The Japanese Lady Nishio Ayaka (1)
The Accounting Manager looked Kim Chirok up and down.
He was a young, handsome man who seemed out of place at a small company like this. Perhaps because he'd been steeped in conglomerate life, his skin was clear and well-kept — and maybe that was why the Accounting Manager seemed to be smiling, just a little.
Kim Chirok finished greeting the Managing Director and turned to leave when the older man spoke up.
"You're not a credit delinquent, I trust?"
"No, sir. I'm not."
"Very well. Bring the papers and come in before work tomorrow."
Kim Chirok went over to the Accounting Manager's desk. She handed him a single sheet — an employment contract form. Turnover among the production workers here was apparently so frequent that they already had the contracts printed out from Word.
He left the factory.
He was glad the job had come through so quickly. There had been none of that usual talk about texting him later with a hiring decision. Just prepare a few simple documents and come in tomorrow.
The Managing Director was an older man; he didn't seem the type to put people through the wringer. The Accounting Manager, already in her mid-forties, gave the impression of someone who'd been at the company a long time. If she'd come straight from a commercial high school, she would have been working here for over twenty years — a veteran at her job, no question.
I need to figure out the bus route from downtown Hyangnam-eup to here.
So Kim Chirok walked out onto the two-lane road and waited at the bus stop.
Every bus that stops here should go into town, right?
All the amenities were in downtown Hyangnam-eup. And it was from the town center that you could catch the express bus to Sadang Station in Seoul.
He boarded a village bus heading into Hyangnam-eup. When he asked the driver about the interval, the answer was thirty minutes. Miss this one, and you'd wait half an hour for the next.
He got off in downtown Hyangnam-eup and started looking at studio apartments. With so many factories in the area, there was no shortage of rooms, and the prices didn't seem too steep. He signed a lease on a studio with a two-million-won deposit and a monthly rent of three hundred thousand won.
Then he headed back to Seoul.
At home, he printed out a copy of his resident registration and a copy of his bankbook, and filled out the employment contract. He figured he ought to tell his mother he was going down to Hyangnam-eup.
"Mom. I've decided to go work at a small company in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province."
"What?"
"The pay's good at a conglomerate, but there's no future in it. If we want to buy an apartment and actually get rich, I think it's better to go to a small company and learn how the work is done. So I went and did it."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
His mother was stunned.
"Mom, you trust me, right?"
"Of course I do. But quitting a company that big!"
"Just take it as it is. It's a rubber factory in Hwaseong, and the work is manageable. If you want to understand how a company actually runs, a small business is better than a conglomerate. It's better if I ever want to start my own."
His mother sat there with her mouth open, apparently at a loss for words.
"Don't tell me... you... you didn't get into some kind of trouble at the company, did you? Lately we've been getting a lot of strange mail from the prosecutor's office and the courts."
"Ah, that's nothing. There's a lawsuit pending, but it's no big deal. You've always trusted me — just trust me a little longer and wait."
"Aigoo. I just don't know anymore. But I'm worried that going to a small company will make it harder for you to get married."
"Don't worry about that. And the rubber factory I'm going to is in Hyangnam-eup, Hwaseong. You can get there in no time on the bus from Sadang Station."
"So you'll be commuting from here?"
"No. It's more convenient to live in Hyangnam-eup than commute from Seoul, so I got a room. Starting tomorrow I'll stay down there and come up on weekends."
"Still, a conglomerate would be better... Should I go see the chairman of H Group? Ask him to keep you on?"
"What are you talking about? Are you trying to ruin your son's future?"
When Kim Chirok's voice rose, his mother flinched. She didn't nag him any further. But her face looked dark.
"Don't worry. I'll learn the ropes at a small company and start one of my own!"
The next day, Kim Chirok headed down to Hyangnam-eup before dawn.
He stopped by Hyangnam Tech and submitted the documents to the Managing Director. After looking them over, the Managing Director spoke.
