It Must Be Changed from the Roots
Stepping out of the elevator, Kim Seong-ho headed for the Japanese restaurant he had visited with Lee Gyeong-eun.
The familiar emptiness of the place had left a staff member yawning at the entrance; the moment he spotted Seong-ho approaching, he scrambled to his feet.
“Welcome. Huh?”
The employee took in Seong-ho’s familiar face and remembered what had happened a few days earlier.
“That guest from last time…?”
With so few customers, the earlier disturbance had stayed vivid in his mind. He stared at Seong-ho with startled eyes.
Seong-ho gave the man a light nod of recognition and walked straight into the restaurant.
The employee hastily pulled himself together and tried to show him to a table.
“Sir, this way, please…”
But instead of following the guide, Seong-ho’s steps turned toward the kitchen.
“Sir, you can’t go that way. Sir, that’s—”
As the employee tried to stop him, Jo Byeong-jin stepped forward first.
“It’s all right. We’re from Ilhyeon Group headquarters.”
“Ilhyeon Group headquarters?”
The words brought back a rumor the employee had heard only recently.
“Ah? That restructuring…?”
Byeong-jin gave a brief nod and followed Seong-ho into the kitchen.
The kitchen was every bit as idle as the dining room.
“You can’t come in here.”
The head chef, leaning against the sink and eating an apple, spoke without even checking who had entered.
Seong-ho surveyed the kitchen for a moment, then addressed him.
“The kitchen’s smaller than I expected. Is that because there are no customers? And it looks like there’s only one cook…”
When the intruders failed to leave despite the warning, the chef, who had been sitting with his back turned, twisted around.
Recognizing Seong-ho, he jabbed a finger at him.
“Hey—aren’t you the guy from a few days ago?”
Seong-ho held out a hand toward Jeong Byeong-ju. Byeong-ju pulled a document from his bag and passed it over.
Seong-ho offered the papers to the chef, who was still pointing and muttering.
“What’s this?”
“A notice of contract termination.”
“Contract termination?”
Frowning as if the words made no sense, the chef took the notice and scanned its contents.
“You’re terminating the contract with Ilhyeon Hotel?”
His eyes went round with shock. Seong-ho glanced around the kitchen as he answered.
“As of today the contract is void. Pack your things and leave.”
“Who the hell are you to decide whether a contract is terminated or not?!”
The chef started toward Seong-ho, but Jo Byeong-jin intercepted him.
“We’re the team dispatched from Ilhyeon Group headquarters for restructuring.”
“From headquarters?”
The chef hesitated at the word. He, too, had heard the rumors about the restructuring.
Seong-ho regarded the man who had gone from arrogant to uncertain.
“From now on, Ilhyeon Hotel intends to put real weight behind its restaurants.”
“Then why are you terminating the contract with me—no, with us?”
“‘Guests first.’ That’s Ilhyeon Hotel’s motto. You and this Japanese restaurant don’t fit it.”
“We also…”
The chef tried to claim that they, too, put guests first, but the words died on his tongue. He had already shown Seong-ho the opposite, and he could not bring himself to say it.
Still unwilling to yield, he suddenly remembered the extension they had signed only last month.
“W-we signed a renewal last month! Throwing us out like this is a breach!”
“If you read the contract carefully, you’ll find a clause allowing termination when a guest lodges a complaint and the hotel deems the matter serious.”
“That’s absurd… Who lodged a complaint? Who exactly complained about our restaurant?!”
Seong-ho drew a business card from his pocket and held it out.
“I should have introduced myself sooner. Kim Seong-ho, Director, Restructuring Team, Strategic Planning Office, Ilhyeon Group.”
“What’s the point of an introduction now…”
The chef accepted the card with a look of pure disbelief. In the middle of a fight over whether he was being thrown out, the man was calmly handing over a card and introducing himself.
Seong-ho smiled and continued.
“My father-in-law is Chairman Lee Tak-hyeon of the Ilhyeon Group. The woman who dined with me last time is my wife—and the Chairman’s youngest daughter.”
The color drained from the chef’s face. He could not believe that the woman he had shouted at was Lee Tak-hyeon’s youngest daughter.
“My wife felt deeply insulted that day. Accordingly, Ilhyeon Hotel is invoking the contractual clause and terminating the agreement with this restaurant. If you cannot accept the decision, you’re free to seek legal remedy. Of course, we’ll be prepared as well. So start packing. We’ll also bill you for damages for every day you’re late—best to clear out quickly.”
Having delivered the notice like a verdict, Seong-ho turned on his heel.
The chef lunged as if to clutch at Seong-ho’s pant leg and beg forgiveness, but Jeong Byeong-ju and Jo Byeong-jin blocked his path and kept him from approaching.
Seong-ho left the kitchen; Byeong-ju and Byeong-jin followed close behind.
Seeing the staff of the other restaurants peering over after catching wind of the rumor, Seong-ho gave Byeong-ju an order.
“Terminate the contracts with every remaining restaurant as well.”
“Every one of them?”
“Yes. From now on the hotel restaurants will be operated directly by the hotel.”
After Seong-ho’s visit to the Japanese restaurant, word spread that every restaurant contract in the hotel had been cancelled.
The hopeful expressions the hotel staff had worn when Seong-ho first arrived were nowhere to be found.
“They wouldn’t fire us too… right?”
Bellboys, housekeepers, and doormen clustered in small groups, trading rumors about Kim Seong-ho.
