Side Story: Career Experience Field Trip
Side Story: Career Experience Field Trip
"Hello~"
The door opened with a jingling bell sound.
For the first time in a while, I had come in to work at the tempura shop.
Between being hospitalized and self-quarantining, I hadn't been able to come in for two weeks.
The staff were probably sitting on a pile of complaints, so I stopped by the shop to hand out bonuses and get some work done after so long away.
The moment I opened the door and stepped inside, everyone from the kitchen staff to the servers out on the floor came out to greet me.
For the record, I didn't tell them to do this — they were just so well-trained that they did it on their own without being asked.
"Oh! Boss! Are you feeling better now?"
"I'm fine. Nothing unusual happened while I was gone, right?"
In the past, there were people who caused a ruckus in the shop.
I don't know why exactly....
I sued every single one of them and sent them off to prison.
There have been two so far, and both received jail sentences, so they're probably locked up right now.
"No. Nothing unusual happened. It's just, the reservation site server we talked about before..."
"Hmm... rather than running a private server, I think it'd be better to use Naver's reservation site."
Amazon's servers were far too high-end for our needs.
When I compared our site's monthly traffic and usage fees, it looked like 10% of the shop's revenue would get eaten up just by site operating costs.
And since we wouldn't have to manage it ourselves, the staff would have an easier time too.
Since it's come to this, let's switch over quickly.
We decided to leave the site itself as is and put up a notice.
Starting next month, reservations wouldn't be taken through the homepage but through Naver's reservation site instead.
The people making reservations would find it more convenient too.
Rather than a site that keeps crashing, Naver with its own data centers would be far more reliable.
"Seo-yeong, is the work manageable?"
"Yeah. The seniors are all really good to me. It's nice."
"Good, good. If anything's tough, don't hesitate to tell me."
I had no intention of playing favorites with my little sister at the shop, but I stroked her head and told her to speak up if anything was troubling her.
In the past, she used to resist it, saying she wasn't a little kid anymore, but after I kept patting her head every time, she'd given up and now just stayed still.
Seo-yeong was a kid who'd made up her mind to earn money instead of going to university.
So later on, I planned to set her up with whatever type of business she wanted.
Is she thinking of opening a café after all?
Or something like a convenience store would be fine too.
But come to think of it, if she went with a convenience store, there wouldn't really be a way for me to help out.
Back when it was Hojun's center, I'd helped him out in truly spectacular fashion.
"Right. Seo-yeong."
"Hm?"
"Arini's been kicking up a fuss lately saying she hasn't seen her Seo-yeong unnie, so stop by the house sometime before you head home."
"Got it. Our Tiny is even looking for her aunt now~"
Still, she must have been in a good mood, because Seo-yeong grinned brightly and headed into the back kitchen.
Our Arini really was loved by her aunts and younger uncles.
*
"Seong-hwan-ssi, it's really been such a long time."
"Welcome."
Some regulars who came often spotted me standing in the dining area for the first time in a while and greeted me.
Even though I was standing in front of hot oil, I could manage a greeting easily enough, so I smiled and returned their hellos.
The person in front of me was a Qtuber who reviewed Japanese restaurants.
Seeing as she wasn't filming, she must have just come in for a meal.
As customers trickled in one by one, the servers started handing out the menus.
On it were listed the course types, alcohol selections, and corkage fees.
Our shop's corkage fee was 40,000 won for Japanese sake and 60,000 won for whiskey.
White wine was 20,000 won, and red wine was prohibited from being brought in.
Because we used hinoki tables, if red wine got spilled or knocked over, it would be an absolute disaster.
So regrettably, we had a ban on bringing in red wine.
Most customers who came to our shop chose Course A.
Almost no one picked Course B, so I once asked our regulars why they didn't choose it...
"Because of the composition. Honestly, I feel like Course A is about 5% more advantageous."
was the answer I got.
Course A had one extra cuttlefish, and instead of an extra shrimp, it included eel.
Course B, on the other hand, had three shrimp and no cuttlefish, but the variety of vegetable tempura, like oyster mushrooms and sweet pumpkin, increased quite a bit.
The customers coming to our shop probably preferred eel over vegetables, I supposed.
Since that's the case, maybe I should try revamping the menu with a new course that includes both cuttlefish and eel.
"Well... Course A is what sells well, so isn't that fine?"
"Hmm... but the reason we made Course B in the first place was for diversification, you know..."
Later, after all the staff had gone home, I'd have to stop by the mart, buy some ingredients, and do a bit of research.
"Boss. Fry up one sirloin for me."
"Yep."
I was always grateful to this customer for buying a lot.
So I tended to give her extra-large portions every time.
The sirloin she was talking about was Ibérico pork sirloin.
