I Am a Businessman (2)
"Huh?" For a moment, Fernandez let out a foolish sound before he could stop himself.
"Why are you so surprised? You rejected my offer back then, so I was already looking for a replacement. It’s not set in stone yet, but there are already people scheduled for interviews."
"W-wait a second. You’re not going to hire me?"
"Yes. I don’t have a hobby of forcing people to work when they don’t want to."
"It’s going to be hard to find someone as good as me, you know?"
"It’s not like we’re building a monument that will go down in history, and it’s interior design, not exterior. There are plenty of replacements out there."
"No, wait a minute..." Fernandez wanted to say something, but he couldn’t even judge for himself what he should say.
"If you have nothing else to say, I’ll be heading out."
"Wait, just wait!" But Yoon-gi didn’t stop his movement to stand up.
"If you leave like that, what am I supposed to do! Am I supposed to live the rest of my life being tormented by a ghost like this?"
"That’s not my business. If you put it that way, do you dedicate your whole life to the starving children in Africa? I’m busy enough taking care of the people around me; I’m not such a saint that I can worry about a total stranger."
"You gave scholarships to other kids, didn't you!"
"That’s only because they are people I intend to hire later."
"Why didn't you tell me the details? Why!" Fernandez shed tears, thinking that the moment the boy in front of him disappeared, he would be in agony for the rest of his life.
"Did you even give me a chance to speak? Anyway, I don’t have any reason to hire you."
As Yoon-gi turned his back, Fernandez knelt down and grabbed Yoon-gi’s knees.
"I’ll work! Let me work! No, please, let me work!"
As the café became noisy, it was inevitable that the gazes of other customers would be focused on them.
"Haa, just sit down for now."
Yoon-gi sat back down with a look of great dissatisfaction. Only then did the sobbing Fernandez manage to sit, and the conversation finally entered the main point.
"So, what is the reason I should hire you?"
Fernandez was once again struck dumb. Seeing a man with a thick, dark brown beard—reminiscent of Santa Claus—starting to blubber with tears ready to spill at any moment was truly embarrassing even for Yoon-gi.
'Is it time to offer the carrot?'
In fact, since it was unconditionally profitable for Yoon-gi to hire Fernandez, wielding only the whip was never a good method.
"Don’t worry too much. Just think carefully about the reason I should hire you and tell me."
After thinking for a moment, Fernandez cautiously spoke up.
"Because I’m capable...?"
"I already answered that just now. I said I didn’t need that level of capability."
Fernandez fell into thought again. Then, with a look of disbelief, he opened his mouth.
"If I work for cheap...?"
"That is something worth considering."
Yoon-gi had been sending a message from the start: 'I don’t want to pay a high price for you.' However, for Fernandez, it wasn’t as easy to accept as he thought. After all, Fernandez was a promising talent at Gensler.
"H-how much can you pay...?"
As of 1979, the per capita national income of the United States was about $12,000, while South Korea’s GNP was around $5,500, a difference of roughly twofold. This per capita income is strangely similar to the starting salary of a new employee at a top-tier company, so it was concluded that Fernandez, who was working at Gensler, should receive at least $20,000 or more. However, Yoon-gi had absolutely no intention of paying that much.
"I could consider something around $5,500."
"As a monthly salary...?"
Yoon-gi smiled brightly at the counter-question, and Fernandez’s face also brightened.
"Are you crazy?"
"Hey, no matter what, $5,500 is... Even when I last worked at Gensler, my annual salary was over $10,000..."
The fact that his salary was over $10,000 before 1973 meant that Fernandez was that promising. But Yoon-gi didn’t feel the need to treat Fernandez well from the start.
"Fernandez."
"Yes...?"
"That’s why people need to make good choices at the beginning. If you had accepted immediately when I visited you, I wouldn’t have looked for someone else. But you rejected me. So, this is the situation now. I had to go all the way to Nevada to find you, and now I had to come all the way here because you called. Don’t you think about the time and cost that went into all of this?"
"That’s..." Fernandez couldn’t refute it at all and just shut his mouth.
"So choose. Whether you will work or not. That is the only choice you have."
"Ugh..."
While Fernandez was lost in thought, Yoon-gi offered the second carrot.
"I plan to cover the housing costs needed for living in Korea. So, you can consider your actual annual salary to be a bit higher."
"Oh, really?"
Fernandez’s face lit up. In reality, workers in places like Silicon Valley in the U.S. receive high salaries, but because of murderous rent, their actual disposable income is often much lower than expected. Fernandez had experienced something similar, so he couldn’t help but react quite strongly to the offer of provided housing.
"One last thing... Do I have to work for such a low wage for the rest of my life?"
"If you show me your capabilities well, we can renegotiate properly after I become an adult."
"When is that?"
"Seven years left."
"Seven years..."
"If you don’t like even that, I can’t help it."
In the end, Fernandez nodded.
