Monday morning, Seungju, who got off at the bus stop heading to the company, was in a good mood.
This was truly a rare occurrence. Normally, no matter what you did, you couldn’t be in a good mood on a Monday morning. Even if you used a personal day off, you couldn’t be in a good mood. Even if it was a holiday, the fact that Monday morning had dawned meant you had to go to the company on Tuesday too.
What put Seungju in a good mood was a single line of a message. The notification came on the bus, but Seungju didn’t check it right away. Right now on this small village bus, there were three company people just within Seungju’s line of sight. On a packed bus like this, even if you don’t want to, you can tell what the person next to you is doing on their smartphone.
So he got off at the stop and checked that one line that had appeared in the notification again.
[Good morning. Hang in there today, and see you later.]
It was a cliché but equally mood-lifting comment. Seungju glanced around unnecessarily and slightly covered the sender’s name with his finger. Baek Muyeon. Then he looked at his phone again and entered the company building.
From when he returned home on Saturday until yesterday, exchanging messages with Muyeon on and off, there was something Seungju had realized. Muyeon wasn’t a genius at push-and-pull—he was a prodigy. When you wanted him to reply right away, the reply wouldn’t come, but just before you lost energy, a reply would come as if pulling you back in. When there was content you wished he’d tell you, he’d draw it out, then refocus you on the conversation with trivial small talk.
No one could teach this even if they tried. He’s really a troublemaker, a troublemaker. That was the conclusion Seungju, who had been swayed every time his message notification popped up on his phone all weekend, had reached.
This was why this morning’s message was a bit more welcome to Seungju. A clean greeting without other intentions. Nevertheless, a tone that made you feel he was thinking of the other person. He felt good about the plain consideration without any push-and-pull.
Does feeling good after receiving this itself mean I’m being swayed? Getting on the elevator, Seungju shook his head. What’s good is good; there’s no need to overthink it.
Besides, hadn’t he experienced the miraculous phenomenon of being in a good mood on the Monday commute thanks to Muyeon? Seungju, who had put his bag on his desk in the office, turned on his computer and first went to the break room to get water. He filled his favorite large-capacity tumbler with cold water.
He also kept the tumbler Muyeon gave him on his desk and used it often, but nothing beat this one. The reason Seungju liked this wasn’t anything else. It was nerve-wracking to keep going in and out drinking water or coffee while sitting in front of the Director. So there was no reason not to use a large-capacity tumbler that could maximize efficiency in one go.
Returning to his desk, Seungju first wrote up the work list and schedule he had to do for the week. It took some time. No matter how much he racked his brain, when he reached the conclusion that he couldn’t finish the work on time, he ultimately confirmed overtime with a sad face.
Not having team members meant that Seungju had to do everything from start to finish, all the trivial details, all by himself. From another perspective, that also meant he was guaranteed completely independent working hours. Since he had no team members, he could focus on work without having to set schedules for confirmation or meetings, or having time stolen checking on the small problems that occurred in the middle of working.
That’s what Seungju felt after working alone for four months. If you just focus on work yourself, progress is fast anyway. However, there’s a major premise needed that the Director shouldn’t mess with Seungju at any time. Of course, when the Director was sitting in the office, he almost never left Seungju alone freely, so that was really a meaningless premise. The only time Seungju could focus on work was when the Director was away from his seat.
But the work right in front of Seungju’s nose now wasn’t that kind. It meant it wasn’t work where investing 1 time and effort produced 1 result. Planning proposals was always painful. It was even more so in Seungju’s industry. Groundbreaking new products or idea products were difficult to get confirmed because they hadn’t been verified in the market. For products that were already steady sellers, unless the design was outstanding, it was difficult to make them succeed by pushing aside products on the market that were selling well.
The mindset of the Director or President telling him to copy other companies’ products that had good ideas and were pretty was unforgivable. His pride wouldn’t allow just making what everyone else was selling adequately. Moreover, even if the planning for such products passed, problems would arise in sales or CS, so he didn’t really want to start planning them.
Finding grounds that a new product would receive a favorable response in the market, bringing design trends that could make steady-seller products look better, or breaking through the shitty mindset of the Director or President was difficult with one person’s head. Even when you put forth something claiming to be a new idea, there were always similar things in the market. To pinpoint and filter out the essential conditions of good planning, it was best to work together with multiple people spending a long time repeatedly conducting market research.
