Chapter 39. A Man Blessed With Too Much Work (1)
“Thank you, Director. I didn’t expect you to pay attention to details like this.”
Jinhyeok gathered the documents and rose.
His expression was brighter than before.
Yet he didn’t seem quite as happy as Taesik expected.
I scratched exactly where he was itching, and he’s still this calm?
Taesik had been wondering when he should bring up the new business role.
He abandoned the idea.
Trying to ask for something immediately after giving Jinhyeok rewards would look far too obvious.
Taesik quietly studied the man he still couldn’t understand.
Where does that calm attitude come from?
Is he planning to become financially independent and retire early? Build wealth through real estate and leave the company?
No.
That didn’t make sense.
Taesik had read every report Jinhyeok had ever submitted.
He knew how much Jinhyeok genuinely valued commercial district analysis.
Another explanation seemed more likely.
Taesik had seen this kind of ease countless times among chaebol families and wealthy people.
People who didn’t need to chase money.
People who could simply enjoy working.
Employees with money really are difficult to control.
It was, in fact, a reasonably accurate misunderstanding.
A significant portion of Jinhyeok’s confidence really did come from having money.
Jinhyeok gathered the documents and thanked him once more.
“Thank you, Director. I’ll submit our workshop plan sometime today.”
“Uh... yes. Sure. We’ll talk again later. Ahem.”
Taesik, who hadn’t even managed to say what he originally wanted, trailed off with a blank expression.
After leaving the office, Jinhyeok clenched his fist.
A gift gained without giving up anything.
Perfect kindness with no attached conditions.
Jinhyeok liked that very much.
“All right, everyone. Listen up. I have two pieces of good news for our team.”
The moment I returned to the office, I gathered the members.
Technically, there were three pieces of good news.
But there was no reason to tell them about my personal reward.
I had signed the documents immediately after leaving the director’s office and submitted them to the Audit Team.
There was no need to read them again.
Not a single clause was disadvantageous to me.
“Were you called to the director’s office, Team Leader?”
“Yeah. Listen carefully. First, they’ve approved a major hiring expansion for the Commercial District Analysis Team. You’ve all suffered long enough.”
Senior Staff Choi Iseul, whom I expected to be happiest, pouted adorably.
“Ugh. I like being the youngest. Once I move up, it feels like...”
She trailed off.
I wasn’t especially curious about whatever she had stopped herself from saying.
Helping team members grow was also part of a team leader’s job.
I couldn’t keep a capable person as the youngest employee forever.
“All right! Here’s the next thing. From now on, we need to plan our workshop. We’ll submit the plan today and leave tomorrow morning. I’m thinking of a four-day trip around the country until Friday. What do you think? Everyone free?”
Jongil and Oh Ilman froze with their mouths open.
I had thought about it fairly seriously.
So I had no idea why they were reacting like that.
Senior Staff Choi was the first to recover.
“You mean... we’re going to be away all four weekdays?”
“Yeah. We can handle urgent work from outside just like we did over the past month. As far as I know, there’s nothing we need to process immediately. If anyone has personal plans, we can move it to next week, so don’t feel pressured.”
“...”
Senior Staff Choi seemed to be thinking differently from me.
As expected.
Unlike their team leader, my team members were exemplary employees.
“Even if we can handle the work that way...”
“What is it? Say it comfortably.”
“You said we’re hiring new people. Wouldn’t it be better to go on the workshop after they join?”
A model answer.
But I thought differently.
“You have to take opportunities like this while they exist. If we make good use of this workshop, won’t they send us again after the new hires come?”
Was that logic too miraculous?
Manager Park froze.
Assistant Manager Oh froze.
And now Senior Staff Choi froze too.
“Hmm. Since none of you are saying anything, I assume you have no personal plans. Senior Staff Choi?”
“Yes? Ah! Yes, Team Leader!”
“You’re in charge of the workshop budget and logistics. First, we need to submit a plan to the director. Let’s start with that. For the first day, let’s go to Sinduri Beach in Taean.”
It was home to the largest coastal sand dune in Korea.
A place I had wanted to visit again ever since seeing it on TV.
“Do you already have anything planned? Like brainstorming sessions or work-plan reports?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question.
Yet my lips twisted before I could stop them.
“No. We don’t need that. The report is only a formality. We’re going to move around freely. On the first day, let’s walk a little, then have a seafood feast in the evening. Seongun Seafood Taean branch. How does that sound?”
Seongun’s premium seafood restaurant.
One of its biggest characteristics was that branches only opened near coastal regions, never in major city centers.
Each branch also used local specialties as its main dishes.
There wasn’t even a location in Seoul.
The moment they heard the name of a restaurant they had wanted to visit but never could, Manager Park and Assistant Manager Oh thawed immediately.
“Oh! Seongun Seafood! I’ve always wanted to try it. If it’s Taean, is the main dish blue crab? Senior Staff Choi! Let’s hurry and prepare. What can I help with?”
Fortunately, nobody seemed to have personal plans.
Senior Staff Choi excitedly began typing.
Jongil and Ilman helped with shining eyes.
