Things to Do Before the Semester Begins
I had to admit, our company was strange.
Even if you factored in the fact that we were still college students and in a position where changing jobs would be awkward, the business kept going without a single person dropping out.
From the day we founded the company to the point where real revenue had started coming in, not one person had quit.
“Even though it’s only been a few months, it still feels impressive for no reason.”
Even if the founding members who had stayed with me all the way to graduation in my previous life made sense, the level of loyalty shown by Senior Seonghun and Mr. Jae-yoon was surprising.
[Then give them some rewards.]
Badugi suddenly popped up a speech bubble at me while I wore a satisfied expression.
“Rewards?”
I sat down and thought it over carefully.
Rewards. Rewards. Non-salary compensation.
“That’s not a bad idea.”
I immediately opened a memo pad and started thinking hard.
What kind of welfare benefits or proper rewards could I offer our employees?
“Hiss. I wish there were something a little more impressive.”
The list kept getting longer, and Badugi looked back and forth between me and the list with an intrigued expression.
[Can we afford it?]
“Yeah. This is what it means to be an early startup member.”
For the first time in a while, it felt like I was working on a light, fun project all by myself.
This much was worth doing as an event before the semester began.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
On the last weekday before the semester began, everyone at TA Medical came into the conference room to work.
Of course, everyone sitting in the room looked a little lost.
“Mr. Siwon, why did you tell us not to schedule any outside meetings today?”
“Are we having a company dinner from this morning?”
“Wait, is this really a company dinner?”
Amid the various guesses flying around the room, I explained the reason we had gathered in a clean, simple way.
“Today is a welfare party.”
At my words, everyone looked even more confused.
They seemed to think it sounded like something good, but they couldn’t figure out exactly what I meant.
“What exactly happens at a welfare party?”
“We’re going to do everything that can be called welfare today.”
Even after my answer, their expressions remained strange.
Jeong Hyeonwoo glanced around, then slowly raised his hand.
“Then please buy us work laptops. Mine is about to die.”
I answered right away, brightly.
“Good. Everyone, tell me which laptop you want within an hour.”
“Within an hour?”
Once again, everyone stared at me with blank faces.
“Yes. That’s how we order it by express delivery.”
The moment I finished, everyone opened their own laptops.
The burning focus in their faces, despite their dazed expressions, was amusing.
“All right. Today’s welfare party is simple: we’re going to go around in order and say what kind of welfare benefits we’ve wanted or wanted to receive. All the way until 6 p.m.”
“You’re really buying us laptops, right?”
“Yes. But they’re work laptops, so you have to return them if you quit.”
The developers started typing and searching like mad, and Mr. Jae-yoon looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“I don’t know what I should buy.”
“Since you’ll probably have to carry a laptop around a lot for sales work later, it would be good to look for something lightweight.”
Ha Juwon, sitting next to him, raised her hand high and asked me a question.
“Question! Is there a price cap?!”
“I’ll trust your conscience first.”
“Can we get new monitors too?!”
“You already bought expensive new ones when we moved into the office. Have some conscience.”
“Oh? Right?”
Fortunately, whenever someone started getting a little too ambitious, someone else was there to rein them in.
So the conversation moved along at a reasonable pace.
“Then can we also buy keyboards and mice?”
“Yes. Good.”
Laptops, keyboards, mice.
We had come out of the club room and into a new office as a real company, so it was fine to make this kind of investment.
“Hah. An hour is kind of short, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.”
“Still, if we finish quickly, we can get other benefits too.”
For me, one hour to choose a laptop felt fairly long.
But for the people actually choosing them, it seemed very short.
Still, since they could move on to thinking about the next benefit, everyone seemed to speed up their decisions a little.
“We can send the purchase links to you, Mr. Siwon, right?”
“Yes. I’ll pay for them right away.”
Fortunately, no one chose a laptop with a ridiculous price tag.
In the case of keyboards, one person did pick one in the upper range of the 100,000 won bracket, but I decided to overlook that and let it slide.
“All right. So what’s the next thing you want?”
“I want to eat omakase!!”
At my question, Yoo Jiwon shot her hand up and shouted.
