Cafe owner vs. Science and technology upstart

One weekend afternoon, I saw a cafe by the side of the road. The window furnishings caught my eye. A handsome young boy immediately came out to greet me and introduced how mellow and delicious their coffee was. I don't usually have the habit of drinking coffee, and I don't have any special research on coffee, so I asked him to make me a cup of mellow coffee.

Soon after, the coffee was brought. He asked me, "Auntie, what do you think of the coffee?"

Take a sip, there is no expected mellow.

"I don't think so. I can't get the sweetness of roasted coffee. "

"it doesn't matter. I'll grind another kind of coffee beans for you to try. He enthusiastically recommended other kinds of coffee to me.

After drinking three cups of coffee back and forth, he patiently introduced me to where each kind of coffee came from and how it was baked.

I was a little curious, so I asked him what school he attended. He told me that he was a senior majoring in optoelectronics at a national university of science and technology.

"Why did you work in a small cafe when you studied optoelectronics?" it turned out that he felt that the optoelectronics industry was declining, working in a factory was boring and hard, and that from time to time in the technology industry there was news of unpaid leave and employees overworked to death, so he might as well change to open a coffee shop as soon as possible. He likes working in the service industry. although he earns little money, he can interact with people and take care of his health.

Don't confuse interest with expertise

I was surprised and told him that my view was different: "from graduating in your 20s to retiring in your 60s, there are 40 years in between. Why don't you spend 2 years to break into the industry you have studied, and then if you really don't like to leave again." When you enter the company, you may find that studying the manufacture of optoelectronic products with a group of people with ideals, experience and higher education than you will inspire you to make progress and see the results of research and development applied in daily life. It will also give you a great sense of achievement. As for death from overwork, it is a problem of excessive magnification by the media. the proportion of death from overwork is less than 1/10000, which is much lower than the probability of accidental death. "

I continued, "many young people confuse interests with expertise. Interests can be changed, expertise will not be changed casually, and people have to make money from their expertise for a lifetime, but sometimes interests cannot be eaten. Don't waste your youth on fun. Even if you really like brewing coffee, you can still regard optoelectronics as your own business. after accumulating some funds, you can invest in opening a small cafe and occasionally brew coffee yourself during the holidays. If you want to open a coffee shop, you can do it at any age. If you open a coffee shop as soon as you graduate, it will be very difficult to return to the technology industry in the future. "

From the moment of opening the shop, life lost its freedom.

"but it's freer to open your own shop, and you don't have to be regulated by others. He still has excessively romantic expectations of opening a store.

I told him, "you have the wrong idea. From the moment you opened the store, your life began to be unfree." Office workers work from nine to five, but they may open a shop from seven to twelve. When they go to work, they have at least a holiday, but the boss has to open a shop every day, even if they are ill. The pressure of rent every day will make you breathless. And at the beginning, you have to be multi-tasked, the headmaster and ring the bell, and you have to do everything by yourself. "

I knew that he was a working student and had performance pressure, so the company needed a coffee machine and a bean grinder, so I ordered two sets of equipment from him and made an appointment to pick them up at 6 p.m.

When I went to get the coffee machine, the young boy looked at me seriously. "No one has ever told me what you told me before." I have been thinking about what you said since this afternoon. If I want to enter the science and technology industry, will it be better for me to apply for graduate school again after I am a soldier? "

I advised him to prepare now and not to wait until he was finished as a soldier. Moreover, the government has launched internship programs for many young people, so they might as well go to the technology industry for internship experience and become familiar with the industries they want to invest in in the future.

Why don't young people have the ambition to beat Samsung?

It was getting late and the coffee machine I bought had already been packed, but I found an extra brush in it. It turns out that although I bought a coffee maker, I didn't buy a brush to clean it. The considerate young man bought me a brush with the pocket money he earned from his work. I felt very happy, not because he gave me a brush, but because I used my time to drink three cups of coffee to change a young man's future.

In my opinion, if all the talents studying science and technology are invested in the service industry, if young people reject the science and technology industry, and if the technology industry is not strong, given Taiwan's existing economic structure, the prospect of competitiveness will be worrying. On the other hand, when young people flock to coffee shops, they will crowd out job opportunities for middle-aged, elderly and second-year employed women, which is also not good in terms of the structure of human resources allocation.

Hon Hai founder Terry Gou laments: why do young people in Taiwan have no ambition to defeat Samsung and want to become another Terry Gou, another Lin Baili or Shi Chongtang? Everyone wants to open a coffee shop and learn from Wu Baochun to make bread. These domestic demand industries must rely on vigorous economic development. If we have a good income, the development of domestic demand industries will be good. If Taiwan's science and technology industry is defeated by Samsung, where will the domestic demand ​​ industry come from?

On that beautiful weekend afternoon, the aroma of coffee filled the air, but my inner feelings were sweeter than coffee. If that young man is benefited by my words, I will feel very happy. Because I always think that learning is not useful in life, it is a last resort, and being able to apply what you have learned is the happiest.