The Senior Who Came Back
It wasn't over.
The Inform — the shift handover — was done, and I had already left the meeting room. I made it back to the office and was packing up to head home when someone called my name.
"Seokhyeon?"
An unfamiliar voice. I looked up, and there stood Deputy Department Head Kim Soonhyeop, the manager who ran the part I belonged to.
"Deputy Department Head, sir! Hello!"
I shot to my feet and bowed.
"Oh, yeah, yeah. Sit. Sit."
He caught my shoulder himself and pressed me back down into the chair. What was this, all of a sudden? Had I done something wrong?
"Mind opening an email for me real quick?"
"…? Yes, sir."
I had no idea what this was about, but I did as I was told. I logged into the company system and opened the inbox, and there it was — one unread message under Senior Woohyeon's name.
The timestamp said it had been sent just now.
"This one, sir?"
"Yeah. Open that."
I clicked without another word. After a brief load, the mail opened.
The message was simple. The fault on WN-15 had been cleared. The one who cleared it was Lee Seokhyeon, and the approach had been such and such. That was all of it.
But why this?
Why had the deputy come all the way over to look through an email with me?
"So. It says here you handled WN-15, Seokhyeon?"
"Yes, sir. That's right."
"Mm. We've got to report the cause of the issue upstairs. For something like this, better if the person who actually fixed it does the talking, don't you think?"
Only then did I understand why he had come looking for me.
A report.
I nodded without hesitation.
"Yes, sir. I'll prepare it and present."
This was a good chance — a chance to stamp my name onto the management line. Senior Woohyeon had known that. It was why he had gone out of his way to write my name into the mail.
I should have sent it myself.
If I had written up the corrective action and shared it with the department first, that would have been better. I had the unpleasant feeling I had dumped extra work on Senior Woohyeon for nothing. Either way, I would need to organize the action items cleanly one more time and get ready to report. For now, though, I was heading home—
"Right. You were on the day shift, weren't you? Got any plans after this?"
Sorry? Why the sudden question?
"No, sir."
But seriously, why?
"Then we've got a meeting starting any minute. Think you can sit in?"
"…Of course!"
Good lord. So it wasn't prepare a report and give it later. It was give it now.
I couldn't very well say no. I put on a bright smile and nodded. That half-second of hesitation — he couldn't have caught it. Right?
The Red Conference Room.
The colors didn't actually mean anything about how a room was used. Even so, walking into the Red Conference Room with an open issue hanging over us felt different.
Feels like an emergency meeting.
I followed the deputy inside and bowed at once.
"Good evening."
Several people were already there. Other managers, other deputy department heads. And Department Head Jo Heesang, who oversaw the whole of Line 1 Deposition. This was not a room where you could keep your head up.
"Department Head. I've brought the engineer in charge."
"Ah. Good. Have a seat."
Unbelievable. Somewhere along the way, I had become the engineer responsible for WN-15.
I lowered myself into a chair, hesitant, and the department head spoke to me at once.
"Engineer Lee Seokhyeon?"
"Yes, Department Head."
"What's said in this meeting will be reported up to the team leader, so explain it clearly. How you resolved it."
"Yes, sir. Understood."
I nodded as if I were perfectly calm. I was anything but. A team leader — at another company, that was executive-director level — and a one-month rookie was about to give the report that man would hear. Haha. I was finished.
Or was I?
There was a saying about a blessing in disguise. Think about it: wasn't this also a crucial chance to put my name in front of the team leader? The moment I framed it that way, the will to do it well came up instead. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anxious. But the drive outran the nerves.
I can do this.
I would show them I could.
Up on the conference-room projector, a slide held a photo of WN-15 and the data from the lots that had run. Then a new window opened.
Senior Woohyeon's email.
"I've been told WN-15 is back up. Walk us through it once more, from the cause through the corrective action. Engineer Lee."
The department head gave me the opening. I nodded and got to my feet. My heart was hammering. Every eye in the room was on me.
"I'll explain the corrective action taken on WN-15. First, the reason the thickness on the running lots came out low…"
A temperature controller that had picked up a twenty-degree offset during boot, and because of it, the data on the lots we had run had come in low. I gave them almost exactly the Inform I had delivered in the meeting room before coming back to the office. Most of the people in the room nodded as if they understood.
"Good. You handled it well. But why couldn't we have stopped this beforehand?"
The department head's question. Why had the accident happened? Was there no way to prevent it? That was what he was asking.
It happened out of nowhere. That's why it's an accident…
Otherwise, why call it an accident at all? I couldn't say that out loud. And more than that — this particular accident could have been prevented.
"…The established process is to check the dummy data once a tool has finished booting."
"So this time, that check wasn't done?"
I nodded.
"That's correct."
"…A human miss, then."
Human miss. An accident that originates with a person. In a case like that, the one responsible might as well consider their life at the company tangled. And even without my saying so, my mentor, Oh Dongcheol, had already wrecked his attendance by not showing up today. I figured he would quit on his own before long.
