In the car heading to Ilhyeon Hotel sat Seong-ho Kim, Byeong-ju Jeong, and Seong-ho Kim’s friend Byeong-jin Jo.
Fidgeting anxiously, Byeong-jin Jo turned to look at Seong-ho Kim in the back seat and said,
“Seong-ho… no, Director Kim. Are you sure it’s really all right for me to come along too?”
“What’s with the ‘Director Kim’ all of a sudden? I already told you I sorted it all out. What, you don’t want to come?”
“No, it’s not that I don’t want to…”
Byeong-jin Jo glanced sidelong at Byeong-ju Jeong, who had his hands on the wheel, then turned back to Seong-ho Kim.
“It’s just that I’m an ordinary sales-floor employee at Ilhyeon Distribution — is it really all right for me to suddenly walk into group headquarters, into Strategic Planning of all places?”
“By that logic, I was an ordinary sales-floor employee at Ilhyeon Distribution too.”
Reassuring the anxious Byeong-jin Jo not to worry, Seong-ho Kim leaned forward slightly toward the front seats and said,
“Manager Jeong here, me, and now you — the three of us make up the newly formed restructuring team within Strategic Planning. Starting with Ilhyeon Hotel, I’m going to be tackling a lot of work. To do that, I need people I can rely on to help me. That’s why I called you in, so I’ll be counting on you going forward.”
“Hey, I should be the one saying that — you’re the one who called me into the center of the whole group. But…”
Byeong-jin Jo turned his head to look at Ilhyeon Hotel coming into view through the window and let out a worried remark.
“I don’t know the first thing about restructuring… will I really be able to pull my weight?”
“Don’t worry. Just follow my lead.”
Seong-ho Kim patted Byeong-jin Jo’s shoulder and turned his own gaze out the window, watching Ilhyeon Hotel draw closer.
In front of Ilhyeon Hotel’s entrance, the hotel staff waited for Seong-ho Kim with expressions split evenly between anticipation and nerves.
Watching the car approach from a distance, the Ilhyeon Hotel employees talked among themselves.
“Is that the car?”
At the news that the head-office director who’d handled Ilhyeon Watch’s restructuring was coming, they’d lost all track of time waiting for Seong-ho Kim.
“He’ll probably do the same thing for us that he did at Ilhyeon Watch, right?”
Recalling the stories of Ilhyeon Watch’s restructuring, the Ilhyeon Hotel employees were delighting in the future they imagined was now coming for them too.
“I know someone who worked at Ilhyeon Watch — they said when they left, between the retirement allowance and the consolation bonus, they walked away with about 100 million won.”
“100 million? They really got 100 million and quit?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. They took that money, traveled for about a month, and then got hired right back on at the company next door.”
“That’s basically like winning the housing lottery.”
“Exactly. So I heard the employees who didn’t quit are the ones feeling regretful now.”
Talking over the retirement allowances and consolation bonuses the Ilhyeon Watch employees had supposedly received, they were busy running the numbers in their heads.
“If a factory worker at the watch company got 100 million, shouldn’t we get at least 200 million?”
“Right? We’re hotel staff. We should get 200 million at least.”
“I heard Eastern Hotel’s hiring staff right now, apparently. I should take the consolation bonus here and switch over to Eastern Hotel.”
Once talk of other hotels hiring came up, even those who’d been on the fence about quitting found their hearts tipping over.
“Eastern Hotel’s hiring? Then I should decide to quit too.”
“Me too, me too. I’ll take the consolation bonus and quit.”
“I’ve got no reason to stay here either, and there are dozens of hotels in Seoul — I should grab this chance. Who knows when an opportunity like this comes again.”
Because of the stories about Ilhyeon Watch employees quitting with consolation bonuses in hand, the Ilhyeon Hotel employees were treating the restructuring not as something to fear, but as an opportunity —
a once-in-a-lifetime chance to receive a large sum of money all at once.
In their eyes, the car carrying Seong-ho Kim had begun to look like Santa Claus’s sleigh.
Soon, when the car carrying Seong-ho Kim pulled to a stop at the hotel entrance, the Ilhyeon Hotel staff began welcoming him with real enthusiasm.
Watching the scene from inside the car, Byeong-ju Jeong said, puzzled,
“What’s gotten into those people all of a sudden?”
Byeong-jin Jo, too, looked out the window with a puzzled expression and said,
“I braced myself expecting fierce hostility… why are they welcoming us?”
“We probably look like Santa Claus to them.”
“Santa Claus, out of nowhere?”
Unlike the puzzled Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo, Seong-ho Kim knew exactly why the Ilhyeon Hotel staff were behaving this way.
