Gun-Ho was passing by the assembly team’s worksite with Director Jong-Suk Park.
The young female workers were sitting in rows holding an electric soldering iron doing soldering. They all looked very skillful. When they noticed Gun-Ho’s presence, they glanced at him and then quickly went back to their work. They didn’t seem to know who Gun-Ho was. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t have cared much. They seemed to be professional workers who knew that they just needed to focus on their work no matter who visited their worksite.
“They are all young female workers.”
“They are all older than 35 though. When we posted the job openings on WorkNet, we listed that the monthly pay was 2 million won and that we would provide the shuttle to commute. We received tons of job applications as a result. The most attractive point for them was that the job posting was directly from GH Mobile’s general affairs department, not from some kind of small staffing company.”
“I see.”
“You know what? The owner of the convenience store across the street from our factory is very happy these days. He said that their sales revenue had increased dramatically recently because of us.”
“Haha, really?”
“Bro! Do you remember the old days when we worked together at a factory in Pocheon City and Yangju City? At that time, we couldn’t get a job in a factory this big. We used to work in a very small facility with only 20 or 30 workers.”
“Yeah. I remember that.”
“And do you also remember that the mid-level managers were just a bunch of as*es. They nagged us a lot. I still don’t understand why they had to be like that.”
“They were just uneducated people.”
“I’m not that educated either. They were just mean and nasty morons.”
“You are the plant manager here. You don’t do that to your workers?”
“No, I don’t at all. If someone is older than me, I treat them like my old brothers. And, anyone who is younger than me, then they become my little brothers. I don’t have any problem with them.”
“You know what? Your belly seems to grow every day.”
“Hahaha. Man, look at your belly. It’s funny to hear criticism on my belly from you, bro. Oh, how’s your wife?”
“How’s my wife what? Oh, the baby? She is four months pregnant now.”
“Oh, really? Congratulations, bro! Ohhh, that’s why your belly is bulging. You two have two bulged belly together now, huh?”
“You want to start that, huh?”
“Hahaha.”
“It’s almost noon. You buy me lunch today.”
“If I have lunch with you alone, the other executive officers might not like it. Why don’t you invite all executive officers for lunch? The owner of the Plum Farm Restaurant is now serving a new menu—soy sauce marinated crabs. Let’s go there.”
“Sounds good. I will let the general affairs director know about the lunch plan to arrange it.”
Gun-Ho called for the general affairs director.
“Yes, sir?’
“Let’s have lunch together with all of our executive officers today. Please tell them to come to the Plum Farm Restaurant by noon.”
“Okay, sir.”
“At noon, the company yard will be packed with the workers who are heading to the company restaurant, so tell them to leave for the Plum Farm Restaurant a bit earlier like 11:50 am.”
“Okay, sir.”
Gun-Ho headed to the restaurant in his Bentley. He was with President Song and the accounting director. The general affairs director drove his car and had the research center’s chief officer and Director Jong-Suk Park in his car. A luxurious restaurant was located in the middle of a plum farm. It was beautiful with a lot of flowers surrounding it. The female director—Ms. Accounting Director—screamed when she saw the flowers.
“Oh, my goodness! This is so beautiful!”
The accounting director breathed deeply to smell the flowers.
Gun-Ho and the GH Mobile’s executive officers sat at a table.
Foods started coming out. A braised dried Pollack came out first followed by the main dish—soy sauce marinated crabs. The side dishes including various seasoned vegetables and delicious house-kimchi were added to the table. The foods were neat and delicate.
While having lunch, Gun-Ho said to the research center’s chief officer, “So, you are meeting with A Electronics’ research center’s chief officer this Friday?”
Since other executive officers were at the table, Gun-Ho didn’t mention their golf appointment.
“Yes, sir,” the research center’s chief officer responded briefly.
“When you have a chance to meet with people like him, you should grab the opportunity. You can get a lot of valuable information from a meeting like that.”
“I will keep that in mind, sir.”
The research center’s chief officer didn’t mention the golf appointment either. President Song quickly changed the topic.
“Ms. Accounting Director, please have a drink. One small glass of liquor should be good.”
“Haha, thank you.”
“Guess what I said when I realized that we were hiring a lot of female workers?”
“What did you say?”
“I said that we have a female executive officer in our company. She started from a position as a regular worker and went up to that high position. So, I told them that ‘you—the female workers—all have a chance to become like her too’. They seemed to be happy to know that.”
“Haha, you did?”
Gun-Ho smiled and looked at the accounting director and said, “How long had you been with the company prior to your promotion to the director position?”
“Let me see… I had worked for the company for 22 years before taking the director position.”
“Haha. I see.”
“22 years ago, when I joined Mulpasaneop, Director Kim, who is now working with Dyeon Korea, was an assistant manager in the sales department. He was a very good communicator back then as well. He was excellent at convincing people. We used to call him Mr. Liar Kim.”
“Mr. Liar Kim? Hahahaha.”
Everyone at the table laughed out loud.
Ms. Accounting Director continued to talk, “The general affairs director, who is sitting in front of me, joined the company a year before me.”
“Haha, really?”
“The previous plant manager, who is now in China, was an assistant manager in the production department. He was a young man at that time. When he stopped by our office before he left for China, I realized that time indeed flew so fast.”
When the accounting director was talking about the old days of 22 years ago, Gun-Ho thought of his days of 22 years ago.
‘Let me see… 22 years ago, I was 15 years old. I was a junior in junior high school. At that time, I used to get beaten up by Suk-Ho Lee, and he took my umbrella without feeling sorry for me. Well, time does fly fast. The accounting director, who is sitting in front of me, must have been a young lady 22 years ago. She must have not had any wrinkles around her eyes and on her neck back then.’
Gun-Ho moved his gaze from the accounting director to Director Jong-Suk Park.
‘Director Park was a sixth-grader in elementary school 22 years ago. He was about to enter junior high school. I remember his mother yelled at him all the time because Jong-Suk hadn’t shown any interest in studying. He was so into reading comic books in those old days. I feel like I still can hear his mother’s yelling from the Seolleongtang (an ox bone soup) restaurant that she was running. Jong-Suk seems to be so quiet now. Everyone at the table is older than him. He must think that he’d better shut up and eat his lunch while he was surrounded by people older than him.’