Even if you repeated meetings and revising proposals several times like that, if the Director was in a bad mood or the President got petty, it would get torn down in an instant. But if you worked together with several people, even if that happened, the damage was less and there was some degree of comfort. But Seungju now had no one to worry with and share the same plight.
Because the experience of working for five years didn’t run away anywhere, Seungju concentrated diligently on researching materials and organizing a few ideas. However, anxiety still remained in one corner of his head. I’m not grabbing the wrong thread right now or doing some nonsensical grunt work, am I?
Working overtime alone for two days while even thinking such thoughts was hellish. The only thing that improved his mood was just one thing. Wednesday morning, Seungju smiled slightly while looking at the message that arrived today too.
When he straightened his back and turned his eyes slightly, he could see General Manager Mu sitting at his own seat. He was tilting his head, eyes cast down, looking down at his desk rather than the monitor. Seungju realized what he was looking at was the phone in his hand.
Seungju also lowered his head and sent a reply. ‘You hang in there today too, Muyeon.’
He just raised his eyes slightly to check Muyeon’s expression. A slight smile and warmth spread across the expression that looked even colder with his eyes cast down.
Cute. Seungju smiled like an idiot then came to his senses. It would be troublesome if anyone saw this face. He automatically bowed his head deeply and pretended to look at his scheduler. Then he heard footsteps nearby.
“Good morning.”
“Yes, Director. Hello.”
Seungju, who raised his head, had cleverly dulled his happy smile with a slightly tired look. At Seungju’s greeting, the Director glanced at him sideways. Seungju obediently lowered his eyes.
Since last Friday when he went to eat with General Manager Mu in front of him, the Director had continued in this state. The Director’s wordless message was powerful and simple. Heo Seungju, how dare you get that close to General Manager Mu without my knowledge?
He was so conscious of it that he felt suffocated. The only way to escape the stuffy pressure even a little was to focus on work like crazy and reach a state of selflessness. Even so, the tension kept building. He felt like it would explode soon. Seungju just hoped the bomb wouldn’t be huge.
Wednesday afternoon, the incident Seungju had been expecting finally happened. There was a discrepancy in saying he expected it, but there was no other way to express it. If it’s a beating you can’t avoid, it’s better to get hit quickly.
The Director called Seungju.
“Seungju.”
Seeing that he didn’t start with “Hey Seungju” like the Director usually did, the feeling wasn’t good.
“Yes, Director.”
“The packaging paper, you’re doing that now too, right? Has it arrived?”
“I’ll check.”
“What have you been doing without even checking the arrival date?”
At the Director’s sharp words, a chilling silence flowed like dominoes from their seats to the far end of the office. Seungju bit his lip once and answered.
“I’m sorry.”
And in the silence, Seungju picked up the phone and called the distribution warehouse. ‘Yes, this is Heo Seungju from Planning Team 6. I called you last week saying I took over the packaging paper matter, yes… Please tell me the expected arrival date.’
“They say tomorrow or Friday.”
“Why is it so delayed?”
“I guess it’s because the volume is so large.”
“Are you sure? And if it’s Thursday then it’s Thursday, if it’s Friday then it’s Friday. What’s this tomorrow or Friday?”
Seungju swallowed a sigh again. Then he answered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Ha… Really. Seungju, check the arrival dates for everything you’re handling that’s been passed to production and bring them all.”
“Yes, I understand.”
It was annoying, but among the Director’s freakouts, this level was mild. Seungju moved the mouse with one hand to access the ERP and with the other hand started calling the Production Department, the distribution warehouse, and the Sales Management Team again.
Seungju knew the Director’s pattern well. If he told him the arrival dates, he’d freak out about whether this one’s production was delayed, whether that one’s arrival date changed—no. The Director was just mistaken about or misremembering previous reports—it was obvious he’d freak out. And after freaking out telling him to bring the current inventory amounts—of course he’d freak out asking what he’d been doing without even checking inventory amounts if there was no prepared data—he’d freak out again from products with high inventory but early arrival dates to products with no inventory but tight arrival dates.