"You're fine in every other way, but the trouble is you're too young and too good-looking."
Kim Chirok gave a bitter smile. It was the first company he'd ever seen where being young and handsome was a liability.
"Isn't being young a good thing?"
"If you're young and good-looking, there's a high chance you'll jump to another company before long. You're not going to leave, are you?"
"No, sir. I'll stay here for a long time."
The words just until the sexual harassment trial is over nearly slipped out of his throat.
The Managing Director suggested they go pay their respects to the President. Kim Chirok followed him to the president's office. The President was reading a newspaper — and he truly did look old. Late sixties, by the look of him. Old enough to be Kim Chirok's father.
The Managing Director smiled as he spoke.
"This young man will be assisting with general affairs starting today."
The President looked up.
"How old are you?"
When Kim Chirok gave his age, the President muttered as if to himself.
"Same age as my own boy, it seems. The company's struggling right now, but work hard. Once business picks up, I'll raise your pay."
"I will, sir."
The Managing Director assigned him a desk — right next to the Accounting Manager. She even had an auxiliary table; Kim Chirok had nothing of the sort. He figured the first thing he ought to do was butter her up.
"I'll be in your care, Manager."
"Have you done payroll or the four major social insurances before?"
"I worked in general affairs, but a colleague at the next desk handled that. If you just show me the ropes, I can get started right away."
"You've done a lot of Excel work, I assume?"
"Yes."
"Then please put together this month's payroll ledger. You'll need to do it carefully based on the timesheets that come up from the floor. Hourly wage times hours worked. For night-shift allowances, double that."
"Understood."
"Though even the night-shift allowance varies a bit depending on the hours. Holiday hourly rates are different too. There's a table up there — refer to that."
"Understood."
"Now that you're here, you should greet the staff. Follow me."
The Accounting Manager introduced him around. The two men in the office were the sales team, she said, and one more was logistics. All of them were men in their fifties. Kim Chirok bowed his head in greeting, as befit a new hire. Then he went downstairs with the Accounting Manager and greeted the Plant Manager and the quality control staff as well.
Among the quality team employees was a young man around Kim Chirok's age.
The Accounting Manager took him to the production building, where the machinery was, and introduced him to the Production Department Head — who was also an older man. The Production Department Head called over the Production Manager and told him to introduce the foremen of each work crew.
And so Kim Chirok followed the Production Manager around, touring the shop floor — the roller room, the injection molding room, the extrusion room, the cutting room, the assembly room, and more. Among the workers were middle-aged women on the production line, but there were plenty of foreigners as well. The Production Manager introduced him to everyone from the foremen on down.
Kim Chirok made a full circuit of the factory floor and came back out.
At the loading dock where finished goods went out on trucks, there was a middle-aged woman on staff. She seemed to be the one who checked invoices and shipping documents whenever products went out or raw materials came in. And this woman was good-looking. She didn't seem to belong on a factory production floor. She wasn't doing the actual manufacturing — more of a verification job.
The Production Manager spoke.
"This is Ms. Ayaka. She inspects the incoming and outgoing cargo."
"Ayaka?"
"She's a Japanese lady."
"Ah, is that so?"
Kim Chirok could understand Chinese, Vietnamese, and Sri Lankan workers being at the factory. But a Japanese person? That had never even crossed his mind.
"So you handle inspection of goods coming in and going out."
The Production Manager introduced Kim Chirok to the Japanese woman.
"This is our new general affairs hire."
"Oh my! Is that so? Nice to meet you. Hohoho."
She broke into a wide smile. The way she laughed, there was no mistaking she was Japanese.
After the factory tour, Kim Chirok went back up to the second-floor office. The Accounting Manager was already there, working.
"Did you finish greeting everyone on the floor?"
"Yes, I did. I greeted all the workers too."
"Good work."
"There are a lot of foreigners here, aren't there?"
"Look at the payroll ledger. Fifteen of them are foreign."
