Tomorrow is a highway broad and fair

Being laid off can a break a person. But Dong Yundan is not one of them. She was neither despaired nor helpless after losing her job in 1999. On the contrary, she thinks it came as a boon.

After losing her accountant's job in a food bureau in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, Dong began concentrating on her work as a housewife. She and her husband had purchased a 160-sq-m apartment just a few months earlier. But after a few months of cleaning and maintaining, she realized how tedious the work was. It even killed her fascination for a big house. But it gave the then 29-year-old an idea, an idea that she turned into a big success story.

A year later, the business baccalaureate launched Guanpoer, a home servicing firm, hiring mostly laid-off woman workers, the physically challenged, college graduates and former military personnel. The idea was "to set up a responsible company that didn't only provide good service to customers, but also helped its staff gain back their lost confidence".