The Housekeeper from the Mart
The next day, Kim Taeyoung was in a foul enough temper that the anger had climbed all the way to the top of his head.
"We're done. You can go, ma'am. I didn't hire a cleaner so I could wait on her hand and foot."
"What? A cleaner? Hey! You finished running your mouth?"
"And if I haven't? Get out of my house before I call the police. This is as far as the courtesy goes."
The problem was the woman the housekeeping agency had sent out. They'd promised their most experienced worker, and her attitude toward an employer was hopeless. She was being paid more than the ordinary hourly rate, so why was she so full of complaints? The house was too big and the cleaning too hard. The furniture was nothing but expensive pieces, so it would be a nightmare to look after. If the place came with a pool, how exactly was she supposed to clean that? The supermarket was too far, and grocery runs would be miserable. On and on it went.
She hadn't even worked four hours, and she already had dozens of grievances. From where Taeyoung stood, he had no reason to indulge a single one of them. He knew perfectly well that a large house was hard to keep. That was why he was spending serious money to have someone else keep it.
The housekeeper's rate was 25,000 won an hour. Shopping and cooking had been added on top of the basic cleaning, and he'd contracted her for eight hours a day, which came to 200,000 won for a single day's work. That was the kind of pay you reserved for genuinely high-end help.
Even so, because he was young, she had tried to take him in hand and shake him. Kim Taeyoung was not a man to sit still for that. The moment he decided he was finished listening to her complaints, he gave her notice.
"This is gabjil! You know that? Throwing your weight around just because you can!"
"We'll see soon enough who was doing the gabjil. Just get out, ma'am. Or should I actually call the police?"
"You wait. I'm reporting you to the Ministry of Employment and Labor!"
"Do whatever you want."
The housekeeper stormed out of his house in a huff, and not long after, a call came in from the owner of the agency.
"Aigoo, I'm so sorry, sir. I heard there was some trouble with the lady we sent you."
"Yes. How could you send someone like that? Didn't I ask you to send me a good one?"
"I'm sorry. The thing is, a lot of the people in this line of work are... forceful. But she really is very good at the job."
"So you're taking that woman's side now?"
"No, no. That isn't what I meant. I'm sorry."
"Enough. What are you going to do about it?"
"I've already put in a call to another lady. She's gentle by nature, so nothing like this will happen again."
And so a second housekeeper arrived. Just as the owner had said, this one had not a single complaint. But her work was every bit as slapdash as her temper was mild. No wonder she had nothing to grumble about. The moment the job got hard, she quit with less than half of it done.
Taeyoung's anger shot straight back up to the ceiling. He sent the second housekeeper packing as well.
"Sir. If you keep this up, it puts us in a difficult position too."
"Difficult? Difficult? The person who's actually in a difficult position right now is me. I trusted you with this, and you're the one who sent me strange people."
"Strange people? These ladies are human beings too, you know. Sir. You do realize what you're doing is gabjil, don't you?"
This motherfucker. His face had looked like trouble from the start, and he had a genuine talent for talking like an asshole.
"You called that gabjil? Sounds like you've never actually had gabjil done to you."
"Ha... There's no talking to you. Under our policy, we can no longer provide dispatch service to clients who pull gabjil. And since you're the one in the wrong, there will of course be no refund. I'm hanging up. You're young—don't treat your elders that way. I heard the whole story."
The piece of shit said his piece and cut the call dead. Kim Taeyoung shouted at the phone.
Gabjil? Fine. Then I'll show you what real gabjil looks like.
"Hello, Counselor. I'm calling because there's something I'd like to ask of you."
He dialed the firm at once—the major firm that had stood guard over his coin wallet.
"Good day, Mr. Kim. A new matter?"
"Yes. Not a case for full representation this time. There's a company I want to sue. You take that sort of work too, don't you?"
"Yes, of course. Legal disputes, certainly, and legal advice as well."
"Good."
Kim Taeyoung told him what had happened that day. The lawyer looked uneasy.
"Hmm. I understand how you feel, but wouldn't this be better left to a government body—the Fair Trade Commission, or a consumer service like Consumer24? We'd be grateful for the retainer, of course, but the fee could end up far larger than the claim itself."
"I know. But this isn't about the money. Those bastards put me in a bad mood. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Ha ha. I see. A mood. Those matter a great deal."
At that, the former-prosecutor lawyer nodded at once. It was a fairly common thing when you dealt with the upper class. Rich people poured hundreds of millions of won into lawsuits for no better reason than that they were annoyed.
"What would you like us to do?"
"I don't care whether we win or lose. Find any pretext you can, sue them, and then sue them again. Just keep making their lives miserable. I'll pay ten million won per complaint."
