It was when everyone was immersed in admiration.
Kim Hyun-min, the deputy manager, spoke with a serious expression that he usually had when he joked.
“Thank everyone for this phone. It’s because of this that we’re going to Germany.”
“Of course. Thank you very much. I would like to bow a hundred times if I could.”
Park Seung-woo, the assistant manager, answered and Kim Hyun-min smiled.
“Park, you keep bowing then. We’ll think about what to do and have fun in Germany. Right, Chan-ho?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve already made a list of Berlin attractions.”
Lee Chan-ho ran to his seat as if to confirm his words and brought the paper on his desk.
There was a list of tourist spots and restaurants around the exhibition hall.
He seemed to have searched a lot of internet sites, as everything was checked.
He must have wanted to go very much.
Yoo-hyun thought to himself, when Kim Hyun-min handed him the paper.
“Hey, Yoo-hyun. You’ve been to Germany, right?”
“Good. You’re our guide. Make a schedule based on what Chan-ho made.”
“I don’t think the details of the exhibition have been announced yet.”
“Hey, we’re going to have fun. Just make one. If something comes up, we’ll change it when we get there, okay?”
Kim Hyun-min summed it up simply.
Why make a plan if you’re going to change it when you get there?
He thought so, but he could do that much service for his colleagues.
Yoo-hyun nodded his head willingly.
“Yes. For a day or so.”
“What? A day? You’ve loosened up too much, Yoo-hyun. I’ll have to give you some mental training while we eat lunch.”
“Sorry, but I have an appointment for lunch.”
Park Seung-woo, the assistant manager, leaned his face in at Yoo-hyun’s answer.
Kim Hyun-min, the deputy manager, and Kim Young-gil, the assistant manager, were the same.
What? It’s burdensome.
“No. A colleague from the company.”
Yoo-hyun shook his head as if he was bitten.
In fact, it wasn’t just a place to have a meal.
Yoo-hyun had to get some information he needed.
It was to smash the people he had to send away.
Yoo-hyun’s eyes were eerie.
Mercy for the enemies?
There was no such thing.
The lunch place was a family restaurant nearby.
Yoo-hyun and Lee Ae-rin, the secretary in charge, sat face to face at a table for four.
Next to them were Yu Hye-mi, the assistant manager of the sales team, and Jo Mi-ran, the staff member of the marketing team.
-Excuse me, Mr. Yu, can I ask you something for a moment?
What he wanted to ask was simple, but other employees joined him and it led to a lunch place.
It was a good situation for Yoo-hyun.
He had a lot of things to thank them for, and he was going to make a separate place anyway.
It was rather good that he could see them all at once.
The conversation atmosphere was also friendly.
“Thanks to you, Yoo-hyun, we’re all together for the first time in a long time. Thank you for making time.”
“No, no. I asked to see you. Thank you. I owe you a lot.”
“Oh, oh. Owing you? Don’t say that.”
“That’s right. How happy we are thanks to you, Yoo-hyun.”
They felt affectionate with every word they uttered lightly.
Even if he didn’t open his mouth, he could feel the positive emotions from their warm eyes.
Yoo-hyun knew the answer to that.
Ko Jae-yoon, the deputy manager, and Song Ho-chan, the deputy manager.
It was because of these two people who had a bad reputation among female employees.
The rumor that Yoo-hyun had beaten them was exaggerated and they took good care of the female employees thanks to the money.
They wanted to do better for him, and it was obvious.
There was no reason to avoid it.
Yoo-hyun looked at the female employees with a smile on his face.
The small talk was over, so he had to get to the point.
“Do you know D&Tech?”
“Of course. It’s an LCD equipment company. What do you want to know, Yoo-hyun?”
As Lee Ae-rin asked, Yoo-hyun’s eyes sparkled.
“Just. I heard some rumors around.”
“Oh, the D&Tech investment rumor?”
It was the moment Yoo-hyun answered.
Lee Ae-rin sat up straight and started to tell the story about D&Tech without hesitation.
What she said was quite detailed.
The rumors about D&Tech’s selection of partner companies, the relationships between the executives and the D&Tech bosses, came out smoothly.
She wasn’t called the company’s information source for nothing.
Yu Hye-mi, the assistant manager, also opened her mouth.
“Right. Our team leader contacted D&Tech with the purchase team leader.”
“I’ve heard of D&Tech too. The company that got invested by JS, right?”
This time, Jo Mi-ran, the staff member, joined in.
Yu Hye-mi, the assistant manager, brought out valuable information at her words.
“I think they’re planning to meet both companies at the exhibition in Germany.”
“Yeah. Our team leader likes meeting companies so much, he’ll definitely do that.”
The more Yoo-hyun reacted, the more information he heard.
They started to spit out everything from what they heard somewhere to unverified conjectures.
The lunch place soon became a D&Tech-related discussion hall.
Yoo-hyun listened to their stories and put the puzzles together one by one.
Most of them matched what he had investigated behind the scenes.
The incident that fired several people from the development department of the Ulsan factory, including the former business manager, group manager, and factory manager.
The cause of the incident was Lee Kyung-hoon, the manager.
In 2008, a year after Yoo-hyun joined the company.
He was the culprit of the incident that messed everything up, and he survived without any trouble.
-You know, the first one to take the empty land is the owner. You have to take what you have to take when it’s so chaotic. I’ll cut off the bastards like cowards, so take them away.
