Chapter 26: The Grace of the Double-Double Burger
Chapter 26: The Grace of the Double-Double Burger
I'm excited to go to work.
In the past, I just liked getting a steady paycheck.
*‘Having money really puts your mind at ease.’*
I went to the office and got to work.
I was wrapping up the tasks I’d been in charge of before resigning.
I wanted to repay Team Leader An for his kindness and finish things on a good note.
Most importantly, there were things I needed to take care of, so I reviewed records and data from several hospitals and submitted a few requests to the support team.
"I'll have it done before two."
"Thanks, Bo-kyung."
"You're welcome."
The female employees in the support team were friendly, though a little awkward, perhaps because of my connection to Han Chae-won.
The company wasn't that big, so I ran into Lee Min-young from the secretary's office in the hallway.
"Assistant Manager Kim!"
"How have you been, Min-young?"
"Good!"
This was the same Lee Min-young who had mentioned in the group chat that I’d once offered to buy her a meal.
She was wearing a white blouse and a form-fitting skirt.
"About that meal..."
"I'm sorry, I'm a bit busy. Could we just forget about the meal?"
"...?"
Lee Min-young gave a slight bow, then hurried away with her documents.
*‘Did I just get rejected?’*
It seemed the rumors Na Sang-guk had spread were quite potent.
She'd mentioned the meal in the group chat. I was just going to have lunch with her to avoid any awkwardness.
Maybe this was just the treatment I should expect as a divorced man, but it left a strangely unpleasant feeling.
Around eleven, I went up to the rooftop for a short break with some colleagues.
"Ugh, when is this housing bubble going to pop?"
"Tell me about it. Seeing these housing prices climb is just depressing for a salaried worker."
"Jong-cheol, you said you live in Jamsil, right?"
"Yeah, but it's my parents' house. I don't know if I'll ever be able to move out. Seeing a 30-pyeong apartment go for 1.4 billion won is just insane."
The employees chatted about real estate over coffee.
Buying a home in Seoul would take decades, even if you saved 20 million won a year.
"Shin. Where did you say you live?"
Kim Sang-gi asked me.
Just a few months ago, I would have been embarrassed to say I lived in a semi-basement.
They say poverty isn't shameful, just inconvenient, but that's not how reality works.
There were many times I wanted to hide, ashamed of people knowing I was poor.
"I moved near the office recently."
"A studio? Or an officetel?"
"An apartment."
"Ooh."
"Assistant Manager Kim, a true bourgeois."
The new hires and my subordinates were impressed at the mention of an apartment.
I said, as if it were no big deal.
"It's just a rental."
"Ah, a rental."
"They say it's easy to get a loan for the deposit these days."
Sipping coffee and making small talk, I wondered if this was the healing part of office life.
The weather slowly warming, the brief moments of peace snatched from a busy workday.
*'I guess I can't join in on conversations about money troubles anymore.'*
The work culture felt a bit different from the US.
In Silicon Valley, there were a lot of quiet nerds.
The type who were incredibly intelligent but socially inept or completely uninterested in social life.
I felt that Oh Myeong-woo, being close to a nerd himself, had adapted well in the States.
When dealing with nerds, you could just talk to them honestly without overthinking things.
They were brilliant geniuses, so I learned a lot just by talking with them.
They were the kind of people who could argue fiercely one moment and be laughing over pizza and burgers the next.
With my colleagues here, it felt more like navigating a social life, but it was familiar and comfortable.
"Hey, Assistant Manager Kim. There you are."
Na Sang-guk walked over, smoking a cigarette.
He must have been working off-site yesterday; this was the first I'd seen of him since our little argument about Ripple in the group chat.
"It's been a while, Assistant Manager Na."
"Heard you went to the US for vacation. Used up all your annual leave for the year, I hear. How great was it that you stayed for so long?"
Why was he so interested in my affairs?
Then again, this was just his personality.
The number of hurtful things he'd said over the past four years was staggering.
"The weather in California was just nice."
"Right. Clean air, warm."
"You must have been to the US too, Assistant Manager Na."
"Huh? No. I've just heard about it. Thinking of going next year."
"..."
He'd never been to the US, so there wasn't much else to say.
"Well, we'll be heading back to work."
Kim Sang-gi and the other employees finished their coffee and left the rooftop.
Once we were alone, Na Sang-guk asked in a low voice.
"By the way, if you kept investing in crypto, you must have lost a lot by now, right?"
Does he start a rumor first and then check if it's true?
To think there are only three people I dislike in this whole company.
Isn't that a pretty good workplace?
*‘Should I just buy this company?’*
It was a company for distributing and selling a German corporation's medical devices in Korea, so it would be hard to buy, and useless even if I did.
*‘Even if I’m quitting, I should pay him back for what he’s done.’*
First, I decided to feed him a little poison.
"I was trying to keep this a secret. Please, keep this just between us, Assistant Manager Na."
"Yeah, go on. You know I'm tight-lipped. I won't tell a soul."
Usually, the people who say that are the ones who spread rumors the most diligently.
"Don't tell anyone. I made close to 10 billion won, but now I only have 300 million left."
"300 million?"
"Yes. I dabbled in a few things. Lost a lot."
"I see. Oof. That's too bad. I heard some altcoins dropped by 98%."
"Yes, something like that."
