Best Birthday Gift

Huanping Li, a service engineer from SANY’s Xiangtan office in South China’s Hunan Province, set out early in the morning to his office. What was in his mind was that he would finish the day’s work early so he could go shopping for a birthday gift for his seventy-year-old father. In the afternoon, when Huanping just had the time to think about what to buy for his father, the telephone rang in his office. A local customer’s loaded concrete mixer had some problems with its clutches and needed to be repaired immediately.

Without hesitation, he drove to where the vehicle was located without delay. After checking, he started repairing the vehicle. Soon he climbed out of the vehicle, with mud all over his clothes, knowing where the problem is: an oil hose was cut and should be replaced.

At that moment, his mobile phone rang. The call was from a family member. He turned to his work without answering it.

After the oil hose was replaced, he needed to discharge the air in the hose. He realized that using the time-consuming traditional way to discharge the air he would run the risk of having the full load of concrete solidified. He immediately improvised a new way based on his spare time learning and his familiarity with the vehicle.

Soon, the operator shorted: Done! It’s done! Huangping Li came out from under the mixer. “Thanks for your help. Otherwise the full load of concrete would be wasted,” said the customer.

Huangping was very happy to see the customer’s vehicle come back to life. He went to a quiet place and called his father: “Dad, sorry I won’t be with you tonight for your birthday. Happy birth day, though!”

The customer overheard their conversation and took over the phone: “Mr. Li, you have an excellent son. He can’t go home today because he helped us at the construction site.”

“Thank you! Thank you for helping my son as well,” said the happy and grateful father. For him, people’s recognition of his son’s work is the best birthday present for him.