It was a dish similar to tangsuyuk, where the pork was battered in flour and deep-fried.
The difference, though, was that you ate it with pineapple.
Pineapple goes well on pizza, and it goes well with tangsuyuk too... heh heh....
So that's why they put pineapple in tangsuyuk sauce~ it all made sense now, you know?
"Yikes... don't tell me you actually like pineapple on pizza?"
"Do you dislike it, ma'am?"
"Pineapple on pizza. Pineapple should be eaten cold!"
"No way. Pineapple is sweeter when it's hot."
"Sweet doesn't mean it tastes good! This won't do. I'm going to have to spread the word."
"Uh-oh...."
Was that really something worth spreading rumors about?
It was just a difference in personal taste!
*
"Seong-hwan-ssi. What on earth did you do to get this many pineapples sent as gifts?"
"Um... I wouldn't know."
And the next day.
The Director had called me in, and when I arrived at work for the first time in a while, I was flustered to see pineapples piled up all over the CEO's office.
All of these were gifts sent by fans from outside, apparently.
Still, I was relieved that no weird labels like "traitor" or anything like that had surfaced.
"But what should we do with all of this?"
"Hmm... let's distribute it all to the staff. They sent this much in the first place precisely so we'd do that, after all."
"Understood... Seong-hwan-ssi, take a few home with you too."
"Of course I will."
I'd have to put up a tutorial on how to bake pizza with delicious pineapple.
Or if not that, I'd put up a lecture on how pineapple works as a meat tenderizer.
Humming to myself, I packed the pineapples into my bag.
The bag was small, so only two fit, and since it wouldn't close, I had no choice but to secure it with the straps.
"Are there any that are already sliced?"
"There are, actually."
"Then I'll take one of those too."
Pineapples were a hassle to process, so it was easier to just buy the pre-sliced ones.
So, next time you send some, I'd really appreciate it if you sent the sliced kind instead of whole fresh fruit!
"Pfft... Seong-hwan-ssi, do you know you look incredibly cute right now?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Wondering what she was laughing about, I turned my head and looked around.
No matter how I looked, I couldn't figure out what was funny, so I tilted my head in confusion.
"With the pineapples poking out of your bag and you wearing the backpack... you look unbelievably cute."
She said something similar to what A-ra Noona always said.
I remembered Noona saying that when I wore a backpack, I looked cute, like a kindergartner wearing a kindergarten bag.
Was it really that much?
Had the time finally come for me to stop wearing backpacks?
"Anyway, I'll be going now."
"Take care, then~ You know you have a schedule next week, right? The new expansion pack."
"I know~"
A new expansion pack.
Our Director had turned the cards she'd been making as a hobby into a full-fledged battle game.
People who wanted to collect could just collect, and people who wanted to play the battle game could play the battle game.
It wasn't Yu-Gi-Oh! or anything, but still.
***
"Seong-hwan-a. Arini's kindergarten is doing something called a parents' job experience, apparently?"
"Ah... I remember doing something similar back in elementary school."
It was the kind of thing where they invited the children's parents as one-day teachers and the kids learned about what those jobs entailed.
My mother had come and explained in detail what an orphanage was before she left.
Not only that, but my friends' parents had come from all sorts of professions too.
Doctors, police officers, prison guards, artists, and so on.
But now, it seemed I might get to have that kind of experience as a parent myself.
It made my heart flutter a little.
"Will you be going, Noona?"
"I'll be going, but the teachers seemed to think it would be nice if you joined in too, Seong-hwan-a."
"Ah. Both of us?"
"Yeah."
A-ra Noona was a former idol and currently an entertainment broadcast celebrity.
I was a Qtube creator.
It was a job that put you in front of the public, so I was used to it, but it was generally uncommon for people to have someone with that kind of job right beside them in daily life.
If the teachers wanted to teach the kids a variety of things, I thought it was a reasonable request to make.
"I'm fine with it. It's only a day, anyway."
"It's only a day for me too, so I'm fine with it. So should I tell them we'll both do it?"
"Yes. But instead of calling me, they called you, Noona."
"They called me because they thought you might be shy about it."
Tch....
I was a little shy about it, admittedly.
So that's why they called A-ra Noona.
That made sense.
"I wonder what kinds of parents will be coming for the other kids."
"There are plenty of moms and dads who are judges, prosecutors, or presidents of mid-sized companies, right? They'll probably come from that sort of category, don't you think?"
The kindergarten Arini attended was operated by the apartment complex.
So only kids living in our apartment building could attend.
And our apartment complex wasn't exactly some cheap building, was it?
Perhaps because it was an apartment where people with commensurately high incomes lived, the other kids' parents also tended to be incredibly distinguished.