Old man Cao is a master of writing. He used to be a Chinese teacher in a county, and later he went to the Propaganda Department to write speeches for leaders. He has been retired for several years. After retirement, he couldn't stay idle and was hired by the bureau to write articles. His main tasks now include helping the director write speeches, writing various reports, revising meeting minutes and briefings written by young people, etc. Not long ago, he was writing a "big data" paper assigned by his superiors.

Old man Cao doesn’t look that old: he is short and has a Chinese character face, a bit like the old man in "Up", but he does not wear glasses and his hair is still black. of. Old Man Cao didn't look like he was retired at all. Once, the guy who applied for a credit card came to our office and asked him if he wanted to apply for a credit card. Old Man Cao asked with a smile: Can I still get a credit card after I retire?

Old Man Cao lives alone. He doesn’t seem to want to disturb his children’s lives. When his children and grandchildren come to visit him during the holidays, he is happy to prepare a large table of dishes for them and wait for them to eat. After drinking enough, Old Man Cao doesn't have to cook for a week. He can just heat up one or two dishes on the large table every day for a week. Old man Cao seems to be quite concerned about health. There are many bottles and cans in his drawer, including various vitamins, calcium tablets, fish oil, etc. He said that he only needs to take these when he is older, so he has no serious health problems. . He usually goes to the gym downstairs for a "brisk walk" on the treadmill after eating. It's a bit funny, but he goes there every day. There aren't many people in the gym. At his age, he's probably the only one. It is even rarer that he can insist on going every day. He probably also wants to enrich himself and be healthier.

Although Old Man Cao has a lot of articles to write every day, after all, he has accumulated decades of experience and his writing speed is amazing. So he often has a lot of free time. He really can't be idle. He has too much free time. Sometimes he will go to the director's office to chat with them. If the director is not there, he will go and read the books. When I look at the documents on the director's desk and see something good, he will come back and tell me, "Hey, this is well written and can be included in the briefing."

Today I saw that Xiao Bei from the department had just returned from an inspection trip to the countryside. He asked: "What have you gained from this visit to the countryside?" Xiao Bei said, "Well, the green onion pancakes in * County are quite delicious." .

He sometimes talks on the phone with old friends or former colleagues. He loves to chat and often talks happily and dances with joy. However, often when he gets excited about it, the other person will give him the excuse of "something happened". To say goodbye to him, he could only say "oh" softly, and then heard the "beep beep" hangup sound on the other end of the phone.

He would occasionally chat with me. One time he talked about the time he went to the countryside when he was young. It went something like this: Several of his educated youths were sent to the countryside, and he was very impressed by the sewing machines in the rural factories. He was interested, so he diligently learned how to use the sewing machine before being assigned any work tasks. The next day, work tasks were assigned. When the sewing machine was assigned, someone said, "This little Cao knows how to do it." Then everyone thought so, yes, he was quite proficient in using the sewing machine yesterday. Old Man Cao said cheerfully: "Actually, the day I learned it, everyone saw it, and I thought it would be a good idea to have someone who has learned it."

Another time when it was a hot day, when he was chatting with me, he suddenly remembered a poem he had learned in elementary school, and then he read it aloud with great emotion:

"Lovely The summer has passed,

but I still miss it very much,

Those lovely mornings and evenings,

appear before my eyes like pictures.< /p>

Get up early in the morning, open the window and take a look,

The earth is green and the sky is blue,

Thank you for the heavy rain at night,

It’s so fresh.”

He really recited it word by word with great emotion. Yes, it was a poem he learned when he was in elementary school. I was also amazed at his super memory, which is probably related to the fact that he taught Chinese. The poem is called "Summer is Over". He said that the textbook articles he learned before are very interesting. He can also recite many previous articles, poems and even song scores.

Once I saw the word "roughly taking shape" in an article he wrote. I naturally changed the word to "begin to take shape". He saw it and changed it back. Later I asked him, "Isn't it 'beginning to take shape'?" He said, "'roughly taking shape' is a written language, that's what it is. I can't be wrong. I corrected many of these when I was teaching."

Of course, there are things that he is not good at, such as "high-tech" things such as mobile phones and computers. He often types and writes in Word, typing without knowing where he clicks, and typing for a long time. All the text was gone. He was anxious, but I don’t know what he pressed. Fortunately, he would sometimes keep the first draft or print it out, and then he would have to spend some time to revise it again. But one time, he found that a report he had sent before was not received by the other party. He was really anxious. The report had tens of thousands of words. He had just changed the computer this time and there was no backup. But he was really puzzled again. He obviously had a send button, so he walked back and forth in the office alone, thinking back and forth. After I found out, I told him that if it was sent, it would be saved in the mailbox, no matter who it was sent to, and I helped him log in to the QQ mailbox, and it turned out that he sent the report to himself. Finally, Old Man Cao breathed a long sigh of relief.

He can use QQ mailbox to send emails, but he cannot use QQ to add friends. For such "high-tech" things, he sometimes learns and sometimes doesn't. He would ask me how much data I would use if I used my mobile phone to surf the Internet for half an hour. Sometimes he would ask me to help with a problem that he didn’t understand on the computer. I would do it in front of him, and he would learn it secretly. If he couldn’t learn it on his own, He said, "Hey, how did you do this?"

It is such a person who is not very sensitive to "high technology" but he has to write a paper on "big data" recently. It seems that there is pressure from above on the bureau, and the bureau has assigned this arduous task. Give it to him.

Although he is a hired "employee", he is still a retired "old man" after all. Deputy Director Chen of the bureau is still his former subordinate. He doesn't have to clock in when he goes to get off work every day. Logically speaking, Mr. Cao can be very free when going to get off work. He can come and leave when he wants, but he arrives earlier than me and leaves later than me every day. He said there was nothing to do when he returned home. He goes to and from get off work on time every day, never asks for leave and leaves early, writes many articles, many articles that others don't like to write, he is so dedicated, but his salary is much lower than that of retired veteran cadre Zhao Chu who comes once or twice a month. Director Zhao is a professional consultant specially hired. Every time he comes to give us suggestions for meetings, he is really good at talking. He talks at length every time and seems to be very powerful. But after listening to it a few times, I always feel that It feels like the content of each lecture is very similar, and it seems like nothing new can be said. But next time, he will definitely find a way to talk for several more hours. He is a professional consultant.