It was an action completely faithful to the first-come, first-served rule.
But omakase probably hadn’t become trendy yet, so was there even a place that sold it?
“Find a place that can take a reservation for lunch today. We’ll go with whichever place the person who booked first picks.”
Reactions to that benefit split neatly between people who didn’t know what omakase was and people who desperately wanted to try it.
“Oma-ka. Omakase?”
“You mean Japanese food?”
“I heard it’s what they call expensive sushi in Japan. Apparently expensive places in Korea sell it that way too!”
The members who didn’t know what omakase was started looking up the meaning first, while the ones who wanted to eat omakase sushi immediately started calling restaurants to ask.
“Is today fully booked by any chance?”
“I’m trying to make a lunch reservation for eight people today, ah, ah, is eight too many?”
“If we split up and sit, wait, can four of us sit separately like this?”
Watching everyone busily calling around, those who hadn’t known what omakase was looked fascinated.
“So it’s just expensive sushi, right?”
“We should’ve raised our hands for a pricey buffet first. That’s a shame.”
“But it looks like omakase is just starting to become popular. It’ll be good to brag about later.”
Then, in a completely different mood, Mr. Jae-yoon raised his hand.
“I booked us one!!”
At Mr. Jae-yoon’s announcement, everyone who had been calling restaurants calmly hung up.
“Mr. Jae-yoon, what’s the restaurant called?”
“I posted the restaurant link in the group chat!”
“Oh, I didn’t call because I thought it might be too expensive!”
The moment the words “too expensive” were spoken, everyone looked at me.
I didn’t know how expensive it was either, so I checked the price range.
Fortunately, it wasn’t bad at all for that level.
At least it was more reasonable than omakase prices from the era I lived in.
Of course, to college students or people just starting their careers, it might still have felt wildly expensive.
“This is fine. It’s acceptable.”
At my answer, everyone cheered.
They seemed pleased at the idea of eating something expensive.
“What time was the reservation?”
“11:45!”
“Hmm. It’s a bit far, so we should leave by 11:15.”
“Is it a thirty-minute taxi ride?”
“Yes. That’s what the map app says.”
This time, Senior Seonghun raised his hand.
“Hey, what do you think about having a company vehicle for the office?”
A company vehicle.
He must have meant a car used by the company.
“It doesn’t have to be several cars, but I think one would be useful. We already get parking support here, and it would be good to have a car we can use for meetings and things like that.”
“Right. Other than Mr. Jiwon, nobody has a personal car, so we just take public transportation or taxis.”
Listening to that, it did seem right.
When we had to rush to a meeting on short notice, having a company car might be better than waiting for public transportation or a taxi.
“Then how about we pick two company car candidates now, go eat omakase, take a test drive, and sign the contract? That should work.”
“After we sign, let’s not go back to work right away. Let’s go to a fancy dessert cafe!!”
“Then after signing, we’ll go to a cafe.”
Actually, when I first thought of the welfare party, I had been curious how everyone would react.
I thought they might be indifferent or blandly polite, but as one benefit after another that they had never had before started appearing, they seemed genuinely happy.
“And since they say money is the best welfare, everyone should take a gift certificate too.”
“Oh?!”
Personally, I’m the kind of person who values financial compensation most, so I’d prepared department store gift certificates too.
Everyone taking one had bright faces.
“Hey. If you’re going to buy this model with that money, it’d be better to upgrade it this much.”
“If you add the options, the price goes into another universe. Why would you buy that one? This is better.”
“Isn’t it weird to drive a foreign car around while selling domestic products?”
The people choosing the company car were having a deeply serious discussion, more focused than I’d ever seen them.
Even the ones who weren’t very interested in cars were offering opinions earnestly, probably because it was the company’s representative vehicle.
It reminded me vaguely of the debate that had gone into choosing the office.
“Please narrow it down to two candidates. I think it’ll be hard to go to three places together.”
“Uh, what about adding one more from the same brand to make it three?”
“Hmm. All right.”
After barely narrowing it down to three choices, we immediately went to a sushi restaurant for omakase.