“So that voluntary retirement thing is dead? I already told my family I could walk away with a hundred million…”
“Forget a hundred million—we might leave empty-handed. Didn’t you hear about the restaurants on the fifth floor? They all got kicked out with nothing.”
“Those people were independent contractors. We’re actual employees—it’s different.”
“Is it? If they can cut contractors that easily, what’s stopping them from cutting us?”
“You’ve got a point… What do we do?”
The bellboys and housekeepers fretted over their uncertain futures, faces tight with worry.
Just then a manager approached the group.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ah, we were just—”
The manager waved off the bellboy’s excuses and stated his purpose.
“Everyone down to the banquet hall.”
“The banquet hall?”
“Yeah. The restructuring team leader—or the Chairman’s son-in-law, whatever he is—says he has something to tell all of you. Gather up.”
“Yes, sir. Until when—?”
“Right now.”
The manager gestured for them to head down immediately, then walked off with his radio to flush out staff hiding elsewhere.
Managers on every floor rooted out employees who had been slacking in corners and sent them down to the banquet hall. Seong-ho and his team, already waiting, simply watched as the workers trickled in one by one.
“Seriously, how long does it take to gather the staff?”
Jo Byeong-jin clicked his tongue in disbelief.
Jeong Byeong-ju was no less baffled; he shook his head and turned to Seong-ho.
“Director Kim, this is worse than I thought.”
Seong-ho watched the employees amble into the hall and nodded.
“This is the reality of Ilhyeon Hotel that never shows up on the financial statements. At Ilhyeon Watch, clearing the debt was enough. Here it clearly won’t be. Just thinning the headcount and wiping the books won’t solve the problem.”
“I agree. This place needs to be torn out by the roots and rebuilt.”
“That’s exactly why I asked the Chairman for full personnel authority. Without it, real restructuring is impossible.”
Seong-ho had more or less expected this. In his previous life he had heard enough about the state of Ilhyeon Hotel. That was why he had demanded personnel rights from Lee Tak-hyeon. Only with those rights could he truly remake the hotel from the ground up.
If I’m going to do this, I won’t do it halfway.
Seong-ho waited patiently as the staff drifted in at a leisurely pace.
Roughly an hour past the appointed time, the general manager approached him.
“Uh… Director. The floor managers report that they’ve sent most of the staff down.”
“Most? So not all of them?”
Jeong Byeong-ju asked in Seong-ho’s place. The general manager’s expression turned bitter as he glanced around.
“They seem to be having trouble finding everyone… so…”
“General Manager, what kind of answer is that? This is working hours, isn’t it? And you’re saying you not only don’t know where your people are, they’re not even working? Is that something a general manager should be saying?”
Jo Byeong-jin’s voice dripped with incredulity. The idea that no one knew where the staff were hiding was beyond him.
The general manager could only hang his head. Seong-ho quieted Byeong-jin and spoke to the man.
“Understood. We’ll start with who we have.”
Seong-ho brushed past the general manager and climbed onto the platform set up in the banquet hall.
He tapped the microphone a few times, drawing the scattered gazes of the employees who were still murmuring about why they had been summoned, then spoke.
“Family of Ilhyeon Hotel, good to see you. I am Director Kim Seong-ho, dispatched from Ilhyeon Group headquarters for the sake of this hotel.”
The moment the man they were most curious about took the stage and began to speak, the restless hall fell silent at once.
The staff of Ilhyeon Hotel waited for whatever would come next.
Seong-ho looked them over once, then continued at an unhurried pace.
“I gathered you here today to tell you how I intend to reshape Ilhyeon Hotel going forward.”
As his words began, the employees watched him with faces that mixed tension and anticipation.
They had already heard that every restaurant and its staff had been terminated, yet they still clung to the hope that the same restructuring methods used at Ilhyeon Watch might apply to them as well—generous severance, perhaps.
Seong-ho’s next sentences shattered that hope completely.
“First—as I’m sure you’ve already heard—we have terminated the contracts with every restaurant in the hotel. From now on, the hotel’s food-and-beverage operations will be run directly by the hotel itself. Second, there will be reassignments among Ilhyeon Hotel staff. A full organizational overhaul is coming. I want you to know in advance that transfers to departments you never expected are entirely possible.”
Instead of the consolation payments they had been waiting for, talk of reorganization filled the air. The quiet hall began to buzz again.
Seong-ho waited calmly for the murmuring to subside. When it had quieted somewhat, he brought the microphone back to his lips.
“Anyone who is reassigned to a department they cannot accept and no longer wishes to stay may come to the restructuring team at any time. We will settle your severance on the spot and process the resignation.”
“So there’s no consolation pay for us?”
Someone in the crowd could no longer hold back and shouted the question.
It was the question everyone most wanted answered. The hall fell silent once more as every eye fixed on Seong-ho’s mouth.
Seong-ho’s lips curved slightly.
“There is no consolation pay.”
The short reply detonated the quiet hall into noise.
This time Seong-ho did not wait for the uproar to die down; he pressed straight on.
“Third, effective immediately we will implement a performance evaluation system for every employee. Anyone who receives the lowest score two consecutive times will be terminated at once. Keep that firmly in mind and manage your evaluation scores carefully.”
Not only was there no severance package—now they were being told their jobs would be scored and the lowest performers simply discarded. The assembled staff froze solid.
“That concludes the announcement. Next time I hope we meet in a better setting than this.”
Seong-ho smiled as he spoke, then stepped down from the platform.