The sports school hired 30 coaching assistants, including Dai Li. In the meeting room, the HR manager was holding an employment contract in his hand as he said, "After you sign this trial contract, you are in the three-month trial period. I won't say anything else about discipline, I've said enough. During the trial period, your salary will be 800 yuan per month. The formal contract of employment will be signed after the trial period. Everybody should try their best. I can fire you whenever I want if I feel your performance isn't good enough during the trial period!"
Somebody immediately whispered, "It's already June. The summer holiday is around the corner. I bet we don't have a lot of work to do during the holiday, which would mean that we only really only have a one-month trial period."
"You are right. The best thing about being a teacher is that we can rest for three months during the summer and winter holidays every year and get paid," another person said in agreement.
The HR manager stood on the platform and said, "You might think that there won't be too much work to do since the next two months are the summer holiday, and that nobody will be fired. I must tell you that you are completely wrong. The following two months are what will really matter to you!" His words got everybody's attention. All the new employees stopped their writing and looked at the manager.
He stopped for a second, almost as if to add dramatic effect to arouse people's interest, and then continued, "There isn't much time left before the summer holiday. Our school will organize a few training classes in the next two months, and all the new coaching assistants have to be a part of it. We'll decide if you can stay or not directly based on your performance."
According to the rules, public schools were not allowed to organize training classes. However, the sports school was different from other public schools since it was a place for cultivating athletes. A lot of students in the sports school came from selection exams. The school could use these exams to organize and open training classes during the holidays to make some extra cash.
Many people became very nervous after hearing "open training classes." The main job for the new coaching assistants was to train athletes. It made them nervous knowing that they were going to enter the front line of training when they still didn't have enough experience. On top of that, they would be evaluated to see if they could stay or not based off of it.
Unlike the others, Dai Li was excited to begin. The last thing he was worried about was training since he had the Coaching System to help him. He was actually hoping that the training would start as soon as possible so he could get enough empirical value to upgrade to the next level.
…
"Li, look over this material and print it out!"
"Li, this is the summary of last year's work. Follow this form and make a summary for this year."
"Li, make an excel sheet of this name list and give it to me."
"Li, this is what I'm going to apply for. Fill out an application. We need to ask for something from the general department."
"Li, this is the list of names with contacts on it that the admissions office just sent to us. Make it into an excel sheet and email it to the training department."
Dai Li was very busy, not because of his extraordinary ability, but because he was a college student.
In the normal job market, college students were similar to stray dogs, and masters were everywhere. Even PhD students were not difficult to find. A person with an undergraduate degree did not rank high on the job market. However, here in the sports school, an undergraduate degree was the highest rank achievable. Many of the coaches here were retired athletes who focused mainly on training instead of studying. All they were able to do was sit in front of the computer and click their mouse to surf the internet, watch movies, and play games. Most of them didn't even know how to use Microsoft Office. If one of them had been asked to write a summary, they wouldn't be able to write more than 200 or 300 words.
This was Dai Li's area of expertise. All work that involved a computer was given to him. The assistants with less of an education could only apply themselves to physical labor.
After a few days of working, Dai Li had a general idea of the summer training class that was about to start. There were several sports projects in this class. The most popular ones were table tennis class and basketball class. Most of the students who had signed up for table tennis were primary school students. As for basketball, most of them were middle school students. There weren't many high school students since studying occupied most of their time. The only one class that had them was the 100m sprint training class. It targeted high school students who were about to start their third year and whose goal was to take the track and field competition for national second-class athletes in September to receive their certificates.
The certificate of national second-class athlete was very important for the graduating students who wanted to take the college entrance exam. As long as they could get the certificate, they would be qualified to take the special exam for sports held by key colleges. If they were lucky enough, they might even be able to be admitted to the college with a score of 100 points. And even if they didn't pass the special exam, they could still become sports talent students. With the ability a national second-class athlete possessed, it wouldn't be very difficult for them to be a sports talent student and enter the college.
Besides, there was a policy in place where if a graduating student had the certificate of national second-class athlete, then he or she could enjoy the benefit of 20 additional points. Even one point on the exam could help you eliminate hundreds of thousands of competing applicants. Twenty points was a big enough deal to attract most of the examinees.
This wasn't the only benefit, either. The training fee was pretty high—15,000 yuan for two months, which meant 250 yuan per day. In first-tier cities, the price might have been less of a worry. However, in Yuzhou City, a fourth-tier city, the price was too high for most parents with normal incomes.
It was not easy to become a national second-class athlete, even if the training period was two months complete with full days of training. The students had to have some basic sports ability to achieve the goal. It would take forever for those with muscle imbalances to achieve such a feat. The 100m race was chosen because it was the easiest one both for students and coaches. At least for the level of national second-class athlete, there weren't many difficult movements to master.
Time flew by, and by July all the students were ready for the holiday. The sports training class was also ready to welcome the new students.