The Real Company Tour
Company tours.
"Hello! I'm Lee Jae-gyu, in charge of IR at Osung Engineering."
"This is Lee Chanuk. I called earlier."
Getting in wasn't hard, not when you factored in my reputation.
"I had no idea you were interested in our company, sir~."
"You know who I am?"
"Of course! These days, is there a single person who trades stocks and doesn't know Sonik-jwa?"
They didn't just let anyone in. Which meant they let in people who met a certain standard.
If only for the sake of trust.
Refusing a company tour? Wouldn't that make people wonder whether the firm was hiding something? For random nobodies it wouldn't matter, but—
"Do you happen to have investment plans for our company…?"
"That's what I'm here to find out today."
"Ah~ of course! If there's anything you're curious about, the people in charge of each department are standing by, so detailed explanations are available anytime."
Once you reached the level of a famous analyst, the conversation changed. The words carried weight.
Meaning I've at least hit that threshold.
My current standing. I couldn't call it enormous. The financial industry ran on a different scale. A hundred billion won in YouTube revenue? A hundred billion won pro-gamer salary? Those would be legendary in their own fields. In finance, they barely rated a business card. I still had a long way to go.
"And the young lady who came with you?"
"She's my fuckbuddy."
"Ugh."
"Ah, your fuckbuddy. People bring them along sometimes."
They wouldn't normally let you meet the IR guy this easily.
Just locking down a schedule usually took months. The bar companies set was high.
"You said before it was too hard to come."
"Somehow it worked out."
"Somehow, huh."
It definitely wasn't easy. At the same time, it could become easy.
In Joseon—no, in Korea.
Nothing was impossible with the right connections. Chairman Kang Mu-yeol's introduction had blown the high-pass wide open.
"I'm going to look around the other Osung affiliates too, not just here."
"That many?"
"The headquarters are all in Gangnam, so time-wise it's doable."
"It's not a matter of time…"
There was a reason chaebol families were chaebol families. With the power of influence, he'd locked in a full-course company tour.
Limited to the Osung Group, of course.
Extending that influence to other firms would be hard. It could easily turn into an unreasonable demand. But it was enough—for Sora, who had been singing about wanting to go on company tours.
"I never thought we'd come to a company this big. Just Osung Heavy Industries would've been plenty."
"You think you'd understand anything if we went?"
"You jerk!"
"There's an order to everything in this world."
"?"
For a beginner investor, this was the right course. Big corporations—especially Osung Group affiliates—were by the book.
Thwack!
The IR officer walked them through the company's main departments. Being a construction firm, there were no actual sites to see here, but—
"Osung Engineering is a comprehensive engineering company that provides full-spectrum solutions and services across the entire plant industry."
"Right."
"Our mainstays are chemical plants that refine crude oil, environmental plants that treat wastewater, and industrial plants that produce industrial materials. We're currently exporting to great acclaim in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Europe! Lately we've been landing consecutive orders from resource-rich South America and high-growth Southeast Asian clients."
"I see."
You could get a rough overview of the business. They even introduced the engineers who formed the core of a plant company. That kind of talk, though—it didn't land right away. Sora seemed just as lost; she simply stood beside him listening.
"What are they talking about?"
"They're welcoming us to the company."
"No, can't you explain it properly?"
"That was the proper explanation."
Well, if you really want to break it down.
Got fucked dumping in the Middle East, desu. Nothing left to suck dry on the domestic market, desu. Barely hanging on with overseas orders, desu. Still got the tech, though, desu. Stuff to eat in South America and Southeast Asia, desu. Ningen-san, how about throwing us some investment, desu.
"…"
"They just covered the company's basic business and current situation."
"Yeah, you definitely need prior knowledge for this."
"On the simple side, yeah."
In short, that was it. It sounded like it meant something, but you could have learned all of this without coming all the way out here.
Big-corp tours feel like this.
They were masters of the non-answer. Unless you showed up with knives sharpened, digging out real investment intel was impossible. Realistically, a regular investor was never going to stumble onto a lucky break. You were better off befriending the officer and pulling insider tips that way.
"Eugh."
"Why don't you try the honey-trap approach and seduce him once?"
"I can't do that kind of thing."
"Sigh. What would a virgin know."
"^$@#$^%@$!"
In practice the latter was more common. That was how the so-called "Yeouido tip sheets" got made.
Joseon—no, Korea has its own investment methods that fit Korea.
Investment approaches optimized for each country. No investor could afford to overlook that.
They took the guided tour around headquarters. Just that alone pushed them to eleven o'clock.
"So in the end we got nothing out of it."
"We can still grab a free meal on the way out."
"Sigh."
"Isn't that why we came on a company tour?"
"?"
Sora pouted, lips pushed out. She must have been looking forward to her first tour; she'd even dressed up in a full suit.