"If you'd stuck to Bitcoin, that wouldn't have happened."
Why was Na Sang-guk's mouth brimming with a smile as he offered his condolences?
I was certain the rumor would spread throughout the company by the end of the day.
I had no intention of pretending to be poor anymore.
Being a billionaire with hundreds of billions might get tiring in many ways, but a fortune of tens of billions? That should be fine.
* * *
"Here are the ledgers you requested, Assistant Manager Kim."
"Thank you."
I got the data I'd requested from the support team.
Back at Arcor, there was something I had to do before I resigned.
I reviewed the transaction histories with our strategic partner companies.
It wasn't classified information, just records of purchases for various items, including eye drops, from specific suppliers.
Since both our company and theirs were unlisted, I could check the transaction volume and quality through internal documents.
*‘The transaction amount has steadily increased every year, and they’re handling more items. They’ve never missed a deadline. This was a solid company, alright.’*
Since Arcor was a world-class company in the ophthalmology field, the records were all the more credible.
After copying and gathering a few documents, I spoke to Team Leader An.
"I need to go on a business trip to Su Eye Clinic in Changwon."
"A business trip? At this hour?"
"Yes. I plan to take the train."
It was just after lunch.
Once I finished my work in Changwon, I would have to return to Seoul immediately to make it to work on Friday.
"What's it about? We could just send an employee from the Gyeongnam region."
"It's a place I visited a few times when I was new. I thought I'd go say my final goodbyes."
"Ah. Then you should."
The Rolex, my reserve currency.
Team Leader An and I had always had a good relationship, so he readily gave his permission.
I felt he would have helped even if I told him the real reason I needed to go, but since it was related to an investment, I couldn't bring it up so rashly.
"Travel safe. You can come in a little late tomorrow."
"Yes, sir, Team Leader!"
Compared to taking an overnight train in the US, a round trip to the provinces on the KTX was nothing.
* * *
I went to Seoul Station and boarded the KTX, taking a first-class single seat.
I passed the time leisurely, looking at my phone.
- Ellie: I got the job at JPMorgan! I start in ten days.
- Kim Shin: Congratulations.
I knew she'd find a job easily.
- Ellie: I'm trying to figure out what to do for the next ten days! I want to go on a trip.
- Kim Shin: You liked Miami, didn't you?
Miami really was a paradise.
The weather and scenery were great, but it was also a place where beautiful women from all over the world, especially from Eastern Europe, gathered.
There were parties and shows every night, and even shoots for famous magazines and broadcasts.
If Ellie hadn't been there, I might have been lost in a daze, just watching the models.
It was a city where you couldn't be bored, even if you were alone on the street.
- Ellie: I know, right? Miami was such a great place for men, wasn't it?
- Kim Shin: Ahem.
- Ellie: I'm going to travel somewhere much better than Miami!
- Kim Shin: Okay, I get it.
After a light exchange with Ellie, I noticed another message had come in.
- Chris: Shin. There's a very attractive company over here looking for investment. I told the CEO about you, and he's very interested.
Chris, the CEO of the startup Aurora, was a friendly guy.
He consistently kept me updated via text or phone about various companies he knew in Silicon Valley.
Said he was repaying the favor for the Double-Double burger.
- Kim Shin: What company is it?
- Chris: It's a company developing hydrogen-electric trucks. The name is Nikola. Seems like they're modeling themselves after Tesla, but don't you get the feeling it could be something big?
- Chris: The prototype has been revealed. And it looks like they're collaborating with some battery companies.
The founders of Silicon Valley.
Talking with them, I was reminded how fortunate I was to be able to look up information whenever I needed.
*‘The logistics market is enormous.’*
In the United States, trucks transported over 70% of all freight.
As of 2016, that was a $670 billion market.
Nikola had developed a hydrogen fuel cell for trucks and had recently garnered a lot of attention by revealing the Nikola One.
They didn't have a factory or even a finalized production plan, but they were already taking pre-orders from customers.
- Kim Shin: So they're not selling on the market like Tesla?
- Chris: Nope. If they were, wouldn't the investment amount have jumped 30-fold?
- Chris: I don't know the details myself, but judging by the reaction in Silicon Valley, it seems to have potential. I'm just making the introduction, so you can judge for yourself and decide.
I decided to look into Nikola a bit more and get their promotional materials separately.
*‘I’m planting seeds. But I can’t expect every seed to sprout.’*
Investing is buying an opportunity.
Through that opportunity, the company, or I, could take a leap forward.
Even if several fail, I just need one to succeed.
Venture capital firms in Silicon Valley often provide direct help, as they have the infrastructure for tech development, sales, and marketing.
In my case, I was just investing capital based on potential, so I had to trust the founders' reputations and their potential.
*‘Accepting the possibility of failure makes things much more comfortable.’*
Perhaps because I'd adopted this mindset of sowing seeds, investment proposals for startups kept coming in.
I also discussed investments with Oh Myeong-woo.
- Oh Myeong-woo: Prolis? Absolutely not that company.
- Kim Shin: Why?
- Oh Myeong-woo: The CEO of this company is a former quarterback.
- Kim Shin: American football? Is that a problem for an investment?
- Oh Myeong-woo: There's a rumor he changes girlfriends frequently. For managing a company, that is a very serious and unfortunate thing.