Once the meeting ended, Seong-ho Kim called out to the general manager, who was about to leave with the other managers.
“General Manager. Could you stay behind a moment?”
At Seong-ho Kim’s words, the general manager stopped and sat in the empty chair in front of him.
“Was there something else you wanted to say?”
At the general manager’s question, Seong-ho Kim gestured for Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo to sit as well, then spoke.
“It’s about the new hiring we’re doing this time.”
“Yes.”
“We’re also going to be hiring kitchen staff. Please recruit accordingly for that as well — servers, and…”
“J-just a moment. Director.”
The general manager, thinking he might have misheard, cut in.
Shaking his head, he asked,
“You mean hire the head chef?”
“No. The head chef will be recruited separately by Manager Jeong and Assistant Manager Jo here. I’m asking you to hire the supporting staff beyond that.”
The general manager glanced back and forth between Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo, who seemed to already know about this, and said,
“So the two of them will bring in the head chef separately, and you’d like me to hire the rest?”
“Yes, exactly. And…”
Seong-ho Kim smiled faintly and continued.
“For up-and-coming cooks, tell them Ilhyeon Hotel will offer study-abroad opportunities. Japanese cuisine cooks can study in Japan, French cuisine cooks at culinary schools in France.”
“You’ll send them to study abroad…?”
“And if they want, tell them they can also do training placements at restaurants there. If we say Ilhyeon Hotel will cover expenses and even living costs, the response should be considerable.”
The general manager looked at Seong-ho Kim with a startled expression.
“We’re a hotel. Why would we… invest in chefs like this?”
Seong-ho Kim smiled, seeing the general manager react the same way Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo had on the 23rd floor earlier.
“General Manager. I heard that when Ilhyeon Hotel first opened, the chairman used to come here often to enjoy meals. Is that correct?”
“Uh… yes. That’s correct.”
The general manager was caught off guard by the sudden mention of Tak-hyeon Lee, but nodded, remembering that time.
Seong-ho Kim turned to look at Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo as well, signaling them to listen closely, and continued.
“But at some point, the chairman stopped visiting the hotel. Do you know why?”
The general manager’s face darkened as he answered.
“If I remember correctly, it was because of the dumplings.”
“That’s right.”
Seong-ho Kim nodded at the general manager and said,
“The chairman, who loved dumplings, tasted the dumplings at our hotel’s restaurant, was deeply disappointed, and never came back.”
Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo looked at Seong-ho Kim and the general manager with startled expressions, hearing this for the first time.
Seeing the general manager unable to lift his head, they realized Seong-ho Kim’s account was accurate.
Seong-ho Kim repeated to the general manager what he’d told Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo earlier.
“Until now, the restaurants here operated under contract, so there was nothing to be done when the food was bad. But it’s different now. We’ve thrown out all the terrible restaurants. We’re planning to run the restaurants there ourselves, directly.”
“Directly?”
“Yes. We’re planning to set up a separate food and beverage division as well.”
“Ah!”
The general manager understood, seeing that beyond hiring cooks and serving staff, an entire dedicated department was being established, that Seong-ho Kim had staked the hotel’s success on its restaurants.
“So please proceed with that understanding, General Manager.”
“Yes. I’ll set up the new department right away and include its staff in the hiring.”
“Good.”
Seong-ho Kim said to the general manager, Byeong-ju Jeong, and Byeong-jin Jo,
“The deadline is one year. Within one year, we need the best restaurant in Korea sitting inside our hotel. Understood?”
At Seong-ho Kim’s words, hope began to grow in all three of them that following him would naturally lead to good results.
Ilhyeon Hotel’s massive new hiring drive sent ripples through the hotel industry.
“Is it true? They really give you a bonus just for memorizing license plates?”
The doorman who’d just opened the door for an arriving guest asked his colleague again about what he’d heard.
“They really give a 500,000 won bonus for memorizing 100 plates?”
