Gun-Ho made a call to the general affairs manager—Seon-Hong Hwang whom he used to work with when he was in Asan City.
“Director Hwang? It’s me, Gun-Ho Goo.”
“Oh, Gun-Ho! How have you been? By the way, I am not a director; I am a manager.”
“You are still a manager? I guess the company doesn’t recognize your hard work. You have been working so hard for the company for a long time.”
“The company cannot afford to promote anybody because of its financial situation.”
“You are getting paid on time, right?”
“I haven’t received the last month’s salary yet. However, fortunately, our company quickly let some workers go to handle the situation, but Mulpasaneop is in trouble.”
“Is it that serious?”
“Mulpasaneop hasn’t paid to its employees for the past three months, and some employees already filed a lawsuit for unpaid wages against the company.”
“Wow. It is serious.”
“You seem to be doing very well, Mr. Gun-Ho Goo. Do you happen to have any position I can take?”
“Haha! I’m not doing that well.”
“I’m having a hard time every single day these days.”
“Do you have time today? Would you like to have a beer with me at Dujeong Town since it’s Friday?”
“Today? You no longer live in this area. Are you going to come to Cheonan?”
“I will, of course, go there to have a drink with you. I want to see you too.”
“Really? Haha. Okay then. I will see you at 7 pm.”
For the first time in a long time, Gun-Ho was heading to Cheonan in his Land Rover. He had mixed feelings.
“I drove this road when I went to YS Tech for a job interview in Dunpo Town, Asan City. I was, at that time, working in a gas delivery company. That was already several years ago.”
Gun-Ho remembered he sang Bohemian Rhapsody in his shabby car on the way to YS Tech at that time. He started humming the same song again.
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality.”
“I cried a lot while singing this song then. Whew. I suffered all those years because of money.”
Gun-Ho compared his current self with his past self at that time.
“I have two condos now: one is for my parents, and the other is the one that I’m living in, which is worth 1.5 billion won. I have cash of another 1.5 billion won in my bank account and I also have 3 billion won worth of stocks. The capital of my company—GH Development is 900 million won, and the office-tel for the company is 500 million won. Additionally, I have 1.5 billion won put in the joint venture with China as well. So, the total asset is 35.9 billion won. But I still feel hungry.”
Gun-Ho parked his car at Dujeong Station. He then headed to the Izakaya pub after meeting with General affairs manager Hwang at the station.
“We didn’t have to come to this nice place. We could have just gone to a deep-fried chicken restaurant where we can have some beer as well.”
“No, I want to buy you a drink in a nice place.”
Gun-Ho ordered flatfish sashimi and deep-fried shrimp. For a drink, he ordered Cheongha as General affairs manager Hwang suggested.
“This will cost you a lot.”
“Enjoy it.”
Gun-Ho placed the sashimi in front of General affairs manager Hwang.
After drinking several glasses of Cheongha, General affairs manager took out his cigarette.
“Is smoking allowed here?”
General affairs manager looked around. When he found no one who was smoking in the pub, he put his cigarette back to his jacket.
“Let’s order one more bottle of Cheongha.”
Gun-Ho ordered one more bottle.
The company was doing very well when you were working there. It was good days.
“Was it?”
“At that time, we often went out for dinner all together. Now, we are all working quietly.”
“President Young-Sik Park must have a hard time to find a way out of that situation. How’s he doing? I know he is hot tempered, but I also know that he cares about the people around him.”
“The president is not like before; he seems to lose confidence in himself. Mulpasaneop is his brother-in-law’s company and it is almost going under after all.”
“YS Tech should have diversified its clientele. It shouldn’t have heavily relied on one client—Mulpasaneop.”
“It’s easier said than done. You need connections to be able to diversify the clientele.”
“What about Manager Kim in the accounting team? How is she doing? She had just delivered her baby at that time. The baby must have grown a lot.”
“She left the company.”
“Why?”
“She got scared when the creditors came to the office and yelled at her. Her husband told her to quit the job.”
“She then moved to another company?”
“I heard she is working in an accountant office.”
“Does YS Tech still work with the same tax accountant office? The one that is located across the street from the tax office.”
“Right, we are still working with the same accountant office. I heard we owe some payment to that office as well.”
General affairs manager Hwang drank a lot that day. He was having the third bottle.
“Are you okay? You brought your car, right?”
“It’s okay. I can still drive. I know the exact location where the police stop cars for a sobriety test.”
“I think you should call for a paid designated driver.”
“That’s okay. Here. Let me pour liquor in your glass.”
“I think I drank a lot already.”
“Have some more. You only had one bottle.”
“Do you know which accountant office has been working with Mulpasaneop?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that much about Mulpasaneop; it’s not like I have someone close to me, who is working there. Oh, I think I saw Mulpasaneop’s financial statements in the president’s office. I guess I can find out the name of the accountant office by looking at those financial statements.”
Gun-Ho wanted to ask him to find out the name of the accountant office, but he didn’t ask him. He once caused a money related problem with YS Tech president—Young-Sik Park and he didn’t want to do anything that could make him look suspicious again.
“Mulpasaneop must have let go of a lot of workers by now. I remember their factory was huge.”
“Their factory is indeed large. More than 300 workers used to work in that factory, and now only half of them are still there.”
“You said they couldn’t pay their workers for the past several months, right?”
“Mulpasaneop still pays our company for the products we deliver to them. Our president told him he wouldn’t be able to send our products to them without getting paid. If we don’t provide the products to them, their factory would have to stop working.”
Gun-Ho dragged his chair close to General affairs manager Hwang and talked to him quietly.
“By the way, I heard that the president of Mulpasaneop and his son who was also working at the same company were not getting along. Is that true?”
“It is true. They don’t share the same value in running a company. His son fired several employees who were loyal to the president and filled with his own people. He also recklessly expanded the business to China and blew a lot of money.”
“How is the business in China?”
“I don’t know about it.”
“That’s a shame. It’s a 1.5 vendor.”
“That’s right. It is a 1.5 vendor.”
The first vendor is the companies that deliver products directly to a big company like Hyundai and Samsung. The second vendor is the companies that deliver their products to those first vendors. There were the third vendors that deliver products to the second vendor, and so on.
For example, DAS Corporation that people now say it is owned by MB delivers products to Hyundai; that means DAS Corporation is the first vendor. Any companies that deliver products to DAS Corporation are the second vendors. The first vendors are large companies with money and technology. Many of them have gross sales revenue of 1,000 billion won.
“So Mulpasaneop is going under because of money.”
“I think so. It was not like the first vendor didn’t deliver their products to Mulpasaneop or anything like that.”
“In order to build another factory in China, they probably used their main factory in Korea as collateral.”
“That sounds better than their actual situation. I heard they borrowed money from Korea Credit Guarantee Fund.”
“Does the president of Mulpasaneop still go to work these days?”
“You expect me to know too much. How would I know whether their president goes to work or not? I don’t work there. Why are you so interested in Mulpasaneop anyway? Are you thinking of getting a job there? Don’t. There are a lot of companies way better than that company.”
