The Employees Who Quit Want to Come Back
"He told us not to make any reckless moves. Just sit still. He said this was his final warning."
"Urgh... That bastard dares... some two-bit thug..."
"Chairman!"
The moment Kim Gwang-deok flared up at Secretary Choe's report, the secretary raised his voice again.
"Kim Du-chil did not sound like a man making empty threats. For the time being, you need to be careful, just as he said."
"For the time being? Until when? You're telling a man who might die tomorrow or the day after to wait? You want me to sit here and die after the Kwak family steals the Pyeongsan Kim clan's company out from under me?"
"It's dangerous."
"And when hasn't it been dangerous? Have I spent my whole life living comfortably off other people's handouts?"
"That's not what I meant..."
A man who has lived past sixty develops instincts, if nothing else. Secretary Choe — Choe Hyeongdal — could feel it in his bones: the situation was turning extremely dangerous. Kim Du-chil, who had always done whatever he was paid to do, was now baring his teeth at Kim Gwang-deok. He'd said that if they made any rash moves, he would tear them apart — and that this time, he was letting them off. Choe Hyeongdal had no idea what Kim Du-chil had heard, or from whom, to make him turn like this.
Could Kim Du-chil possibly have switched sides out of fear of Jung Jinwoo — that mere infant?
On top of that, the plan to increase their stake in Hyoyeon Construction while the company was short on cash had gone up in smoke. Some outfit called JW Development had appeared out of nowhere, poured in a trillion won, and snatched up a forty percent stake. With JW Development now the majority shareholder, there was no point constructing a scheme to funnel massive kickbacks to corrupt Ukrainian politicians under the guise of reconstruction projects. The newly appointed CEO, Park Kwangsoo, was not about to take orders from Kim Gwang-deok, who held a mere seven percent. And even if he did as he was told, there would be no way to siphon the diverted funds back. What's more, a security team of special-forces experts dispatched by JW Development was scheduled to accompany Park Kwangsoo to Ukraine — which meant it would not be easy to kill him and pass it off as guerrilla activity.
"I get the feeling someone is deliberately sabotaging us. You don't think those Kwak bastards caught on, do you?"
"I honestly couldn't say. Hyoyeon Group is so consumed by internal competition they wouldn't have the bandwidth for something like that. That's probably why the forty percent stake in Hyoyeon Construction went to JW Development in the first place, isn't it?"
"Right. It's not the Hyoyeon people."
Over the question of who would inherit the conglomerate, Hyoyeon Group was currently in complete disarray. Kwak Junggap's eldest son, Gwak Seung-gyun, and his second son — Kim Gwang-deok's son-in-law, Kwak Dogyun — were at war with each other. As a result, the granddaughter and grandson, Gwak I-jin and Kwak Jungjin, were being squeezed out of the shareholding contest. Kim Gwang-deok had been trying to seize control of Hyoyeon Construction by exploiting the chaos. His plan had been to install a figurehead CEO, generate slush funds, and use that money as ammunition to devour Hyoyeon Group itself. That plan had now gone completely off the rails.
In that moment, a face flashed through Choe Hyeongdal's mind.
Those were the words Jung Jinwoo had spoken after Choe Hyeongdal, before the meeting with Kim Gwang-deok, had cautioned him to be careful not to provoke the old man. He hesitated, debating whether to mention it, then decided against it.
"What about that one. Jung Jinwoo... you think that brat is playing games with us?"
"He's only thirty... would he even have the backing for something like that?"
"True... he's too young for that... But if that brat... if he's holding a grudge over what happened to that father of his... that's a different story..."
"Chairman... Jung Jinwoo is your grandson."
Weren't they grandfather and grandson? The only thing supposedly worth protecting and venerating was the family name Pyeongsan Kim — so why was he this obsessive?
"So what if he's my grandson? You want me to leave a man who'll devour our family alone? No. Get me a meeting with Director Jo..."
"Chairman..."
Kim Gwang-deok's enormous eyes went wide as he glared at Choe Hyeongdal.
