It was another Saturday, after the regular meeting of the department, the director Liu Quanquan asked Zhong Shan to send the manuscript written by the reporter of the ministry who signed the manuscript to the editor-in-chief's office. Zhong Shan knew that Director Liu would never read these manuscripts word by word, at most glance at the title.

Because there was no newspaper the next day, the editor-in-chief did not go to work, and Lao Mei had nothing to do, and wanted to come to the newspaper office to go home in the afternoon after a free lunch. Seeing Zhong Shan coming to deliver the manuscript, he smiled and said, "Xiao Zhong, it's the weekend, it's an event!" ”

Zhong Shan understood that Lao Mei's "activity" meant drinking and dancing at night, and said embarrassedly: "I'm sorry Director Mei, I really can't do it today, my father-in-law has a birthday, I have booked a hotel, and I invite the old people on both sides to get together in the evening, I am busy with work all day long, and my wife and children rely on them to help take care of them, so I just took this opportunity to express my expression." ”

Lao Mei is a southerner with an easy-going personality, and after listening to Zhong Shan's statement, she hurriedly said, "You did the right thing!" Young people should indeed know how to be filial to the old people on both sides. I also often teach my two daughters to honor their in-laws and husbands and children, and these traditional virtues should not be lost. ”

When Zhong Shan withdrew from the editor-in-chief's office and returned to the department, Director Liu and the other five reporters were scattered, and Zhong Shan hurriedly took out the interview book and sorted out the interview records for the week, with a total of two manuscripts to write.

One is a survey into the survival plight of the state-run barber industry. Zhong Shan learned that the current situation of the barber industry in Castle Peak is that there are more than 30 state-run barber shops in the city, and individual barber shops or barber stalls have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. The ratio of retirees to on-the-job personnel in state-run barbershops is 1:1.5, and the historical burden is heavy, but the price of haircuts is set by the price department very tightly, 30-50% lower than that of self-employed people, and the rent of the store has risen year by year, making it difficult to survive. Because of the low price of state-run barber shops, the masses flock to it, causing queues and waiting for an hour or two for a haircut. Zhong Shan's proposed title for this reporter's investigation is "It is difficult for the masses to get a haircut, and it is difficult for the barber industry to survive."

The other is an interview task assigned to various departments, which is to write the newsletter of the city's top ten outstanding young people, and the object assigned to the Ministry of Finance and Trade is Qiu Mingming, an ophthalmologist from the municipal hospital. Because the interview of the top ten outstanding young people is time-consuming, laborious and not beneficial, no one likes to take this job, so Director Liu said: "Zhong Shan, you are the big pen of our department, and you will complete this character communication!" Zhong Shan has been working for almost a year, and he has not had the opportunity to write a character newsletter, so he happily agreed. I made an appointment with Qiu Mingming a few times, but I said that I was busy and had no time. Yesterday, Zhong Shan heard that Qiu Mingming was out of the outpatient clinic, so he went directly to the ophthalmology clinic to find out. When he came to the outpatient clinic early in the morning, there was already a long queue outside the door of Dr. Qiu Mingming's office, Zhong Shan squeezed in, showed Qiu Mingming the interview card, and sat on the empty chair next to him to watch Dr. Qiu diagnose the patient, busy from 8 o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock in the afternoon, men, women, children, workers, peasants, soldiers, scholars, and business patients. She treats every patient with a kind attitude, patiently diagnoses and treats, and explains carefully. At noon, when it was time to eat, the shift doctor came, and Dr. Qiu said apologetically: "I'm really sorry Reporter Zhong, I really can't spare time to receive you." Zhong Shan said, "You don't have to receive me, what I have seen and heard this morning is enough for me to write a long and touching newsletter." The title has been thought of, and it is called "The Clock That Never Stops". ”

Because both manuscripts have been in-depth interviews and have been sent, they are very enjoyable to write, and before the end of work, a 1,800-word journalist investigation and a 2,500-word character newsletter have all been completed. After reading through it, Zhong Shan felt that these two reports could fully represent his professional standards.

On Thursday afternoon, after the regular weekly meeting of the Editorial and Publication Management Committee, Director Liu returned to the Ministry of Finance and Trade to say that the editor-in-chief's office had responded that there was a lack of manuscripts, especially the headline of the missing edition, and asked the comrades in the department to hurry up the supply. Zhong Shan said that I passed two articles on Monday, one about the investigation of journalists in the barber industry, and the other about the newsletter of the Ten Outstanding Youth. Director Liu patted his head and said, "It seems that I have signed these two manuscripts." With that, I went up to the fourth floor to the editor-in-chief's office. Lao Mei was not in the house, only Editor Shi and Editor Shao were in the house.

Director Liu asked: "There are two manuscripts in Zhongshan of our department that have been pressed for almost a week, why does Lao Mei still say that there is a lack of manuscripts?" ”

Editor Shi said: "I'm not talking about you Lao Liu, the new little bell in your department is too good, and he didn't even say hello when he saw me on the stairs." The title of the article praised by President Meng last time was made up by me. ”

Director Liu said: "He just came, and he may not know you well. ”

Editor Shi said: "Then it won't work, how can Mr. Meng be familiar with him?" Besides, when I invited Lao Mei to drink to express my gratitude last week, didn't she call me and Lao Shao? ”

Director Liu said: "Next time I remind him, I will definitely call the two of you." ”

After Director Liu left, Editor Shao flipped out Zhong Shan's character newsletter from the barbed wire file frame, saw that he had written more than a dozen pages of manuscript paper, and said angrily: "This kid is quite able to write, I took out two pages from the middle, and saw if it went well after editing." So he took out two pages of manuscript paper at random, and used a brush dipped in red ink to delete large sections of the manuscript.

The next day, the newspaper's character newsletter was published on the second page, which had become an inconspicuous thousand-word article, and a large part of the scene that Zhong Shan carefully wrote was deleted word for word.

The article "It is difficult for the masses to get a haircut, it is difficult for the barber industry to survive", Lao Mei was so worried that she didn't have a manuscript a week later, so she turned it over in the frame of the paper edited by Shi, and added an editor's note with the leading idea of promoting the reform of the service industry, and posted it on the front page. Naturally, it won a lot of praise.