It was a little embarrassing to march in all at once with so many people, but the sushi place seemed used to dealing with us and handled it smoothly.
“Wow. Everything I’ve eaten until now was fake sushi.”
“But why are the portions this small?”
“It’s a course meal. Wait.”
“Nobody’s taking pictures?”
At omakase, we looked a bit like tourists.
Personally, I was extremely pleased.
There were a few people who still seemed hungry even after eating everything, but everyone still seemed satisfied in the end.
“So we’re heading to sign the car contract now, right?”
“We test drive it first, and if it’s good, we sign. Luckily the showroom is right next door, so let’s walk over together.”
At the car showroom, it was obvious the staff were thrown off by the sight of all of us coming in together.
Normally, families came in, or maybe one or two representatives from a company. We had come in together like a school trip group.
“Whose vehicle are you looking for?”
“We’re considering a company car. Could we compare these two models?”
“Ah, their characteristics are pretty different. I’ll show you the actual cars right away!”
The employee helping us was very kind.
Even at the next brand’s showroom, they hesitated slightly when they saw all of us coming in at once, but they immediately helped us with a friendly consultation.
“Should we think about it at a cafe?”
“Uh, isn’t it definitely the first car? We should just sign and go.”
“Hmm? The first one has the worst fuel economy. The third one we just saw is better.”
“Still, wouldn’t the second one, since it’s the most spacious, be better?”
“Let’s decide at the cafe.”
Once again, everyone had their own criteria.
Because of that, the debate over cars went on longer than our commentary on the dessert we were eating.
“Then let’s conclude that we’re signing for the second vehicle.”
“Good. Wow. It feels so rewarding to build every part of the company together like this.”
There was something deeply satisfying about hearing that line, about building every part of the company together.
“Then it’s around 4 p.m. now, and since everyone already has their things packed, you can head home. If you’ve got work to do, you can go back to the office.”
“Oh? Nice.”
“It’s technically flexible hours anyway, but having an official end to the day feels good.”
“Agreed.”
No matter how you looked at it, getting off work was still the best part.
“I’ll head back to the office first. Take your time and keep eating. If you want to have company dinner for dinner too, use the corporate card.”
“Oh. You have something to do at the office?”
“Yes, yes. I need to go sign the car contract first. Have fun and head out early, everyone.”
After signing for the company car we had chosen together, I went back to the office we had chosen together as well.
When I returned and turned on my laptop, Badugi suddenly popped out.
[Aren’t you spending too much of the budget?]
[It was a budget that would have been spent anyway. And I’d also been carrying a lot of gratitude for all this time.]
At my answer, Badugi lay down in a relaxed posture.
It looked like it had nothing to say, so it was just resting.
[Are you an AI? You only appear on electronic devices like computers and phones, and you calculate fast.]
[You could say that. An AI created to make your wishes come true, visible only to you.]
Looking at Badugi lying there with its eyes closed in peace, it felt less like a nagging voice and more like an ordinary puppy character.
“Doesn’t your back hurt?”
[What’s that supposed to mean.]
Watching Badugi lie there without a care in the world, I thought for a moment, then started coding.
Badugi, who had been lying there without paying me any attention, seemed to find it strange after a while that I was busy doing something for so long.
[What are you doing?]
I didn’t answer right away and kept coding.
I searched for image sources and worked hard to build something from the idea in my head.
As it watched the screen, Badugi’s expression shifted little by little from calm to slightly flustered.
It seemed to understand what I was trying to do.
[I thought your back might get sore and you’d be bored.]
What I made was a house with a dog cushion spread out inside it on the laptop screen, along with some dog toys laid out around it.
I’d thrown it together in a hurry, so it was a little rough around the edges, but if Badugi thought it was bad, it would probably fix the code itself anyway.
[I’m just a program. I don’t get emotional over things like your team members do.]
[It’s fine. It’s a welfare party. Just take it.]
Badugi seemed to have never imagined that I would do something like this.
Still, it awkwardly entered the little house I’d made and lay down comfortably inside it.
[Better than before?]
[It is better than before.]
“Then that’s enough.”
Now I felt a little more at ease about welcoming the semester.