Chapter 100: Pantry Management (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 100: Pantry Management (1)
When I opened the door to the designated meeting room, several cameras and about ten production staff members greeted us.
“Welcome, Spark!”
“Hello, we are Spark! We look forward to working with you!”
“Wow, rookies really do have a different kind of energy.”
The PD smiled brightly and pointed toward the empty seats at the conference table. We sat down in a row, facing the cameras.
The filming process for Challenge! Life Experience was simple.
The day before filming, the cast meets with the production team to find out what kind of work they’ll be doing the next day. Then, the very next day, they are deployed to the site. That was the entirety of the content.
If a specific skill was required, there were cases where the cast would take a lesson prepared by the production team in advance.
≫ Look at Yeonji’s face when they told her she had to take skin diving lessons
Startled little hamster ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└ I thought skin diving meant working part-time at an aquarium, but it was actual sea diving……;;
└ Challenge! Life Experience is truly ruthless……
Otherwise, you just had to face it with pure physical strength, grit, and determination.
Honestly, as long as it wasn't loading and unloading delivery trucks, I didn't care. I wouldn't mind doing it alone, but it would be a problem if those guys got hurt.
While I was lost in thought, the formal greetings with the PD came to an end. Then, we got down to business.
“First of all, you all know what kind of program we are…… right?”
“Yes!”
“Good. But there’s one problem.”
Right from the start? That’s a bit troubling.
Seeing the flustered members, the PD spoke with a serious expression.
“Since the legal working hours for minors is seven hours, the younger members will have to leave early, and our oldest hyungs will have to handle the closing shift.”
That really was a big problem. My heart was already racing at the thought of running around until my feet blistered.
After plunging only Choi Je-ho and me into the abyss of darkness, the PD asked a question.
“By the way, has anyone ever had a part-time job?”
“I’ve only done a few gigs as a clothing model for an online mall,” Choi Je-ho said.
That guy, he had a pretty stylish part-time job.
The rest of the guys just shook their heads, given their age.
I did have part-time experience, but…… I decided to stay quiet, thinking it might be awkward if I had to prove it later.
Seeing us like that, the PD nodded and shouted.
“The place where Spark will be working tomorrow is the holy land of part-time jobs—a cafe!”
“A cafe?”
Compared to the filming locations so far, it was a fairly common job.
Working at a cafe is hard, though. There are so many menu items, and don't even get me started on the nightmare customers.
However, considering the nature of this program—which once made a famous actor remove a hornet's nest—I didn't think they would kindly tuck a large group of six into just any ordinary cafe.
‘Is it a cafe with a long waitlist? Or one near a major station? Or a large-scale cafe? Is it the season when Star Café releases its seasonal drinks?’
I roughly narrowed down the candidates in my head.
Unlike me, the guys sitting next to me were buzzing with excitement, saying they wanted to try on the cafe uniform or that they liked the barista roles they saw in dramas.
“You can’t leave out cafes when talking about part-time jobs. Since it’s a workplace with a high percentage of part-time laborers, you could say it’s a working environment very close to our daily lives!”
With that, the PD flipped open a sketchbook.
“This afternoon, you will receive training from a professional barista, and tomorrow, you will hold a one-day free drink giveaway event in Gangnam!”
“Gangnam?!”
“Is something the matter, I-wol?”
The moment I confirmed the spot marked in red on the map, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Gangnam.
To have to endure a Gangnam cafe from opening to closing!
I felt dizzy. I felt like I might faint at any moment.
“What’s wrong, I-wol hyung……?”
“Are you worried there will be too many customers? It looks like it’s a bit of a walk from the station, though.”
In response to Park Ju-woo’s question, Kang Gi-yeon looked at the map and answered for me.
“It’s Gangnam. Do you think there won’t be a single other cafe on the way from the station to here? The crowd will be spread out.”
Choi Je-ho added his two cents as well.
Instead of listening to them, I looked ahead and saw the PD and the production staff wearing devious smiles.
Sure, it wasn't right next to the station.
But…….
“PD-nim, could I see that map one more time?”
I took the map from the PD.
My uneasy intuition was spot on.
Within two blocks of the red-marked spot, every single building was a high-rise.
“Guys, we’re in big trouble……” I muttered like a final will. The world felt dark.
Office workers during lunch hour are extremely busy.
Some companies have great welfare, so their lunch breaks are an hour and a half to two hours long, or they let people eat whenever they want.
However, most companies without a cafeteria set their lunch hour from 12:00 to 1:00 PM.
To use that one hour efficiently, not a single step could be wasted.
Deciding on the lunch menu starts at 11:00 AM. When going to a restaurant with a long line, you have to sprint the moment it hits 12:00.
Drinks are for takeout. Restaurants that take reservations are booked a week in advance, and orders are placed early via apps for cafes that have them.
Office workers moved with surgical precision as if following a manual. After eating, most of those office workers headed in one of three directions.
