Who's the Rolling Stone?
"Whoa... did you see that? They tap their security cards just like a subway turnstile!"
"Those security guys were so handsome..."
"The bathrooms were so clean I wanted to sleep on the floor. Ahh, I'm genuinely moved..."
Every last employee of Kiseong IT had moved into JW Tower on Teheran-ro in Gangnam. Their eyes had gone round as saucers, and they found themselves marveling at every little thing they saw.
"Hah... I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. All our clients are right here in this building."
That was Team Leader Ji Jeong-eun, pointing out that the very companies that had commissioned Kiseong IT to build their websites were now all gathered under one roof.
"Oh, right, Team Leader Ji! I heard Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok and Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok are coming back. You heard about that, didn't you?"
"I did. I've been waiting for those two to arrive, as a matter of fact. Heh heh heh."
Ji Jeong-eun smiled at Lee Miseon with a distinctly wicked glint in her eye.
"I'm looking forward to it too. I still remember Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok acting all cocky just because he was older than me."
Lee Miseon of the Management Department had been promoted from Deputy Manager to Team Leader herself. Back when they'd held the same rank, Lee Ki-seok's age had always given him the upper hand — but now that she wore the Team Leader title and he was returning as a Deputy Manager, he wouldn't be pushing her around so easily.
"Still, you think there'll be a problem?"
"What kind of problem?"
"Department Head Jung Jinwoo."
"Ah..."
Lee Miseon nodded, understanding at once.
Anyone else wouldn't have mattered. But Jung Jinwoo had been handed a fake Team Leader title the moment he joined the company, then received a real Team Leader appointment, and then — just to make Ji Jeong-eun a Team Leader — had suddenly been promoted to Department Head. If they didn't already know, they would find out soon enough.
Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok was thirty-four. He had pressed his way up to that rank one grinding step at a time. Would he be able to treat Jung Jinwoo as his superior once he learned the truth?
Judging by Jung Jinwoo's personality, he didn't seem the type to play the tyrant boss. But a superior was still a superior, rank-wise.
"Who knows. They'll figure it out themselves. If they don't like it, they can always leave again."
"Yeah... I don't know either. They'll work it out, I guess."
The furniture and interiors were already in place, but the computers and other equipment had yet to be set up, and Ji Jeong-eun and Lee Miseon were busy arranging their own workstations.
"No matter how I look at it, it just doesn't make sense."
"Yeah, it really doesn't."
A new hire who made Department Head within a month of walking in the door. And a man who had slaved himself to the bone just to scrape together a Team Leader title, quit, and then come back — a man with a proper track record and four years on him. Could that Team Leader possibly accept the Department Head sitting above him? No matter how you looked at it, it didn't seem likely.
"Oh, and Director Oh Gong-tae is here on the twenty-fourth floor. Want to come with me to say hello?"
"Sure. Let's get this organized first, then head up."
Even though he had left the company, he was someone they had weathered the hard times with. Oh Gong-tae, a Director at the young age of twenty-eight, was a source of enormous pride for Ji Jeong-eun and Lee Miseon. Seeing him again would be a genuine pleasure.
If there was an upside to Kiseong IT moving into JW Tower, it was that Jung Jinwoo could see Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok and Oh Gong-tae whenever he wanted. The downside was that he would now be running into the directors of JW Corporation and the CEOs and directors of all its affiliates.
And then there was this.
"Wh-what is Do Ye-rip doing here?"
"Oh my! Assistant Manager Jo — wait, it's Department Head now, isn't it? Goodness... you startled me..."
"You joined our company on purpose, didn't you?"
"Not at all. JW Dive In was recruiting for a marketing position, so I sent in my resume. I never imagined I'd run into you here, Assistant Manager Jo. We really must be fated to meet, don't you think? You're a Kiseong IT employee, after all."
Well, she had a point. There was no way Do Ye-rip could have known Jung Jinwoo was at JW Dive In.
"Ah! Switching jobs was the right call. Getting demoted from Deputy Manager to Assistant Manager had me in a foul mood... but if Assistant Manager Jo is here, that's a whole different story..."
Do Ye-rip's eyes formed little hearts as she spoke.
She came here without knowing? And I'm supposed to believe that?
Come to think of it, JW Dive In wasn't even a company that had been made public. How had she found out about the opening?
"It's not Assistant Manager Jo anymore. It's Department Head Jung Jinwoo."
He'd told her about the name change, but a title that had already stuck to the tongue was apparently hard to shake.