“The important part is they give it every single time you hit another 100.”
“So 1,000 plates means 5 million won?”
The doorman held up five fingers as he asked.
His colleague gave a short laugh at the gesture and nodded.
“Right. That’s right. 1,000 plates gets you 5 million won.”
The doorman, looking like he couldn’t quite believe it, was about to say more, but a car pulling in interrupted him, and he straightened up.
Opening the door for the stopped car, the doorman bowed his head in greeting, and the man getting out returned the bow lightly before heading into the hotel.
Once the man had gone inside, the doorman closed the door and said to his colleague,
“5884. That’s the Dongsung Construction president’s car.”
“Right. And 3785 is the Dongsung Construction vice-president, 1035 is their managing director…”
License plate numbers for Dongsung Construction executives poured out of the doorman and his colleague one after another.
The two of them traded plate numbers they each knew, then looked at each other.
“It was just something we did to pass the time waiting for guests, and now they’re paying for it?”
The doorman looked steadily at his colleague and said,
“You’re thinking the same thing, right?”
“Obviously.”
Without needing to say it aloud, the two of them, sensing they shared the same thought, spoke with resolve.
“Let’s go.”
“Right. If we have to bow our heads to people anyway, might as well get paid more for it. Let’s go.”
Having confirmed they felt the same way, the two of them chose to switch jobs to Ilhyeon Hotel.
This kind of decision wasn’t happening only among doormen.
“5,000 won every time a guest says the room condition was clean?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Ilhyeon Hotel’s paying for something that should just be normal…”
“That’s it, I can’t stand it. I’m going there.”
“Right, let’s go together. Changing pillowcases and sheets is just basic work, but if Ilhyeon Hotel’s paying extra for it, we should go there.”
The card Seong-ho Kim had laid out proved irresistibly attractive to them.
As a result, most people who’d worked at Seoul’s top hotels came flooding in, wanting to work at Ilhyeon Hotel.
Doormen, bellboys, housekeepers, and other frontline hotel staff, as well as managers, office workers, and experienced hires from every other department, all poured into Ilhyeon Hotel.
Seong-ho Kim and Byeong-jin Jo talked in the lobby, watching the applicants outnumber the guests.
“I didn’t think filling positions would be this easy.”
“It’s not as hard as you’d think. Pay people properly and treat them well, and they come to you on their own.”
“I was worried about how long it’d take to train up new hires…”
Recruiting new employees and training them into competent staff usually took a considerable amount of time.
That was part of why the existing Ilhyeon Hotel staff had gotten away with slacking off so shamelessly.
But Seong-ho Kim had never intended to fill every empty position with fresh hires from the start.
“Employers want their staff to have ownership and loyalty to the company. And they mistakenly believe that once someone joins their company, they won’t go anywhere else. But employees don’t work that way.”
“Then what are employees loyal to?”
“Money, obviously. Doesn’t loyalty come naturally to you too, if someone pays you well?”
“Uh… that’s true, I suppose.”
At Seong-ho Kim’s words, Byeong-jin Jo looked dazed, as if he’d been struck on the head.
He was startled that Seong-ho Kim — a member of the owner family, no less — could say something like that so casually.
“Is it really all right for you to say things like that?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Still…”
Byeong-jin Jo glanced around quickly and lowered his voice.
“If I said something like that, people would point fingers at me — what would people think if you say it?”
“It’s fine. I don’t worry about that.”
Unlike Byeong-jin Jo’s concern, Seong-ho Kim spoke as though it were nothing, looking down at the applicants filing in one by one, and said,
“Because it’s the truth, and it’s reality.”
Seong-ho Kim knew well that what he’d just said would become common sense within a few years, not some distant future.
Right now, the atmosphere still frowned on pursuing money too openly as vulgar, but within a few years, he remembered clearly, an atmosphere would take hold in which money itself was regarded as the highest value.