"Understood. Thank you for the work. I'll report it to the team leader as it stands."
And with that, the meeting was over. The aftertaste was bitter.
Time passed. Not much of it, before my mentor really did turn in his resignation.
"I don't think the work suits me."
"Yeah. Dongcheol. You worked hard."
The deputy who took the letter patted his shoulder and offered what comfort he could. My mentor went straight to his desk and started clearing it out. I walked over and bowed.
"Thank you for everything."
"…You don't have a shred of pride?"
"Sir?"
"I treated you like that. Why come over and say goodbye?"
Well. That was the kind of person he was. Even so, he was my mentor and I was his junior, in name if nothing else. An ending ought to be clean. I was still thinking that when he spoke.
"Sir?"
"For the way I treated you all this time. I'm sorry. I was afraid you'd take my place. You're too good at the job."
"Ah… yes, sir."
Fear didn't make that behavior all right. But it was already in the past, and he had apologized. I nodded.
"I'm only saying it because I don't have to worry about that anymore. Anyway. I'm sorry. When Yeongseok gets back, the two of you work well together. He's a good hyeong."
He left those words behind and walked out. I saw him off from the office, then went back to my own desk and sat down.
Tomorrow it'll be two of us again.
Tomorrow, Senior Yeongseok would return. I hadn't seen him once since I joined.
Did they say it was a honeymoon?
He had tacked the ten-year long-service leave onto it and taken nearly a month. He had been off from the day I started, which meant he was coming back tomorrow.
I hope he's a good person.
And I was exactly right.
I finished the day's work without incident, and the next morning—
I'm dying.
Five-ten in the morning. I dragged my exhausted body into the office at that brutal hour, sat down as usual, and was checking the Inform when someone spoke to me.
"Hey. You Seokhyeon?"
I bowed at once. In this office, nobody had fewer years in than I did.
"Good morning, sir! …Uh, sorry, but who might you—"
A face I had never seen. A month of coming and going through this office, and I had never once learned it. Then a thought cut through.
"Are you… Senior Yeongseok?"
"Oh? How'd you know?"
Of course. It was Senior Kim Yeongseok, the man due in today. He turned that bright, easy grin on me.
"Dongcheol quit, so you must've had a rough time on your own. Let's do good work together from here."
He offered his hand. I smiled and took it in both of mine.
"Yes, sir! I'll be in your care, Senior."
Something about him felt right.
"Ah, it's almost time for the Inform. Let's head in, Seokhyeon."
"Yes, sir."
We grabbed the Inform notes and made for the meeting room. The two seniors from the previous shift were already seated — Senior Hyeongjun and Senior Hyeonseong.
"Oh, Hyeong Yeongseok, you're back?"
"Yeah, Hyeonseong. Been a while."
"Hyeong, I was about to forget your face."
"Ha. Good to see you too, Hyeongjun."
The seniors unwound a reunion that had been a long time coming. The chatter before the Inform ran longer than any I had sat through yet.
Because the people are different?
Maybe the small talk had always been short because I had only ever been in there with my old mentor. Anyway.
"Then I'll give the Inform."
The handover began. Tools that had thrown errors. Scheduled PM — preventive maintenance. Equipment that was down. More work than I had expected.
Going to be a little busy, isn't it?
Once the Inform on the various tools was finished, the two seniors left the meeting room to clock out.
"Senior, I'll start the dailies, then."
I stood first. I felt easier getting the dailies out of the way before the real work began.
"Oh, sure. I'll come with you."
"…Sir?"
Wait. He was going to do the dailies… with me?
"What? Something wrong? You feeling sick?"
"No — no, sir. Then I'll start from the outside and work my way around."
"Then I'll take the inside. Meet me at WN-8."
"…Yes, sir."
Ah.
I was not someone who cried easily. And yet, for no good reason, I thought I might. A senior who would run the dailies with me. Even granting they didn't take all that long, the dailies were full of tedious little pieces. You were doing the same motions every single day; of course they grated. Which was why my old mentor had left every last one of them to me. And yet—
A ten-year veteran, checking the dailies alongside me.
He really did seem like a good person.
The dailies ended, and then—
"Seokhyeon. Come with me a minute?"
"Yes, sir."
I followed where Senior Yeongseok led. We stopped in front of WN-4, a tool sitting in error.
"This error here — what it is…"
Wait. Was he explaining the error to me, right now?
Ha.
Was I allowed this kind of luxury? My old mentor had never walked me through these one by one, so every time I had to dig the troubleshooting section out of the manual myself. I wouldn't have to do that anymore.
"Ah — you already know this one?"
"I've read it in the manual, but I've never actually fixed it."
"All right. Then I'll show you."
Ah. I was going to cry. A man is only supposed to cry three times in his life. Today, I would go ahead and spend the second.