Mistaking the person who’d come to restructure a company for a savior was something that had happened often enough in his past life, too.
Which was why Seong-ho Kim understood perfectly well what the employees were thinking right now.
“Well, time to shatter that idea.”
Seong-ho Kim curled up the corners of his mouth and said to the two men in the front seats,
“Let’s go, then.”
At Seong-ho Kim’s words, Byeong-ju Jeong opened the driver’s door and got out first, followed by Byeong-jin Jo from the passenger seat.
And lastly, Seong-ho Kim got out of the car, and so began the first task of Strategic Planning’s restructuring team, aimed at bringing Ilhyeon Hotel back to normal.
Gathered in the Ilhyeon Hotel president’s office, the hotel’s executives and Seong-ho Kim’s group sat with cups of hot tea before them, talking.
“As you’ll know from the call you received from headquarters, effective this very hour, Ilhyeon Hotel will be switching over to an emergency management system.”
Seong-ho Kim spoke to the Ilhyeon Hotel president and executives with practiced ease.
“Ilhyeon Hotel’s restructuring will be treated as the top priority, and once the restructuring concludes, the hotel will return to normal management.”
“Um… Director Kim.”
Ilhyeon Hotel President Jae-su Jeong spoke with an awkward smile.
“What… what will happen to us, exactly?”
“When you say ‘us,’ who exactly do you mean?”
Byeong-ju Jeong was the first to put the question to Jae-su Jeong.
Still wearing his awkward smile, Jae-su Jeong gestured toward the seated executives and said,
“Us, I mean. The… executives here…”
President Jae-su Jeong trailed off and glanced anxiously at Seong-ho Kim.
Jae-su Jeong was being careful with Seong-ho Kim, the once-ugly-duckling youngest son-in-law of the chairman, whose standing had transformed after his great achievement at Ilhyeon Watch.
So Jae-su Jeong put on the brightest smile he could manage and said to Seong-ho Kim,
“I don’t know if you remember, Director, but… I attended your wedding, and… exchanged greetings with the chairman as well… I know I came from another hotel originally, but it’s already been more than three years since I joined Ilhyeon Hotel. I like to think I’ve spent a good long time alongside Ilhyeon Hotel… so, will we too be going through this… honorary retirement, is it?”
Once President Jae-su Jeong opened the floodgates on the topic of honorary retirement, the executives, as if they’d been waiting for it, threw questions at Seong-ho Kim one after another.
“Looking at Ilhyeon Watch, the relevant plan only applied down to department-head level and below — what happens to us? Will we also receive some number of months’ base pay?”
“No matter how I look at it, shouldn’t we receive a flat payment across the board, the same way assistant managers and below did at Ilhyeon Watch… surely more than 50 million won, given the difference between the two companies?”
“It’s the consensus among Ilhyeon Hotel staff that our consolation bonus should be larger, proportional to the gap between Ilhyeon Watch and Ilhyeon Hotel.”
“What’s been set for our Ilhyeon Hotel consolation bonus?”
At the barrage of questions coming without pause, Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo wore expressions of disbelief.
The restructuring hadn’t even begun, and yet President Jae-su Jeong and the others were already bringing up consolation bonuses — it struck them as pathetic.
And if the executives were like this, they could only imagine what the staff below them must be like.
Even though no honorary-retirement application had been issued yet, they could easily picture the staff already sitting with pens in hand, waiting for the forms.
Seong-ho Kim waited until Jae-su Jeong and the others had finished speaking, then slowly opened his mouth.
“It seems there’s been some significant misunderstanding here.”
“Sorry? What do you mean by that…?”
“President Jeong and the other executives here are contract employees. Where is there room for honorary retirement for staff bound by a contractual relationship? When the contract expires, you naturally part ways — that’s all there is to it.”
“Director…?”
Apparently having never expected such words, Jae-su Jeong’s eyes and the other executives’ eyes went wide.
Seong-ho Kim’s calm voice landed like a finely honed blade.
And that blade flew mercilessly toward the executives.
“You shouldn’t have been asking about consolation bonuses — you should have been asking how this restructuring will proceed. Only by showing that you can properly assist me in resolving this restructuring will there be any hope of a further contract for you. Otherwise, Ilhyeon’s relationship with all of you ends right here.”
Having finished speaking, Seong-ho Kim shot Byeong-jin Jo a look, and Byeong-jin Jo drew a document from his bag and handed it to Seong-ho Kim.
Seong-ho Kim took the document and set it on the table, and President Jae-su Jeong looked down at it and asked,
“What is this?”