Not knowing any of this, Byeong-jin Jo thought Seong-ho Kim was doing something no one else dared attempt precisely because he saw straight through human psychology.
‘…Maybe he really is a different kind of person than we are.’
Watching Seong-ho Kim’s back, Byeong-jin Jo recalled the time Seong-ho Kim had gotten married to Gyeong-eun Lee.
When he’d heard Seong-ho Kim was marrying the youngest daughter of the Ilhyeon Group, Byeong-jin Jo had desperately tried to talk him out of it.
He’d believed that nothing good could come of an ordinary person like them marrying into a chaebol family — and not just any chaebol, but the Ilhyeon Group.
He’d even asked Gyeong-eun Lee directly why on earth she’d chosen Seong-ho Kim.
—He was different from other people.
‘Back then I thought she was just saying that… but he really is different.’
Byeong-jin Jo clicked his tongue, watching Seong-ho Kim speak so calmly about things ordinary people couldn’t, and carry out unthinkable plans with his own hands.
Just then, Seong-ho Kim, who’d been watching the applicants, turned his head and asked Byeong-jin Jo,
“When did Manager Jeong say he’d be here?”
Byeong-jin Jo checked his watch and answered,
“He said by 4, so he should be here in about 30 minutes.”
“Then let’s head up now.”
Byeong-jin Jo watched Seong-ho Kim walk toward the elevator for a moment before following after him.
Even after Seong-ho Kim and Byeong-jin Jo left, the line of applicants continued without end.
It was to the point where it seemed like applicants were coming not just from Seoul, but from every hotel across the whole country.
A little while later, Seong-ho Kim sat facing the man Byeong-ju Jeong had gone to great lengths to find — reportedly the best chef in Korea.
With an arrogant attitude, the chef stated his terms to Seong-ho Kim first.
“What I want is a 50% equity stake and a 200-million-won signing fee.”
Hearing the chef’s terms, Seong-ho Kim only smiled quietly.
When Seong-ho Kim said nothing, the chef spoke up first, adding another condition.
“And you’ll also need to guarantee the operating rights to my current restaurant.”
Hearing the chef’s demands, Byeong-ju Jeong spoke up first, startled.
“Chef Kim! Didn’t I make it clear? Our condition was that you close your current restaurant and come into Ilhyeon Hotel.”
“If you don’t like it, then don’t do it — simple as that, isn’t it?”
The chef spoke loudly, throwing his weight around.
“It’s not as if I’m the one asking to come in — you people came asking me first. Can I not even state my terms?”
Byeong-ju Jeong tried to push back against the chef’s words.
“That’s…”
Just then, Seong-ho Kim raised a hand to stop Byeong-ju Jeong.
Recognizing that Seong-ho Kim was the decision-maker in the room, the chef turned to face him directly.
And he spoke to Seong-ho Kim as though he were making a great sacrifice.
“Even this much is a concession I’m making out of respect for the Ilhyeon Group’s name. Anywhere else, I’d have demanded far more.”
Looking regretful that he couldn’t demand even more, the chef began talking about just how impressive he was.
“I may not look it, but I worked under a Michelin one-star chef in France. Do you know what Michelin is? Michelin is…”
Seong-ho Kim smiled and cut off the chef, who was about to start gilding his own reputation.
“I know. So you don’t need to explain.”
“Then… shall we sign the contract?”
Thinking he’d made his position clear enough, the chef hinted to Seong-ho Kim that it was time to draw up the paperwork.
Seong-ho Kim, keeping his smile in place, said to the chef,
“No. We won’t be signing a contract.”
“Sorry?”
“You said it yourself a moment ago — if I don’t like it, I don’t have to do it. I don’t like it. So you’re free to leave now. Manager Jeong, please see him out properly.”
Without any back-and-forth negotiation, Seong-ho Kim instructed that the chef be shown out, and turned away, as though he had no further wish to face the man.
(End of Chapter 45)