"I have no choice... But if I start having nightmares again next to you, I’m going back to the U.S. The reason I’m working under you is to escape this tiresome nightmare."
"Don’t worry."
Although he looked at Yoon-gi’s smiling face with half-doubt, Fernandez trusted Yoon-gi on this day because of his deep sleep.
Yoon-gi, who stayed at the same business hotel, was able to meet Fernandez at the hotel’s internal café only when it was daytime.
"Did you sleep well?"
Fernandez, who came down without even washing his hair, stretched out lazily and wore a satisfied expression.
"It’s been a really long time since I slept this soundly. I even had a really pleasant dream."
"A dream about beating up a ghost?"
"How did you know?"
Yoon-gi smiled at Fernandez, who looked surprised.
"Now you know why you have to work under me, right?"
"Damn it... I should have listened properly to what you said at the log cabin back then... Because I underestimated you without knowing much about Korea..."
"Well, it’s not like the opportunity has completely disappeared. Let’s look forward to seven years from now."
"Yeah... because the people I know will be interviewing with you around then too..."
The reason Fernandez agreed to the low wage (?) was that he could ask his acquaintances about their salaries when they worked under Yoon-gi.
'When that time comes, at least he won’t pay me less than the others.'
Since it was unimaginable that he wouldn’t match the U.S. wages when hiring an American, Fernandez decided to think of his low wage as a 'ghost extermination fee' and took a sip of the coffee the clerk had left on the table.
"Damn, no one believed me when I said I saw ghosts all this time, but a kid from a country called Korea sees them..."
"Even if I say I see them, no one believes me, so I’m just keeping my mouth shut. So Fernandez, you’d better keep your mouth shut if possible. The world looks at people who are different from others strangely."
"Well, I acknowledge that. Damn it, why did a ghost have to attach itself to me of all people..."
"Who knows? Maybe you’ll receive the best treatment in the world from me?"
Yoon-gi was half-serious, but Fernandez burst into laughter, taking it half as a joke.
"Yeah, maybe so. Anyway, if I can sleep as comfortably as I did today, I can endure seven years. So, what is the work I have to do? I heard it was department store interior design."
"There is one thing I want you to do before that."
"What is it?"
"Interviews."
At Yoon-gi’s words, Fernandez couldn’t help but feel that he had been 'had'.
'Such a mischievous kid.'
A few days before meeting Fernandez, Yoon-gi had been recommended six more people by Leanna. They were people close to Leanna, although their abilities were a bit lacking. Of course, he didn’t intend to hire all of them, so he had scheduled interviews, but thanks to Fernandez deciding to work, he was able to have more expertise in the interviews.
"By the way, Yoon. What about the kids' salaries?"
Thirty minutes before the interview started, Yoon-gi smiled subtly at Fernandez’s question.
"What do you want to do?"
"Uh... can I be honest?"
"By all means."
Fernandez hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.
"It’s just that... them getting paid more than me..."
Yoon-gi, who nodded while chuckling inwardly at Choi Deok-bae’s words, said to Fernandez.
"Then judge well among the six who is worth working for even with that pay. Today is an interview to see if they have the intention to work, and as for the wages, we will negotiate after the interview."
"Well, that’s good for me."
"Oh, and it doesn’t matter before the interview, but from the moment the interview starts, I’d like you to call me Boss. It’s an employment relationship, after all?"
"Ah, right. Because of the perception on the outside... I’ll be careful from the start of the interview."
Seeing Fernandez scratch the back of his head and stroke his beard, Yoon-gi asked.
"Don’t you need to shave your beard? I heard you didn’t originally grow it."
"I couldn’t care about it before, but now it’s a bit of a waste to cut it. I’ll just grow it."
"Hmm, you came down to the café without washing, so I thought you wouldn’t be able to manage it well."
"That was because I came down in a hurry after getting the call to come down. Actually, I’m quite neat and diligent."
"...I’ll take your word for it."
"I’m serious!"
Since it didn’t actually smell, Yoon-gi let it slide and waited for the interview time. And as soon as the interview time arrived, Fernandez began to talk to the interviewees with quite sharp eyes, and Yoon-gi listened to the interview live through Choi Deok-bae in the next room.
"Were there people worth bringing on to work?"
"Two of them, honestly, I don’t think are it."
Perhaps because he had experienced the real world, Fernandez began to speak formally to Yoon-gi as he had said earlier. Of course, since he was using English, strictly speaking, it was somewhat different from the honorifics in Korean.
"Then that’s four people."
"Do you intend to hire all four?"
Yoon-gi shook his head.
"No. I have to review the four separately. Based on today’s interview content. Who do you want to work with?"
"Ah, these people."
Fernandez picked out four documents and handed them to Yoon-gi, and Yoon-gi took the documents and returned to his hotel room. Choi Deok-bae, who was getting a shoulder massage from the white ghost, looked at Yoon-gi with a look of anxiety.
"Of course. Can you make that ghost work too?"