"So there are. And there's a Japanese person too?"
"Ah, Ayaka! You'll be working with that lady quite a bit. She'll be the one bringing you the production workers' timesheets."
The Japanese woman apparently handled both cargo inspection at the loading dock and the preparation of timesheets.
Kim Chirok started putting together the payroll ledger, working from the monthly timesheets and using the previous month's ledger as a reference. Out of seventy employees, a full fifteen really were foreigners. There were Chinese names, Vietnamese names, and names that sounded Indian.
But this wasn't creative work. A month from now, a year from now, he'd be doing the exact same thing. You didn't need a college degree for this. A high school diploma would suffice. The thought of repeating the same task over and over struck him as rather pathetic.
I graduated from Seoul National University for this? To do the kind of work Oh Ha-young used to do at H Chemical?
As he worked, Kim Chirok wondered how long it would take for the Oh Ha-young case to go to trial.
Trials take a long time, they say.
If the trial dragged on for a year, he'd be stuck with his nose to the grindstone at this shitty little company for a full year. And if there was an appeal, it could take even longer. He'd be stuck out here in the countryside the whole time.
What the hell did that bitch Oh Ha-young and I do to each other in a past life to end up like this.
Around noon, the Accounting Manager spoke.
"Finished with the payroll ledger?"
"Sorry. It's my first time, so I just got it done."
The Accounting Manager took the printed payroll ledger Kim Chirok had prepared and ran the numbers on her electronic calculator. Watching her fingers fly across the keys, he was impressed. Even at H Group, even at the securities firms in Yeouido, he'd never seen anyone work a calculator that fast.
"This looks off. Recalculate it."
"Yes, ma'am."
"But it's lunchtime. Eat first, then do it."
"Manager, your calculator speed is incredible. How long have you been doing accounting work?"
"I started right out of girls' commercial high school, so... about twenty years?"
Twenty years. Kim Chirok's spirits sank. There really were hidden masters in every walk of life.
He went down to the basement cafeteria with the Accounting Manager. Workers were already lined up with their trays. At the H Group cafeteria there had been dietitians in white uniforms; here there was just one middle-aged woman behind the counter.
The cafeteria was a bit grimy. And the employees weren't white-collar types in neckties — they were shop-floor laborers with what looked like grease smeared on their faces. The food was poorer than H Group's cafeteria fare, too. Still, the workers piled their trays high and ate.
As Kim Chirok and the Accounting Manager were eating, someone brought over water and set it on the table in front of them. He looked up — it was the Japanese woman.
"Hohoho. Eat up!"
The other workers ate without much expression, but this woman was cheerful all on her own. A Japanese lady through and through.
When the Plant Manager came in, the Japanese woman laughed again.
"Oh my! Plant Manager, you got a haircut. Hohoho."
Apparently even someone else's haircut was funny to her. But her laughter brought a spark of life to the gloomy factory. The President and the Managing Director were nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria. They seemed to eat out.
After lunch, the Accounting Manager and Kim Chirok went back up to the office. She poured coffee into a paper cup and handed it to him.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I should be the one making coffee for you, Manager."
"Your family's in Seoul, right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Have you found a place to stay?"
"I got a studio in Hyangnam-eup."
Just then the Japanese woman came up to the office. Beaming, she set a tax invoice on the Accounting Manager's desk and left. Given her work at the loading dock, it was probably an invoice she'd received from the people who'd delivered raw materials.
Kim Chirok spoke to the Accounting Manager.
"How did that Japanese lady end up at this company? Did she come in through a job posting?"
"No. The President brought her over from somewhere else she was working. He wanted to try doing some business with Japan, so he brought her in — but Japanese deals are too finicky, so they dropped it."
"I see. Is her husband Korean, by any chance?"
"Yes. He's Korean."
"Was he an international student in Japan?"
"No. Ayaka came to Korea through a Unification Church marriage."
"What? The Unification Church?"