"I'll be careful. Assistant Manager Jo — I mean, Department Head Jung. Let's grab a soju sometime soon."
"Yeah, sure..."
The twenty-fourth floor. Do Ye-rip, of all people, among the new hires at JW Dive In. Was this really a coincidence?
Jung Jinwoo stopped by the twenty-fourth floor, then returned to the nineteenth, where Kiseong IT was still in the noisy chaos of moving in.
"Good afternoon, sir. Department Head?"
"Hello there."
A sharp-looking man in glasses and a tall, lanky man both greeted Jung Jinwoo. They had already been introduced the day before by CEO Choi Tae-min.
"Ah, hello."
It was a curious thing. He'd gotten used to Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok calling him "Chairman." And yet every time someone addressed him as Department Head, his whole body cringed.
"We were hoping to have a word with you, if that's all right."
"Of course."
Jung Jinwoo, Yoon Jong-seok, and Lee Ki-seok headed for a conference room.
"We've heard a great deal about you. They say you're the one who saved Kiseong IT when it was on the verge of collapse."
"Well, things just sort of happened that way..."
He continued as he sat down. Yoon Jong-seok and Lee Ki-seok took seats across from him.
"So, what did you want to talk about?"
At Jung Jinwoo's question, Yoon Jong-seok and Lee Ki-seok exchanged a brief glance.
"We think we need to establish some ground rules for how we work."
"And how do you think we should set those?"
He had a pretty good idea of what they were going to say without hearing it. They'd been stuck working under a young, green superior, and they wanted to lay down some terms so nobody would be uncomfortable.
"As you know, Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok and I were at Kiseong IT until a month ago. I was here for four years, and he was here for two."
"And?"
"Before, as Team Leader, I reported directly to Director Ki Dong-chan. But now that you're here, we weren't sure whether we should be reporting to you instead... It's not that we have any other reason. It's just... the sudden change from the old way of doing things has us a bit confused..."
"We'd appreciate it if you could see things from our perspective. It hasn't even been a month... We come back and everything's turned upside down... That wet-behind-the-ears Assistant Manager Ji Jeong-eun is suddenly a Team Leader..."
"Report to Director Ki Dong-chan. I'll let him know."
"What?"
"Excuse me?"
Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok and Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok, who had been steeling themselves to persuade him with a carefully constructed mix of clever logic and blunt honesty, instead stared at him in shock.
"Do you actually mean that? You're not saying it because what we said offended you, are you?"
"Of course not."
Receiving reports and then filing reports of his own — one less tedious chore was nothing to complain about. He was already busy enough to drop dead as it was.
At Jung Jinwoo's words, Yoon Jong-seok studied his eyes in silence. Lee Ki-seok's face, on the other hand, twisted.
"I see how it is... You're going to use the fact that we didn't report to you as an excuse later. Shift the blame and freeze us out, is that it?"
"That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"
"A stretch? I heard all about it. You joined as a fresh graduate, a brand-new hire. Kiseong IT was such a mess that you lucked into Team Leader the moment you walked in, and now you've been promoted to Department Head. You're thirty, right? I'm a Deputy Manager, but I'm thirty-one. The Team Leader here is thirty-four. We earned every single promotion, one step at a time, starting from the bottom as regular staff. And now some greenhorn who lucked into Department Head while we were briefly out of the company—"
"Deputy Manager Lee!"
Yoon Jong-seok cut him off. If Lee Ki-seok had gone any further, Yoon Jong-seok might have had to put on a show of getting angry himself.
In a normal situation, it would have been enough to make someone furious. Age aside, any green Department Head faced with a subordinate running his mouth without a shred of respect would have every right to lose his temper.
"Hah..."
What do you want me to do about it?
These people were getting exactly what they'd asked for, and they were still like this. They didn't want to report to a Department Head or take orders from a greenhorn who hadn't earned the rank. The irony was that Jung Jinwoo didn't want that structure either. He had far more important things to do than waste time playing dress-up as Department Head.
"Let me put this simply. Our Kiseong IT Business Planning Department has a Team 1 and a Team 2. Team Leader Ji Jeong-eun heads Team 1, and Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok heads Team 2. Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok reports to Team Leader Yoon, and Team Leader Yoon reports to Director Ki Dong-chan."
"A-are you sure that's all right?"
Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok's eyes wavered. Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok was still watching Jung Jinwoo with open suspicion.
"Isn't that what you wanted? Let's not create unnecessary headaches while we work together. The Business Planning Department is about results, isn't it? Focus on that."