“A salary-forfeiture waiver.”
“Sorry? What kind of waiver?”
President Jae-su Jeong looked up at Seong-ho Kim with startled eyes.
Sweeping his gaze once over Jae-su Jeong and the executives, Seong-ho Kim pressed the blade to their throats.
“It’s a contract stating you agree not to draw salary until the restructuring concludes. Sign here, and starting with next month’s pay, disbursement will be suspended.”
“Wait. Are you telling us to work without pay right now?”
One of the executives protested fiercely.
Seong-ho Kim looked at him and said,
“Don’t like it? Then you’re free to leave the company.”
Having tossed off the remark that leaving was perfectly fine, Seong-ho Kim looked around at the seated executives and said,
“Let me remind you all once more of your position. An executive is a post bound to the company by contractual relationship. It’s a seat evaluated, based on a year’s performance, on whether you’ll continue on together or not.”
Watching the executives, seemingly at a loss for words, Seong-ho Kim continued.
“From this point forward, your performance will be judged not by how much profit Ilhyeon Hotel generates, but by how well this restructuring goes. As the first step in that, you’ll be filling out this salary-forfeiture waiver here, along with a resignation letter.”
Having finished speaking, Seong-ho Kim gestured to Manager Byeong-ju Jeong.
At that, Byeong-ju Jeong, in turn, drew a resignation letter from his bag and set it on the table.
The faces of the executives who’d been dreaming of a happy future had, at some point, turned ashen.
The salary-forfeiture waiver alone was disorienting enough, but with the resignation letter now added, they descended into full confusion.
Watching their ashen faces, Seong-ho Kim said,
“You’ll write out the salary-forfeiture waiver and the resignation letter first, and the restructuring will proceed from there. There’s no need to worry — any salary you forfeit will all be returned to you once the restructuring succeeds. This will be the starting point of Ilhyeon Hotel’s restructuring.”
Tapping the salary-forfeiture waiver and resignation letter with a finger, Seong-ho Kim said,
“Let me say it once more — if you don’t care for this, you’re free to leave the company right now. Your salary will be calculated up through today’s date and paid out accordingly.”
Seong-ho Kim straightened his collar with one hand and rose from his seat.
“With that, I’ll conclude my introduction. When you’ve reached your decision, come find me.”
The executives, at a loss for words, had frozen up like stone statues.
Seong-ho Kim swept his gaze once more over the executives — who, unable to answer, only stared blankly down at the papers he’d laid before them — and left the room.
Once the conference room had faded from view behind them, Byeong-jin Jo asked Seong-ho Kim quietly,
“What was that? Why are you so smooth at this? Did you practice at home or something?”
At Byeong-jin Jo’s words, Byeong-ju Jeong, too, looked at Seong-ho Kim with curious eyes.
Because even back at Ilhyeon Watch, Seong-ho Kim’s handling of the restructuring had seemed remarkably practiced.
Seong-ho Kim smiled at the two of them, curious as they were, and said,
“Guess it’s just a knack I have for this.”
“A knack for this? For something like this?”
However much power was involved in wielding it, it was still work that required saying unpleasant things to people.
Seen from a step back it might look impressive, but once you were actually inside it, unless you were someone who took genuine pleasure in tormenting others, most of it was simply uncomfortable.
After all, no one wants to be hated; everyone wants to hear only good things, wants to be thought of as a good person.
And yet the work Seong-ho Kim had taken on now was work that required saying unwelcome things to other people, work that could earn him someone’s resentment for it.
So to hear him say this suited his temperament left Byeong-jin Jo wondering whether this was really the Seong-ho Kim he’d always known.
But what Byeong-jin Jo couldn’t know was this:
that Seong-ho Kim had done this exact kind of work, restructuring after restructuring, to the point of nausea, in his past life.
That the Ilhyeon family had always put Seong-ho Kim in the seat that absorbed every curse, every insult there was to give.
Waiting for the elevator, Seong-ho Kim smiled.
Twenty years of doing this, until it had become, of all things, something he had a knack for.
It occurred to him that perhaps this was finally the payoff for all that suffering, arriving late.
Watching the elevator doors open, Seong-ho Kim turned to Byeong-jin Jo and said,
“There’s still work left to do, so let’s save that conversation for later — for now, let’s just get in the elevator.”
Following Seong-ho Kim into the elevator, Byeong-ju Jeong asked, curious,
“Work left to do? What work, that you’re heading out without even unpacking at the office?”
“I’m going to the restaurant upstairs first.”
“Why the restaurant?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Seong-ho Kim only smiled lightly.
(End of Chapter 34)