This is why you can't stop office romances even if you ban them.
A sense of transgression you never found in everyday clothes. He wanted to undo the buttons of the jacket wrapped around her white blouse.
Pop. Pop!
She undid them herself.
Employee cafeteria. The moment they got their food and sat down, she launched into sexy provocation.
"You trying to seduce me?"
"I always undo them before I eat."
"You never did before."
"Clothes with buttons feel tight, so I don't wear them much."
The way a guy with a beer gut undoes his pants hook before a meal, Sora apparently found her big chest uncomfortable when she ate.
Thud!
She set them on the table. Looking at that appetizing valley was enough to summon an appetite that hadn't been there.
And they actually taste good too.
The menu. Big-corp level, high quality. Tacos stuffed into thin flour tortillas as the main, with solid side dishes to match.
"I thought it'd feel like school lunch, but it's surprisingly like restaurant food?"
"Totally MZ, right?"
"What is that forced meme."
Nachos and salad, plus cucumber-pepper kimchi for accent. A menu even women in their twenties would happily dig into.
Crunch!
She really ate well. As if to prove no one could claim she didn't like peppers, she stuffed cucumber-pepper kimchi into her mouth and chewed with loud, crisp bites. The employees' atmosphere was the same. Everyone was hunting down their favorite dishes and eating to their own taste.
"That was good."
"Company food's decent, right?"
"But what's the point of this? It's not like I'm going to get a job here after graduation…"
"It's free."
"Hey."
Osung Engineering's cafeteria. The employees were eating with satisfaction. That was something you had to watch carefully in any organization called a "company."
Screech—!
Plenty of company tours still left. They arrived at the next place.
After Osung Engineering came Osung Display.
"Founded in 2012, Osung Display is a core parts supplier that provides OLED and LCD panels to Osung Electronics…"
The IR officer gave the explanation. Again, nothing that differed much from what he already knew.
They must have done their military service by the book too.
You needed at least one screw-up for things to get interesting. Big corporations really gave you no payoff for touring them. He half-listened with one ear and let it out the other. Then he headed off to fulfill the real purpose of coming here.
"Oh~ classic Korean food. Looks delicious."
"Your tits look more delicious."
"I know."
A stone-pot kimchi stew loaded with chopped green onions as the main, plus a full seven-dish banchan spread. No Korean would turn it down, at minimum.
Yeah, it's good.
Even after already eating one meal, it went down smooth. Maintaining that chest size apparently burned a lot of calories.
Screech—!
Next was Osung Biologics. He half-listened to the IR officer's explanation, then went straight to the cafeteria and got food.
"This one has a brunch vibe."
"You still got room?"
"If I undo one more button."
"Oh."
Golden-toasted bread, sweet pumpkin pie, and avocado topped with salmon salad. A menu women would love.
The female employee ratio looked high here.
They tailored the menu to match. You could glimpse the fact that the company was paying attention to its people.
Screech—!
Dinner was at Osung Electronics. Famous for employee welfare, so talking about the meals was a waste of breath.
"You'd be an idiot to eat out, honestly?"
"Right."
"This is quality you'd pay for at a restaurant…"
A thick pork cutlet sprinkled with fried garlic. Fun to slice up with a knife and eat.
This has to cost a fortune.
Not just ingredients. Professional nutritionists. Menus that never got boring. Fair to assume they were spending more than double a normal cafeteria. And it was worth doing.
"I'd actually want to work at a place like this."
"It's not just any company."
"Well, it is Osung… There's some difference between them, but every single one is excellent."
It gave people one more reason to come to work. Employee loyalty went up.
It's all calculated.
In a capitalist society there were no free lunches. Even the trivial things people walked past without thinking had reasons buried in them.
Had she realized something? Sora's face was shadowed. Probably the side effect of stuffing herself too much.
Screech—!
Last stop. The sun was already dimming. Even so, he'd decided they had to hit this place.
"I'm seriously full now."
"Not undoing one more button?"
"That would just make me a slut."
"At least you know."
The way high schoolers fantasized about university cafeterias, college student Sora could find company meals novel. They really had been good. That was why she'd forced them down. Even Sora, who'd been undoing buttons one by one, seemed to have a stomach that was finally full.
"It's fine."
"My stomach is not fine."
"We're not going to be eating anyway."
"?"
Osung Heavy Industries. The place Sora had said outright she wanted to visit. There was a reason he'd taken the long way around. Choosing this as the final tour stop was—
"Ajumma, pile it on!"
"I already gave you plenty."
"Aigoo! Your hands are tiny~!"
—because it made for comparison. The cafeteria atmosphere alone was different. Looking at what sat on the trays made it hit even harder.
There's a famous saying that's been passed down since the Joseon era.
Even a servant's life is better lived in a rich man's house.