"Ah... understood."
You had to bring in the money if you wanted to eat.
"And one more thing..."
Jung Jinwoo looked back and forth between Yoon Jong-seok and Lee Ki-seok as he continued.
"Circumstances being what they are, I ended up as Department Head and you two as Team Leader and Deputy Manager... but don't put too much weight on the titles. I read the business proposal Team Leader Yoon posted on the intranet. It looked like a lot of fun if you just ran with it. Do what you want. Do what you enjoy. And if you ever need my help, I'll do everything I can. Now, shall we?"
As he gathered his things, Jung Jinwoo glanced at the two of them. His real meaning seemed to have gotten through to Yoon Jong-seok. Lee Ki-seok, meanwhile, had one corner of his mouth curled up. He was not happy with the situation.
Jung Jinwoo turned and left the conference room. The moment he was gone, Lee Ki-seok leaned in toward Yoon Jong-seok.
"Team Leader, be careful. Underestimate him because he's a greenhorn and you'll regret it. You know what kind of men CEO Choi Tae-min and Director Ki Dong-chan are. They're not the type to promote a new hire to Department Head just because his numbers are good. That guy... he's no ordinary person."
Yoon Jong-seok stared at Lee Ki-seok for a long moment.
"Ki-seok. How many times have I told you? You wear everything on your face like that, you'll never get ahead. You hear me? That guy's a real operator. A snake. Watch yourself from now on. Once he's got something on you, you're finished."
"Ah! Yes, Team Leader. Sorry about that. Hahaha."
The two of them were spinning a narrative all their own.
"If that's how you want to handle it, then that's how we'll do it."
Director Ki Dong-chan accepted Jung Jinwoo's proposal without a second thought.
"If anything, having them report straight to me is better. Heh heh heh... easier to give them a hard time..."
And why are his eyes sparkling like that?
"Just do your own thing, Department Head Jung! You don't even need to land any more contracts. What we've already signed and what's in the pipeline is more than enough!"
Director Ki Dong-chan had his reasons for saying so. The affiliates of JW Corporation had more or less finished signing their contracts, and now some fifty subsidiaries beneath them were preparing to sign with Kiseong IT. And every last one of them had said the same thing: they wanted to sign with Department Head Jung.
Talk about a blessing that had come rolling through the door. On top of that, the Hyoyeon Group that Ji Jeong-eun was in contact with looked like it would bring in a whole chain of contracts as well.
"By the way... Director, what happened to that mobile game Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok was developing?"
"Ah, that? Tsk."
Ki Dong-chan smacked his lips and went on.
"He said he'd develop it on his own. So he told me he'd be clocking out exactly on time. Apparently he's working on the mobile game on weekday evenings and weekends, and I couldn't talk him out of it. If you work in IT, you've got to chase a vision. I know that feeling well."
Even as he said it, he seemed a little apologetic toward Jung Jinwoo.
"I'll keep a tight leash on him, so... don't you worry."
"I figured you would, of course. But do you happen to know what the problem was with the mobile game development?"
"Well, money, most likely... The friend he was going to develop it with seems to have left."
"I see."
Jung Jinwoo had gone through Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok's work, starting with the business proposal. He was someone who worked quite cleanly and with a precise hand.
"Director, would it be possible... for me to see the materials on that mobile game?"
"Why would you want that, Department Head Jung? As it happens, Team Leader Yoon left me some materials asking to be introduced to a good investor if I knew of one... I'll dig them up and send them over by email. Ah! Keep it a secret from Team Leader Yoon. From the looks of it, that fellow has you on his mind quite a bit."
Well, they had just had a conversation about that very thing. If you had to serve a young superior who had been made Department Head the moment he walked in the door, it would have been strange not to be bothered by it.
Jung Jinwoo had been through it himself, back in his days at SG Global. He had worked three years just to scrape together an Assistant Manager title — and then a foreign-educated hire who hadn't even done military service, with a single year of experience, had been made Manager the moment he arrived. They called it a special hire for overseas marketing, and it had left a foul taste in his mouth for no good reason.
But things were different now. He had grabbed Kiseong IT by the scruff of the neck as it tumbled toward hell and hauled it back up. He was also the company's actual owner.
In any case, Jung Jinwoo had taken a powerful interest in the mobile game Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok had planned.
Still, open-minded as the culture might be, asking your director if he knew of an investor for a side project that wasn't even company work? In a normal company, all hell would have broken loose. Jung Jinwoo still found it difficult to fully grasp the way IT people thought.