Gun-Ho came back to his office in GH Building, Sinsa Town. When he was taking a rest sitting on his sofa, he received a call from Dyeon Korea’s Director Yoon. Director Yoon and Director Jong-Suk Park had already come back to work from their trip to India, and they were working in their position as usual at that time.
“It’s Director Yoon, sir.”
“Oh, Mr. Director Yoon?”
“The maintenance team’s manager—Mr. Ahn’s mother passed away. I’m going to send a flower wreath to her funeral with your name on behalf of the company, sir.”
“Oh, really? Yes, sure, please do so. Where is her funeral taking place?”
“It’s Dankuk University Hospital in Cheonan City.”
“When are they going to carry the coffin out?”
“It will be the day after tomorrow at 7 am, sir.”
“I’m in Seoul today, but I will be working in Jiksan Town and Asan City tomorrow. I will stop by the funeral tomorrow when I’m in the area.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please give a call to GH Mobile’s President Song and let him know too. And, send a flower wreath with his name as well on behalf of GH Mobile.”
“Understood, sir.”
When Gun-Ho went home after work in the evening, his mother was waiting for him at his home.
“Gun-Ho, I’ve been waiting for you to see you before leaving. How are you?”
“Mom, why don’t you spend the night here with us, and leave tomorrow?”
“Thank you for saying that, but I have to go. I have an appointment tomorrow. I just came here to see Sang-Min, and wanted to see your face too, my son.”
“Is everything good, mom? How’s father doing?”
“Everything is fine. He is well too.”
“Please have a seat, mom.”
“I have to go. Sang-Min, bye-bye,” Gun-Ho’s mother said to the baby boy as she gave a kiss to him on the cheek.
“Oh, my. He is so lovely.”
Gun-Ho’s mom gave a kiss to Sang-Min again on the cheek.
“How did you come here, mom? Did you take a bus or a taxi?”
“I took the subway. That’s the most comfortable and convenient ride to visit your home.”
“You have to take the subway again all the way to Incheon City. Are you sure you will be okay?”
“It’s good. It’s free of charge for old people like me, and empty seats are reserved for old people too. I usually take a nap while traveling by subway. I feel like it takes no time to visit your home.”
“Mom, take this. Use it for the transportation cost,” Gun-Ho said as he took out several 50,000 won bills.
“Don’t, Gun-Ho. Sang-Min’s mom already gave me money.”
“That’s what she gave to you. You should take what I give to you, mom. Please take it.”
“Okay then. Well, take care. I’m leaving.”
After Gun-Ho’s mother left, Young-Eun came close to Gun-Ho and said, “Your mom visits us very often these days. I guess she misses Sang-Min a lot.”
“Really?”
“I think she makes a frequent trip here because she knows that I’m not home in the morning because of my part-time job with the hospital. I think she is trying to fill up my place for Sang-Min since he will be home without his mom.”
“My mom has a back problem. Traveling that often for a long period of time is not good for her back.”
“I told her several times that Sang-Min is doing okay without his mom in the morning because we have the helper lady. But she is still coming here pretty often.”
That evening, Gun-Ho had his mother’s Doenjang-jjigae (a Korean soybean paste stew) for his dinner. It was as good as he remembered.
The following day, Gun-Ho went to work in GH Mobile in Jiksan Town.
He went straight to the second factory first. The factory looked crowded with more production workers. Gun-Ho thought that the new 50 workers probably started working already. The manager who was in charge of the factory quickly came to Gun-Ho when he saw him.
“We have more workers here, right?”
“Yes, sir. 40 out of 50 new production workers are located in this factory.”
“Please make sure that they receive OJT (On The Job Training) completely.”
“Yes, sir. They are currently receiving training about product quality, sir.”
“Is the training conducted by one of our employees?”
“Yes, sir. Not many trainings, especially when they are related to skills and technologies here, can be handled by instructors from outside.”
“Keep up the good work.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gun-Ho headed to the first factory and went to the production site. There seemed to be more machines installed on the production site. Gun-Ho couldn’t see the last machine from the place where he was standing. The machines were making loud noises as usual. The plant manager, who was talking on his smartphone, hung up the phone quickly and came to Gun-Ho to greet him.
“We received more product orders from S Group, didn’t we?”
“Not just S Group, sir. We have an increased volume of product orders from H Group as well.”
“Hmm, really?”
“Mr. Director Park is currently in the production team 2, sir.”
“Hmm, really?”
Gun-Ho walked toward the production team 2 while tying his hands together behind his back. When he arrived there, Director Park was rebuking someone. When he saw Gun-Ho coming into the site, he dismissed the worker and came to Gun-Ho.
“What’s wrong? Why are you yelling at that worker?”
“He is the team lead in the assembly team. They are producing so many defective products now.”
“Why is that happening? Did we find out what is causing the defects?”
“They simply didn’t accurately cut the components of the product.”
“You shouldn’t reprimand the workers all the time. You know that, right? You should praise them too when they did a good job.”
“I’m doing it.”
“The defective products were found while you were away from the production site because of the trip to India, weren’t they?”
“Yeah. I was shocked when I came back to the factory and saw all those defective products. We are doing okay though. We are keeping up with the production quota for each product.”
“I just came back from our second factory. We now have a lot more production workers there.”
“Yeah. The products that are being manufactured in that location are relatively simple, so I sent most of the new workers there.”
“Is the manager there okay with it?”
“Yeah, he is good. He is working so hard these days because he wants to be promoted next year. That’s his first opportunity to be promoted, and he is working hard to make it.”
“I guess we don’t have to worry about him working hard then.”
“He is working too hard, I think.”
Director Jong-Suk Park continued, “Bro, are you going to the funeral for Dyeon Korea’s Manager Ahn?”
“Of course, I will.”
“Since he is not an executive officer, you don’t have to be there, but thank you, bro.”
“Why do you thank me? I’m going to Manager Ahn’s mother’s funeral. He is not related to you.”
“I don’t know. Since he and I both are engineers, I feel like he is somewhat related to me.”
“Did you go to the funeral already?”
“Yes. I went there yesterday, and I’m planning to go there again this evening. I’m taking everyone in the management here in the production department with me to the funeral today.”
“I see. I’m going to stop by briefly during the daytime when not many people are there.”
“He will be impressed by your visit.”
“Bro, I have a question for you.”
“What is it?”
“We had an executive meeting this morning, and President Song said that Dyeon Korea’s KOSDAQ preliminary application has been approved.”
“Yeah, it has been approved.”
“What does that mean? What would happen to my shares with Dyeon Korea then? Will the price of the share increase? How much?”
“We don’t know yet. We have to wait until the price of our initial public offering is determined.”
“It’s going to be increased, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m certain that the price will increase.”
“I took out a loan to buy those shares, and I’m paying for the interest right now.”
“Hey, Jong-Suk. What happened to the tough guy—Jong-Suk?”
“I wouldn’t worry much if this is something about a machine because I know what to expect, but I have no idea what’s going on with company shares and KOSDAQ stuff.”
“I will take care of it for you. You just trust me—your brother—okay?”
Gun-Ho said with a smile as he tapped Jong-Suk’s shoulder.