To smoke, to take a walk……
‘……Or to go to a cafe.’
The location marked on the map was exactly in an area densely packed with offices.
Even though I didn't drink coffee, I knew. Cafes near offices are packed to the brim in the morning and at lunch.
On top of that, a free drink giveaway event held for filming.
We were doomed. We would probably be worked to the bone until coffee grounds started coming out of our pores.
‘It might not seem like an extreme environment, so they probably tried to balance it out with the free giveaway……’
Those were all cowardly excuses. Even I would drink anything but lye if it were free, so how much more so for an office worker’s essential potion?
“Hyung, why have you been staring into space for a while now?”
Jeong Seong-bin asked. In his hand was a smoothie he had spent all afternoon making.
I mentally reviewed the performance the members had shown throughout the day. Then, looking at Jeong Seong-bin, I answered.
“I was thinking about how we can successfully finish tomorrow’s business.”
Challenge! Life Experience had recently been going through a bit of a stagnant period.
The reason was simple. As rumors spread that the program was grueling, it became difficult to recruit cast members.
The main content of the program was to shed light on difficult and exhausting, yet essential jobs. Naturally, the tasks prepared by the production team were quite high in intensity.
Like writers for many variety shows, the writers of Challenge! Life Experience had to spend a lot of time on casting.
A job with high intensity → but easy enough for a celebrity to do → yet tough enough for viewers to think, ‘That person is really suffering’ → ……
As this dilemma repeated, the subject matter was running dry, and they were running low on guests.
During such a time, the main PD decided to take another look at the subjects that had been rejected for various reasons in the past.
The cafe part-time job was one of those items that had been rejected a long time ago.
The reasons for rejection were varied. It was too common, it didn't have the perception of being as hard as other items……
So, the production team added options to raise the difficulty. They were so serious that they even considered aiming for the period when Star Café sells its seasonal drinks. They eventually gave up on that after internal feedback suggested they shouldn't mess with a nationwide event.
Once the item was decided, the cast was the problem again.
It was good that they had raised the difficulty, but looking at the preliminary research, it was clear that one or two people wouldn't be enough to cover it.
In times like this, idols were an easy target. They had many members, and the newer they were, the less they cared about whether the work was easy or hard.
However, every coin has two sides.
There was a reason why Challenge! Life Experience, despite being desperate for cast members, rarely called upon rookie idols.
≫ [User] Seriously, Choi OO is so frustrating
Isn’t it too much to not be able to memorize table numbers all day?
Even I could memorize them just by watching the edited broadcast
I almost changed the channel
Because Koreans can't stand frustration.
While viewers enjoyed seeing the cast fumble through unfamiliar tasks, they also wanted the cast to handle the work at a professional level.
This was evident from the high view counts on videos titled ‘Collection of Cast Members Who Conquered Challenge! Life Experience.zip’ on various video platforms.
And—though not all of them were like this—most idols debuting these days were not only very young, but they had also lived as trainees since they were children with the sole goal of debuting. Consequently, they lacked what people call "work sense."
A person who works well is loved everywhere. Challenge! Life Experience needed that kind of celebrity.
So, the production team first reached out to Parte, a rookie boy group that a major agency had recently debuted. There was still a level of trust in the broadcasting industry that "Major agencies at least train their kids properly!"
To put it simply, the proposal was rejected.
The production team had momentarily forgotten. The reason major agencies are good is that they prevent their artists from appearing on programs with such poor cost-effectiveness.
Just as the writers were clutching their heads in frustration.
‘Um, if a rookie group is okay, how about this group?’
Someone mentioned Spark for the first time in the meeting.
‘They’ve been active for about as long as Parte, and there are many reviews on SNS and communities saying they’re very sharp.’
At the same time, a short video appeared on the meeting room’s beam projector. The title of the video was ‘An Idol with Suspiciously Extraordinary Work Sense.’
As the video played, the fair-skinned, handsome young man from the thumbnail was shown in a large frame.
‘Ju-woo, clean from top to bottom.’
‘I’ve uploaded the guide to the shared folder, so everyone please check it. Let me know if it says you don't have access.’
Captions explaining the situations passed over several short but clear scenes.
Writing press releases himself, showing how to insert functions into Web Cell, cleaning greasy dishes perfectly…… and so on.
Since they had already been rejected by Parte anyway, might as well give it a shot!
With that mindset, the production team sent a casting inquiry to UA. And that afternoon, they received a reply saying they were available anytime.
‘With one existing cafe employee as a supporter and so many hands, there shouldn't be any major disasters.’
Thinking of every possible contingency, the main PD prepared for the shoot.
During the brief meeting held the day before filming, he was a little worried.
They were all tall and handsome, but most of them still had a youthful look on their faces. Only the young man he had seen in the video exuded an aura of someone who had been through it all, making the PD feel that he was the only one he could truly rely on.
After these long twists and turns, on a warm day in May, the doors to ‘Challenge! One-Day Cafe’ opened.