He even said such things and deceived the employees who were unfairly sacrificed by the aftermath of the incident.
He gritted his teeth when he thought he was fooled innocently.
He couldn’t just sit back and watch.
He had to cut them off as soon as possible.
If he left them alone?
He would have to serve a subhuman as his boss.
That was something that should never happen.
That was why Yoo-hyun wanted to go to the European exhibition.
A little later, in the lounge on the 10th floor.
Yoo-hyun was facing Seo Chang-woo, his colleague from the HR team.
He was a colleague he could meet without any pressure now, but he had never had coffee with him alone.
It was also the first time that Yoo-hyun called him out.
Naturally, Seo Chang-woo asked with a curious look.
“No. I just thought of you for a long time.”
“What? That’s gross. I was going to see you anyway.”
When Yoo-hyun asked, Seo Chang-woo spilled it out.
“Jae-seung kept nagging me. He said he got praised thanks to the English teacher you introduced me to and he insisted on buying me a meal.”
“He always says that to me, but he doesn’t set a date.”
“Right? I’ll make sure to set it up when I come back from vacation.”
Seo Chang-woo smiled and took a sip of coffee.
Yoo-hyun, who received his joke, felt proud inside.
James, whom he introduced, became a famous teacher in the company.
Thanks to him, Kim Young-gil, the assistant manager who worked with him, also improved his English skills.
Byun Jae-seung, who helped him from the global HRD team, was rather grateful.
Things worked out too well.
Yoo-hyun exchanged some jokes with his old colleague and talked about his work-related troubles.
Then the timing Yoo-hyun had thought of came.
It was when Seo Chang-woo was mumbling.
“These days, the factory workers are leaving and it’s giving me a headache.”
“I heard that one part of them left altogether and it was a mess.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
When Yoo-hyun threw a word, Seo Chang-woo flinched.
He had expected that reaction, so Yoo-hyun dodged it.
“I went on a business trip to the Ulsan factory a few times.”
“Ah… You’re in product planning, so you might know.”
Seo Chang-woo nodded as if he accepted it.
“Right. I’m going crazy because of those quitters. How can they replenish the workforce when they suddenly leave like that?”
“The HR team must be having a hard time.”
“Don’t even say it. It’s not just Ulsan. I heard Gimpo factory is worse.”
When Yoo-hyun asked in surprise, Seo Chang-woo grumbled and answered.
“Yeah. It’s all because of the backward organizational culture. The team leader stirs them up for no reason, so they quit and betray?”
Yoo-hyun nodded his head in agreement and thought.
Does he still not know?
The LCD division had a bad reputation for having a high turnover rate.
Of course, it was rare for them to quit in groups.
But this case was different.
He was sure that someone’s conspiracy was involved.
Unless the HR team was on the spot, they wouldn’t know the details.
Yoo-hyun quickly organized his thoughts and opened his mouth.
“I heard that China is pulling a lot of people these days, so I was wondering.”
“I don’t know the details, but among the engineers, there’s a rumor that they get three times the salary if they go to China.”
“I know. But, that’s not easy. There’s a one-year ban on moving to the same industry. And LCD is a national industry, so it’s strictly controlled.”
But if they change the name tag, there’s no way to stop them.
‘For example, going through JS, a secret subsidiary of BDE (Beijing Display Specialist), in China.’
If they wanted to, taking out the workforce was not a big deal.
“Can’t they change the name tag and join a subsidiary or a different group?”
“They can. But that’s not as easy as it sounds. China monitors them as much as possible.”
“They can also put a name tag from a different region.”
“Huh? Oh, now that you think of it… Wait a minute.”
Yoo-hyun’s words narrowed Seo Chang-woo’s brow.
Did he understand that?
“There’s something weird about it…”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right. I’ll have to ask Mr. Park later.”
It didn’t matter if he couldn’t understand it right away.
His mentor, Park Doo-sik, would be able to understand the meaning.
He would surely reveal the details that Yoo-hyun couldn’t remember.
Yoo-hyun knew Park Doo-sik better than anyone.
Yoo-hyun finished the conversation and walked with Seo Chang-woo.
“Are you going too far?”
“It’s the same direction, what.”
Yoo-hyun went up to the 11th floor through the central stairs on the 10th floor and parted with Seo Chang-woo in front of the HR team.
Then a familiar voice came.
“Hey, Chang-woo. Come over here.”
Yoo-hyun watched the owner of the voice from afar.
Park Doo-sik, the manager.
He was so meticulous that Seo Chang-woo had a hard time, but he was a very gentle person to others.
It was because of his soft impression and considerate tone.
-Is that what people who are now executives say? How can you not know until the situation gets this bad?
Could he imagine him shouting in front of the executives?
It was a real incident that happened at the Ulsan factory in the past.
The time was less than a year away.
The day the incident that shook the LCD division came out to the world.
At that time, Yoo-hyun met Park Doo-sik, the manager who came down to Ulsan as an investigator.
He got to work with him in the group as a result.
He learned a lot from him.
But it didn’t end well.
He would see him someday.
It’s not the time yet, but it’s something he’ll have to meet.
He didn’t think he would meet him in the same way.
He wanted to get rid of the cancerous cells and eliminate the reason for him to come down to the Ulsan factory.
“I’ll make sure to do that.”
Yoo-hyun bowed to Park Doo-sik, who was having a conversation.