"A perfect job to hand a new associate. We'll take it. I'll be in touch within a few days."
"Yes. I'm counting on you."
This is how you do gabjil. You son of a bitch. Go on and suffer a little. Setting the revenge in motion improved his mood. It hadn't been carried out yet, but the outcome was already certain. The name of a major firm wasn't something you won at a card table. When those people worked, they worked for real.
"Hah. Guess I should go to the supermarket."
Since the move, the list of things he still needed to buy had no end to it. The big pieces—furniture, appliances—were all in place, but the daily necessities were full of gaps. Spoons, towels, toothpaste, toothbrushes. What he'd brought from the studio was old, and it didn't suit the expensive air of the new house. He might as well replace it while he was at it.
At the big-box mart he skipped the spending spree and loaded the cart with only what he actually needed. He had no sense of how much you'd even have to buy to throw money around on household basics, and he didn't feel any need to find out. He was standing in the checkout line when a commotion rose from the far side of the registers.
"Manager! You said you let me work!"
A foreign woman. Pretty enough, in old, threadbare clothes. From her skin and her accent, she seemed Southeast Asian, and she was holding the hand of a little girl of about five. She was tearing into a male employee who looked like a manager.
"That was for when you didn't have the kid with you. What workplace on earth lets you work with a child beside you?"
"I told you! I said I have a child! You still said you let me work!"
"Haah. That didn't mean bring the child to the job."
"No! I have to work. I have to make money. We hungry!"
"So leave the kid somewhere else and come back. Then you can work."
"How I leave her! No place will take my child! It cost money! I have no money!"
The sight of a foreigner arguing drew the eyes of every customer nearby. The manager put on an awkward smile and tried to move the scene along.
"Don't do this here. Let's go to the break room and talk. We can go over it again there."
"No! Manager just gonna say no again, I know it! Tell me here! Say I can work!"
The foreign mother who wanted the job looked desperately earnest. And a desperate person, as a rule, does more than their share wherever they land. Taeyoung scratched his chin and turned it over. Could he trust that woman?
Life had already taught him that poor people were not necessarily good people. Today had proved it all over again. Plenty of them, simply because they'd lived hard and uneducated and poor, inflated every harm done to them and thought nothing of the harm they did to others.
The foreign woman making a scene was poor too. She'd said so herself. But she looked desperate. Desperate like that—wouldn't it be all right to be taken in once? And she was pretty, besides. A pretty housekeeper in her twenties was obviously better than some auntie in her fifties or sixties.
Kim Taeyoung walked up to the two of them.
"Excuse me. You need a job?"
Both of them turned to look at him.
"Manager? You know this person?"
"I... who are you...?"
"Who do you think? A customer. More to the point—you. Can you clean and cook? I'm looking for a housekeeper. The house is on the large side. You can bring the kid. But you have to be able to cook Korean food. Can you?"
"Yes! I can! I will do it!"
The foreign woman's face lit up. The mart manager eyed Taeyoung with open suspicion, but the suspicion couldn't last. Whatever else was true, the woman herself was delighted to have found work.
"You really can cook Korean food?"
"Yes! I worked in Korean restaurant. Kimchi stew, steamed egg, seaweed soup, spicy chicken stew. I can make all."
Oh. She could cook more than he'd expected. Good. She passed. Let's try her out. Even so, he ought to cover himself.
"Then how about you just come in for today? I'll pay a proper hourly rate. If I like the work, you stay on. If not, that's the end of it."
"Okay! I will do it! But how much is the hourly?"
"Twenty thousand an hour. Twenty-five if you do the shopping too."
Maybe the rate was too high. The foreign mother drew back, defensive, as if she thought he meant to put her to some other kind of work.
"I can see what you're thinking, and it isn't that, so don't worry. I'm genuinely desperate. I've already fired two housekeepers today for not doing the job right. I'm paying a lot, which means you'll have to work hard. Otherwise I'll cut you loose without a second thought."
"Mm... it really not strange work?"
"I've got plenty of women. I'm not hard up enough to lay a hand on a married woman with a kid."
"Okay. I understand. I will trust you."
"What's your name?"
"Salli Ramos. Please call me Salli. My daughter name is Jennifer Ramos."
"I'm Kim Taeyoung. Let's see how this goes."
"Yes! Boss!"
By chance, he'd acquired a housekeeper with a child in tow. It was only a one-day contract for now, but if she worked hard and worked well, he might keep her on. Having to bring the child along was no great problem for him. The girl seemed quiet, unlikely to cause any trouble, and if she did, he could simply hold Salli responsible.