In that era, there weren't many people who could drive, and even fewer were women. If Gong Mingxia could drive and cook, that could indeed save the cost of hiring a driver. As for purchasing, how could you not let a person skim a little off the top? After all, it's both cooking and buying, and that's hard work, okay?
However, based on the number of people in the kitchen each month and the quality of food provided, the budget for operations wasn't that large. Ensuring the quality of food while seeking personal gains in the process actually depended on the buyer's own skills. If someone had the talent to make some extra money, he really couldn't control that.
So, he could confidently entrust this job to Gong Mingxia because he saw her as truly talented. Just from that series of actions earlier, she hadn't lied; she really could drive and had been on the road as she had claimed. Once you've been on the road and have experience, there's nothing to worry about afterward.
You have to understand, by the late 1990s, there weren't many cars on the roads, even in the Capital.
Wang Hao probably truly felt that Gong Mingxia was suited for the job, so he kept persuasively encouraging her.
"But I don't have a driver's license. Doesn't getting one take a long time? And, I don't have a Beijing residence registration, I...,"
Wang Hao waved his hand at her, "No need, no need. The place you'll go to is in the suburbs; you're just going to the Market. What do you need a driver's license for? Do you know how hard it is to get one? Without a household registration, you can't even get in line, and for a local resident, it still costs three or four thousand yuan. You, being from out of town, would need at least five or six thousand, or even seven or eight thousand."
Hearing the price, Gong Mingxia's eyes widened, "Is it really that expensive?"
"It sure is. Ever since our country started allowing private car purchases, Beijing's cars have been increasing by tens of thousands every year. So, it's not just a craze for learning to drive; what you're up against is the difficulty of learning. At a driving school, don't even think about getting a license without spending three to six months, and that's if it were just that. The key is, you go around borrowing money to pay for lessons, only to discover reality is even more complicated than you imagined."
"I remember I learned to drive in '94. I wasn't a Beijing resident then, and I paid five thousand yuan in registration fees because I intended to make a living from it. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that to learn to drive, I first had to learn how to please the instructor. We students had to buy cigarettes and make tea for our instructor daily, catering to him with fine wine and dishes."
"Just through touching the car for ten days, each of the eight students had already spent fifty or sixty yuan on the instructor. That's not all; the students also had to visit the instructor's home to give gifts, spending at least two or three hundred yuan or even up to six hundred yuan each visit."
"Those who paid their dues were especially trained by the instructor; they got taught more and were given longer driving time. Those who didn't give gifts were looked down upon by the instructor, who wouldn't correct their mistakes and would yell and strike at the slightest offense."
Thinking back to his experience of getting a driver's license, Wang Hao had a face full of frustration, then turned to look at Gong Mingxia.
"You definitely should get a license, but are you sure that you have the patience, time, and financial support for it?"
After calming down, Gong Mingxia shook her head, "But I can't drive without a license. Otherwise, I could also ride a tricycle to do the purchasing."
Seeing this, Wang Hao didn't object but laid out the harsh reality first, "That will be even harder. But what you cook, what you buy, no one will oversee that. You'll have five thousand yuan a month to manage as you see fit. The principle is to have one meat dish a day. If you can do that, you're ready to start working."