Liu Xingxin: The Father Without a Vacation

The story of Xiangli people is ordinary, and the protagonists are all familiar to us. There are no outstanding achievements, nor dazzling halos. They only adhere to their ordinary posts, dedicating their blood and youth to these posts without complaint or regret, repeating the same trajectory day after day and year after year. They use their actions to practice their values and interpret their attitude towards work. They are the stepping stones of Xiangli Expressway, the main force supporting the construction of this sky road in the clouds.

Su Jiangping, project manager of the power supply and distribution construction area of Xiangli Expressway; unsmiling, taciturn, wearing glasses, dark skin, a standard image of a front-line technical personnel in the project, "strict with oneself, lenient with others" is his motto. He is the person who gets up earliest and sleeps latest in the project department. During the day, he shuttles through the construction site, strictly controlling the construction quality and progress. He personally checks every light connection, street lamp assembly, grounding strap welding, and high and low voltage cabinet debugging. In the evening, he returns to the project department to study drawings and summarize the daily problems on the site. He personally checks every item of work, every detail, including materials, contracts, safety, and internal documents, before submitting them with peace of mind. In his spare time, he leads the management personnel of the project department to learn standards and drawings, and guides new college graduates to calculate engineering quantities, prepare material plans, write special construction schemes, and construction organization designs, carefully cultivating reserve talents.

November 11, 2020, was the day Su Jiangping's youngest daughter was born. However, the Xiangli Expressway project had a tight schedule and heavy tasks. He only returned to his wife's side two days before the expected delivery date, on November 9th. After his daughter was born, he not only had to take care of his wife and daughter but also remotely command the project's work arrangements. When his daughter was awake, he took care of her; when she was asleep, he immediately opened his computer to handle work; he rushed to school to pick up his eldest son after school. He only slept three or four hours a day. A week later, unable to rest easy about the project, Su Jiangping arranged for his family to take care of his wife and daughter, and proactively gave up the remaining more than 20 days of paternity leave. He said goodbye to his wife and newborn daughter in confinement and returned to his post at Xiangli. He said, "I also want to accompany my wife and daughter through confinement, but as a project manager, I need to ensure the completion of the project by the end of the year and cannot leave my post. So many employees are sticking to the front line without holidays, how can I rest assured to take a vacation? I can only apologize to my wife and children. After the two sections are successfully opened to traffic, I will go back and accompany them."

The project department of the power supply and distribution area is located in a village at the foot of a mountain. Every evening after dinner, Manager Su would avoid his colleagues in the project department and go to the path by the village to secretly video chat with his family. From the moment he made the video call, the face of this emotionally reserved engineer was filled with a happy smile, his eyes overflowing with a father's love for his daughter. Su Jiangping is Bai, and he speaks Bai with his family. Although I couldn't understand the meaning, I could hear from his tone of voice his deep love for his "little cotton-padded jacket," who was less than a month old. Once, we passed by and saw him looking at his phone without speaking for a long time. We asked, "Manager Su, why aren't you talking during the video call? Is the signal bad again?" He whispered back, "Shh, keep your voice down, the baby just fell asleep, don't wake her up!" I then realized that even during a video call, if the baby was asleep on the other end, he wouldn't speak loudly, for fear of waking the sleeping child. In the video, Su Jiangping would listen to his wife talk about the day's events at home. Although it was almost the same every day, he listened patiently with a smile each time. When his wife asked about his work and life on the project, he always said, "Fine, fine, don't worry," and then changed the subject, because he felt that his wife was no less busy at home with the children than he was at work. Therefore, he would slowly digest and deal with the pressures and worries of his work by himself. This short half hour was the most relaxing time of his day, and it was also his happy time to express his concern. After the video call, as it grew dark, Su Jiangping returned to his office and started working again until late at night before returning to the dormitory to rest.

Speaking of his wife and children, Su Jiangping is full of guilt, but it is precisely because of his family's support that he never complains about the hardships and fatigue of being on the front line. He says that his wife and children are always his strongest spiritual support, and he is willing to carry the burden for them. Manager Su's story is simple and ordinary; it is the daily life and work of an engineer, yet it deeply touches the hearts of every young person on our project. From Manager Su, we have learned to be calm, to work with peace of mind, to treat our feelings seriously, and to cherish our feelings. We also realize that it is because of the selfless dedication of every Xiangli engineer that the Xiangli Expressway can be opened to traffic. The front-line projects need this spirit, our company needs this spirit, and the times need this spirit—a spirit that can lead, inspire, and encourage engineers to be positive and motivated. When this spirit gathers together, it will become a powerful torrent, a powerful driving force for the development of our installation industry!

[Three Construction Department/Liu Xingxin Editor/Hu Hengjin]