Chapter 39. Attack the Messenger (2)
[Former Executive Director A, who headed Handong Construction’s Safety Management TF, actually left the company because of an internal sexual harassment incident. Many employees believed misuse of a corporate card was the reason.
In reality, however, the issue began after allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed a junior female employee. The employee reported him to the company grievance committee, but because Executive Director A wielded considerable influence, the matter was quietly buried.
After Vice President JK took office, he ordered the case reinvestigated. The sexual harassment allegation was confirmed, and Executive Director A ultimately resigned.]
It was the night Handong Construction had been driven into a corner by Yubin’s interview with Ahn Changwan.
Messages like this began circulating among reporters.
Naturally, one reached Yubin as well.
She immediately forwarded it to Harok.
[Harok: They’re really trying hard. Tsk, tsk.]
[Yubin: Do you think Handong Group spread this?]
[Harok: It’s way too obvious.]
[Yubin: They should rebut the article instead of doing something this cowardly.]
[Harok: They don’t have facts to rebut it with.]
[Yubin: Still, how can they turn a person into some shameless criminal like this?]
[Harok: If you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger.]
[Yubin: That’s what this is?]
[Harok: Obviously.]
[Yubin: What do we do?]
[Harok: Call Executive Director Ahn and verify it first. Then we figure out our next move.]
The next day, Daily Economy ran a major article on its social affairs page about alleged misconduct by Executive Director Ahn Changwan.
Harok spread the newspaper out and read it carefully.
By afternoon, several more forwarded messages about Ahn Changwan began circulating.
It looked like Handong Group’s PR office had gone all-in on destroying his credibility.
And to some extent, their strategy was working.
Normally, reporters would have abused Ahn Changwan’s interview from every possible angle, rewriting it into dozens of copycat articles until the portals were flooded.
But now, as though everyone had made some silent agreement, the media had gone strangely quiet.
After lunch, Harok called Yubin.
“Did you talk to Executive Director Ahn?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s furious. Says it’s completely unfair.”
“It probably isn’t entirely fabricated. Handong’s PR office isn’t stupid enough to invent something from nothing.”
“Right. It’s not entirely made up.”
“So they exaggerated whatever happened?”
“I’m meeting him for a bit to hear the full story. Want to come?”
Harok hesitated.
He had been helping because Yubin kept asking, but was it really right for him to get involved any deeper?
Then again, this was about bringing down Kwon Jaegwan.
Harok couldn’t sit back and watch garbage like that become chairman of Handong Group.
“Fine. Where are you meeting?”
“Somewhere around Jamwon-dong.”
“Come by the office and pick me up when you leave.”
“Okay.”
“If they keep turning this into a mudslinging contest, Handong Group won’t exactly come out clean either...”
Harok and Yubin met Ahn Changwan at a traditional teahouse in Jamwon-dong.
Following the Daily Economy article, MDN was now reporting on the sexual harassment allegations.
“Sorry to ask this so directly, but what exactly happened with the sexual harassment issue?”
Yubin carefully controlled her expression as she asked.
“It was a false accusation. The female employee responsible was ultimately made to resign.”
Ahn Changwan answered firmly.
But Harok and Yubin couldn’t simply take his word at face value.
Sexual harassment and workplace misconduct cases were often closely tied to power.
Even if a superior had actually harassed a female employee, he might have enough influence to suppress the matter.
So it was entirely possible for real harassment to be reframed as a false accusation.
“Could you explain what happened in detail?”
Ahn Changwan frowned deeply, as though he hated even remembering it.
“It was not long after the Safety Management TF was launched...”
His story was roughly this.
It happened at an all-hands company dinner after the task force was formed.
Ahn Changwan, the executive director and TF head, sat in the center, with female employees seated around him.
The practice of deliberately placing female employees beside executives was one of those ugly customs that refused to die at conglomerates.
It was especially common in male-dominated industries such as construction, steel, and chemicals.
Naturally, sexual harassment incidents were also common.
“I’d seen plenty of executives pack up their desks because of women. So I was always very careful at gatherings like that.”
But no matter how careful a man was, things could become difficult if the other person made the first move.
Deputy Chief Choi Hyewon, seated beside him, began acting as though she were flirting.
Choi Hyewon was one of the rare female deputy chiefs at a construction company.
She had been forty-one and unmarried at the time.
She was capable enough to make deputy chief in her thirties, but promotion to department head had become a problem.
The so-called glass ceiling.
After being passed over for promotion two years in a row, Choi Hyewon had become desperate.
The moment she heard a Safety Management TF was being formed, she applied.
Task forces were good places to produce visible results and could help with promotion.
“My wife passed away fairly early, so I’d been living alone for quite a while. Maybe she thought that made me an easy target.”
The first round of dinner led to a second round at a karaoke bar.
That was where the incident happened.
A heavily intoxicated Choi Hyewon asked Ahn Changwan to sing a duet.
He refused, but she kept insisting.
The surrounding team members clapped and encouraged them too.
Unable to avoid it, he sang with her.
But Choi Hyewon kept pressing her body against him.
“For a moment, I thought something serious was going to happen. So I pushed Deputy Chief Choi away and turned aside...”
Being rejected by an older executive wounded Choi Hyewon’s pride badly.
Humiliated, she burst into tears and ran out of the karaoke room.
“Then all of a sudden, she said she was going to report me for sexual harassment. The company rushed to investigate.”
“It never went as far as the police?”
“The facts were too clear. Every team member who was there gave the same testimony.”
“So what happened?”
“In the end, it was determined to be a false accusation. Deputy Chief Choi quietly left the company.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Yes. She was a very capable employee. I think years of discrimination as a woman made her desperate.”
Yubin was furious as though the matter had happened to her personally.
Reviving this incident meant turning it into a controversy all over again.
It was easy to see where Handong Group intended to take the narrative.
They would say the original investigation had been inadequate.
That because Ahn Changwan was an executive, the inquiry had been biased toward him.
That a reinvestigation was necessary.
When it came to sexual misconduct allegations, the accused was automatically placed at a disadvantage in public opinion.
People tended to view the matter through tinted glasses.
The old saying:
There’s no smoke without fire.
Handong Group would definitely push that angle.
They would continue raising Ahn Changwan’s alleged misconduct to bury the safety-budget issue.
And what gave Handong Group the confidence to push this hard?
Advertising.
They clearly believed they could use advertising money to control the media however they pleased.