"Choe Hyeongdal! Do as you're told! A secretary is only useful if he follows orders! Do you think I'm a toothless tiger now, so even you can look down on me? Hmm?"
Madness was pouring from Kim Gwang-deok's eyes. The words Choe Hyeongdal had been about to use to stop him died in his throat. The old man was far too lucid to call it dementia, and far too unhinged to call it sanity.
Bringing in Director Jo, the Legal Broker, was far too dangerous. A demon of a man like that would bite you before you could even use him as a hunting dog. He might swallow you whole while you were still alive. He was a man you should never, ever associate with.
"Understood."
Choe Hyeongdal had no confidence he could break Kim Gwang-deok's stubbornness. The man was approaching ninety, and yet to Choe Hyeongdal, Kim Gwang-deok was still terrifying.
"What do we do about this?"
"Why? Doesn't seem like there's anything bad about it."
"If we go there, we'll be sitting among the presidents of some seriously heavyweight affiliates. You think they'll actually treat us like a real president and director?"
"Tae-min!"
"Huh?"
Even as he answered, Choi Tae-min flinched. Whenever Director Ki Dong-chan spoke to him like that, he always managed to poke right at a sore spot.
"We were first-generation IT. We were IT warriors, through and through. Have you forgotten that?"
"I haven't forgotten! The problem is we're not Saber or MC Soft. We can hold our heads as high as we want — is anyone going to recognize that? People who worked in IT would get it, but what would a bunch of smokestack-industry guys know about our value?"
That was the problem. For the past thirty-odd years, they had lived clinging to nothing but their pride. They'd nearly gone under more than once. A few times, they actually had. And yet they had kept their chins stubbornly high, all because of the pride of being first-generation IT warriors. But if people from the smokestack industries — people who wouldn't recognize any of that — were to look at them, they would look pathetic. With a mere three billion won in revenue and three or four hundred million in net profit, they would be a joke. In the smokestack industries, a hundred billion won in revenue was the baseline. And every last JW affiliate was a heavyweight.
"By the way, I was shocked. I had my suspicions, but to think the Sunggong Kiseong Private Equity Fund was a fund created by JW Corporation."
"A sharp guy like you, Director Ki, didn't pick up on that? You think Oh Gong-tae started a company called JW Dive In and walked out for no reason?"
"When they said they'd pay us royalties on our core source code — the streaming tech, the video compression — I was too overwhelmed to think straight."
"Well... I was pretty out of it myself, thinking about the debt being wiped out, turning a profit, and giving the employees a raise."
Just a short while ago, the two of them had been offered a proposal by the majority shareholder: relocate the entire company to the nineteenth floor of the JW Corporation building, right in the heart of Gangnam. They'd been told they could stay where they were if they didn't want to. Gangnam, where the most luxurious buildings stood in rows. These days the major IT companies had all moved to Pangyo, but Teheran-ro in Gangnam had been the iconic place where the first generation of IT dreamers had nurtured their ambitions. Kiseong IT itself had once been based on Teheran-ro — back when they were riding high. The days when they'd swaggered around talking about building a Korean OS to rival Microsoft Windows. The days when investors had shown up with bags of cash, begging to be allowed to invest.
"Do you want to go back to Gangnam, President?"
"Yeah, honestly... But if we go, we'll have to face the presidents of the JW affiliates, won't we? That's what scares me."
Standing in front of people who measured annual revenue in tens of trillions and net profit in trillions, and saying your yearly revenue was three billion? They would be laughed at. Never mind that three billion in revenue had been a dream number Choi Tae-min and Ki Dong-chan had been desperate to hit for the past several years.
"Since when have we been afraid of being looked down on? Even if the whole world doesn't recognize us, as long as we can hold our heads high, that's enough."
"That's true... But... you'll be attending the affiliate meetings too... you're a director, after all."
The color drained from Ki Dong-chan's face at Choi Tae-min's words.
"Th-that's true. Haa..."
After a moment of thought, Ki Dong-chan spoke with the air of a man who had made up his mind.
"But... they'll love it."
"Huh?"
"The employees. They'll love working in a magnificent building right in the heart of Gangnam."
"Yeah, they would..."
