass those of government agencies, and at least he wouldn't be laid off.
3. In the early 1990s, the internal system was going to issue original shares at one yuan per share. With his family's qualifications, they had access to at least 10,000 shares. But after careful consideration, he felt that stocks were too uncertain. What if they couldn't go public in the future? What if he lost money? So he gave up on purchasing and transferred the quota for some profit. Those stocks went public within two years, opening at over 20 yuan.
4. Around 1995, the housing reform in Beijing finally reached their system, and the company required them to buy their welfare housing. With his family's work seniority, a two-bedroom apartment could be bought for around 30,000 yuan. But he calculated that the bank interest rate at that time was over 10%, which means 30,000 yuan would accumulate over 3,000 yuan a year—this is a real loss. And if they continued renting public housing, it would only be tens of yuan a month, a few hundred a year. So would buying it be a loss? Nowadays, if their house had property rights, it would be worth millions.
5. After 2000, the company suffered serious losses and offered employees two choices: either stay at the company and receive the minimum living allowance, or buy out their work seniority, receive a few tens of thousands of yuan, and part ways with the company. He thought it would be better to take the money and start his own business, but he lost everything in less than a year. After a merger and reform, the company became a large-scale state-owned enterprise, and all laid-off employees were rehired, but it was already irrelevant to him.
6. In 2009, his wife's family's residential land was expropriated. Besides the compensation, there was also a relocation house quota of 50 square meters per person based on their household registration. Other people's sons-in-law had long moved their household registration to their father-in-law's household, and their children naturally had their residency there, all to get more area.
But he felt that moving in was equivalent to being adopted into the family, which was too embarrassing. So not only did he not move his household registration, but he also moved his wife's registration out. The result was that the compensation belonged to the father-in-law's family, and the relocation house was only 100 square meters for the father-in-law and his wife, leaving nothing for the three of them.
7. Nowadays, his son is over 30 and still not married. The five of them are still cramped in a small, old two-bedroom apartment, and they don't even own the property. They really want to buy it, but the company has long transferred the property rights to an asset company, and they are adamant about not selling it.
My brother has talked to me several times these days about whether he should buy a house for his son with a down payment of about a million yuan. Where could he buy it? What about their current public housing?
I seem to have a hard time answering that. I can only let my brother choose for himself. He has made many mistakes, and I hope he can make the right choice this time! Life is full of choices, and many times, it's really more important than hard work...