The division director had clearly said the workshop name was only a cover.
We were supposed to rest comfortably.
We were going on a spontaneous trip.
A trip where every detail was planned in advance wasn’t real freedom.
First stop, Taean.
We could decide what came next afterward.
Maybe that thought was too careless.
I had no idea we would become stuck in Taean.
Apparently, I was simply the type of person blessed with far too much work.
Monday evening.
Seongun Seafood, Taean branch.
The kitchen became busy after the tour group that had filled an otherwise quiet Monday finally left.
“Hey! Hey, you idiot! I told you that’s still fine! I saw them barely touch it! Don’t throw the vegetables away either! Wash them properly and use them for the seasoned salad!”
The franchise owner stood in the kitchen with a toothpick between his lips, checking every plate returned from the dining room.
Reusing food.
Something Seongun absolutely forbade.
“President, what should we do with this?”
An employee pointed toward a bowl of bright red marinated raw crab.
“You were going to throw that away?”
“We’ve been serving it since the weekend. The meat feels a little soft now.”
“Summer crabs are all like that. Why throw it away? Use it one more day. Add stronger seasoning and nobody will notice.”
The employee nodded with a disturbed expression and began sorting the leftovers.
“Hey! Manager Park! Come here.”
“Yes, President.”
The man quickly ran over.
“How did it go? Are we getting it this time?”
Several months earlier, Seongun’s mutual-growth support fund had appeared in the news as a model corporate program.
The Taean branch owner saw it as practically free money.
He had already been rejected for two consecutive months.
“Well... it was rejected again.”
“What? Fuck. Why again? Is there another restaurant struggling as much as us? What’s the reason this time?”
“They proved our sales decline, but apparently the results of the last sanitation inspection are still causing trouble.”
The owner frowned.
“Fuck. We fixed everything they complained about. Didn’t you send pictures?”
“I did. But now they’re saying the disposal records are a problem. They’ll only recognize discarded food if we use the waste-processing company officially designated by Seongun.”
Bang!
The owner slammed the table in frustration.
“Fuck! Those desk jockeys are unbelievably annoying. They want me to pay money just to throw food away before they give me support money? Does that make any sense? Idiots.”
“...”
“Find another way. If we don’t get that money, you won’t recover your investment either. Are you going to keep acting like this has nothing to do with you?”
“No, President. I’ll try again.”
The mutual-growth support fund offered as much as two hundred million won.
The zero-interest structure was attractive.
But the most appealing part was the ridiculously generous benefit.
If mentoring still failed to improve the business, repayment could be postponed indefinitely.
In other words, if the business stayed poor, he might never have to pay the money back.
To the Taean branch owner, it was free money.
He never wanted the restaurant to become truly successful in the first place.
On paper it looked unprofitable.
In reality, the owner was pocketing plenty.
Seongun Seafood had a unique policy allowing each branch to choose local specialty ingredients.
That meant branches could purchase those products without going through Seongun headquarters.
He bought a small amount of domestic blue crab.
Then mixed it with cheaper imported frozen crab.
All he really needed was the trustworthy Seongun sign hanging outside.
Most customers were tourists.
They would never return anyway.
There was no reason, in his mind, to serve them quality food.
“What are you doing? Why are you still here?”
“Ah. There’s something else. We got a reservation for tomorrow evening. They ordered the Emperor Course, so I think we need to buy some king crab. There isn’t a single live one left.”
They needed a few live crabs in the tank for display.
“Ha... Fine. Buy a few of the cheapest ones and put them in the tank. We still have the frozen ones for steaming, right?”
The owner’s mental calculator began spinning.
The Emperor Course.
It didn’t exist on headquarters’ official menu.
He had created it himself to rip off one-time tourists.
He simply added a king crab to existing dishes and charged an absurd price.
250,000 won per person.
The ingredient cost didn’t even reach 50,000 won.
“And tomorrow, hide the normal soju from that room. That local liquor we got last time, Taean Byeolju or whatever it was.”
“Yes, President.”
“Push that instead. It goes down way too easily. If we do it right, the alcohol bill might be higher than the food. Hehehe.”
The owner’s cheap trick was to push expensive local alcohol.
Manager Park acted as though he had seen this too many times and asked something else.
“But President, because of the early heat, some ingredients seem to be in poor condition. That marinated crab we set aside earlier is especially bad. If anyone gets food poisoning now, the support fund is completely gone.”
“What kind of pointless worry is that? Just don’t let them eat too much. I told you, load it with seasoning so it’s salty and spicy. Nobody gets food poisoning from one bite. It isn’t even midsummer yet. What are you so worried about?”
“...Y-Yes, President.”
The owner became irritated that he had to explain even the smallest things.
He glared toward the back of the kitchen.
“Tell that bastard over there he only works until the end of this week, then hire someone else. I’ve told him countless times and he’s still doing that. Tch. Some idiots only learn after getting hit. Fuck.”
The person he pointed at was a young part-time worker who seemed to have just joined.
He stood there looking miserable.
Even after being smacked on the back of the head several times, he still couldn’t bring himself to put customers’ leftover food into the refrigerator.