Choi Tae-min looked around the office. It was the president's office, and yet the interior and lighting were dingy, the furniture worn. If it were a company on the verge of collapse, they could have endured this atmosphere and been content. But now that they had turned a profit, a brighter atmosphere wouldn't be out of place.
"They said we don't need to bring the furniture. The interior is already done up nicely."
No matter how fine the building or how elegant the interior, if it were just the two of them, they would never walk into that hellfire. They hadn't even been there. They hadn't even met anyone. And already they felt looked down upon. It was probably all in their heads, but Choi Tae-min had a feeling his prediction wouldn't be wrong. They would sneer at Kiseong IT, a company whose annual revenue didn't even match a smokestack corporation's daily take. They would look at Choi Tae-min and Ki Dong-chan like insects. That was as unbearable as dying.
And yet...
"Let's go! We don't have a choice. The employees will love it... so we'll just have to suffer a little."
"I knew you'd decide that. I truly respect you, President."
President Choi Tae-min and Director Ki Dong-chan were in the same boat. No — President Choi Tae-min would suffer a little more. The IT business might look like something grand, but strip away the pretenses and it was just people bumping into people. Technology was something you built by putting your heads together with your employees. Revenue was something you earned by grabbing a client's account manager and explaining and persuading. That was why President Choi Tae-min had been so angry when Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok and Assistant Manager Lee Ki-seok from the Business Planning Team had quit without a word. He had cherished them like younger brothers.
"And also... about Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok and Assistant Manager Lee Ki-seok."
"Yeah?"
"They contacted us recently... they must have heard from somewhere that Kiseong IT is doing well. They said they want to come back to the company... what do you think, President?"
"Well, if they want to come back, we should take them... they're like nephews to us, aren't they..."
"I figured you'd say that. Then as for their ranks..."
"What about their ranks? They'll just stay team leader and assistant manager, of course."
"Then that'll overlap with Supervisor Ji Jeong-eun — I mean, Team Leader Ji Jeong-eun. And Department Head Jung Jinwoo would be a problem too..."
"What can you do? Those two got promoted because those guys left... why would we promote people who walked out and then came crawling back? What did they do to deserve it?"
President Choi Tae-min's eyes sparkled as he spoke. Director Ki Dong-chan's eyes sparkled too. They had discovered something delicious.
"So you're going to give them a taste of that?"
"We can't treat them the same. The employees who dedicated themselves and worked to turn this company around when it was struggling, versus the ones who ran off the moment things got hard — are they the same?"
"They absolutely shouldn't be."
"Right? Heh heh heh heh..."
"Heh heh heh heh..."
President Choi Tae-min and Director Ki Dong-chan, who loved and cherished their employees like nephews, were of one mind, grinning so wickedly their molars showed.
"Oh, right! That Yoon Jong-seok left to develop a mobile game, didn't he?"
"Yes. He started a company with some friends, but it looks like it didn't work out."
"Is that so? Then what's he going to do with those source files?"
President Choi Tae-min's eyes curved into crescents.
"Ideas turn to garbage if you sit on them too long. If you don't make them real at the right time, they become completely worthless... heh heh heh."
"We can just tell him to come make it at our company."
"We've got plenty of mobile-side source code ourselves... we can just bolt it on. But as for salary... what were you thinking?"
"Well, no matter how I look at it, we can't give them the raised amount."
"Yes. I agree."
"Let's just give them a ten percent bump on what they used to make."
"They'll be happy with that much. Though they'll lose their minds if they find out the existing employees got a hundred percent raise."
"Lose their minds? Over what? The ones who left because the company had no money should be grateful for even a ten percent raise... who do they think they are, throwing a fit? They looking to die?"
"That's right. If that happens, I'll kill those bastards myself."
"Kill them gently... ahem... pff—bwahahaha!"
Just thinking about teaching Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok and Assistant Manager Lee Ki-seok a lesson was already putting them in a good mood. They were like nephews, after all. And among nephews, there were always one or two who didn't listen. Choi Tae-min and Ki Dong-chan, as uncles who believed a fist was closer than the law, were more than willing to handle them.