#058
After that day, peaceful daily life continued. Hwi-kyung easily adapted to BK International, still with the annoying Gyo-ha by his side.
Although his relationship with Park Bong-joon had completely soured and Lee Sung-ha periodically came down to the HR department to flirt with Hwi-kyung, company life itself flowed more peacefully than expected.
Unlike Gyo-ha, who didn’t care about his reputation in the company, Sung-ha seemed to be somewhat cautious about scandals. Surprisingly, Sung-ha was more sensible than Gyo-ha in this regard.
To be precise, Lee Sung-ha seemed to dislike having scandals with male employees. Unlike Lee Gyo-ha, he hadn’t lived in America for long, so he wasn’t open-minded.
Anyway, thanks to Lee Sung-ha being conservative in strange ways, rumors that Hwi-kyung had seduced the vice president for corrupt hiring quickly died down. Even without such minor scandals, BK International was full of incidents and accidents with Lee Sung-ha as a superior.
Unlike Lee Jung-hye, who had clear boundaries in work relationships, or Lee Gyo-ha, who had no real power, Lee Sung-ha was a madman with power. Hwi-kyung inwardly clicked his tongue at the HR-related documents Park Bong-joon brought.
Is it okay to have this many promotions and promotion omissions? Hwi-kyung’s heart raced at the incentive payment list and promotion matters determined by Sung-ha’s mood. He thought only Gyo-ha treated the company like a playground, but Sung-ha was also kneading the company like dough in his hands.
Below standard: Personnel evaluation based on personal relationships and hierarchy is in progress.
Below standard: Political factions have formed within the company.
BK International, which had been fine until Lee Jung-hye was vice president, was now being swept away like leaves in the wind. This is why it mattered who held real power.
Park Bong-joon seemed to have decided to side with Lee Sung-ha, as he didn’t express any objection to the ridiculous exercise of personnel rights. Hwi-kyung checked the list of promotion candidates by team. He recognized a few faces.
While the Hwi-kyung of the fourteenth iteration had no connection with anyone in the promotion documents, the Hwi-kyung of the twelfth iteration was familiar with a third of them. This was because most of them were people he had clashed with over differing opinions when working in the sales team.
If nothing else, Lee Sung-ha seemed to have a good eye for people. Many of those selected for promotion were likely to willingly join his faction for the sake of advancement. It was a talent to be able to select sycophants this well.
“Are we really processing this as is?”
“Well, if the vice president says so, what power do we have?”
Kang Moon-chul, who had checked the documents Park Bong-joon brought, repeatedly asked if they were really going to proceed like this. Even for someone who just did what they were told, these personnel records were so absurd that it made one wonder, ‘Is this really okay?’
It wasn’t easy to announce promotions with ridiculous reasons when there weren’t even any achievements. Moreover, all the truly diligent workers were omitted from promotions.
At this rate, it was obvious that something would soon be posted on the anonymous workplace community. Sung-ha would use that as an excuse to weed out people like catching mice.
A purge was scheduled. Hwi-kyung felt like he was getting cold hands and feet thinking about the hardships and adversities that would befall the company.
They should stop writing so much online…. Whether it was people leaking company confidential information on anonymous boards or those thinking of using it to cut people down like petty individuals, it was all the same to Hwi-kyung.
“I’ll take responsibility if any problems arise, so just submit it right away.”
“But…”
“No buts. You can’t last long in our job if you question things. Manager Kang knows that too.”
If a real problem arose from this, Park Bong-joon would blame everything on Kang Moon-chul. In the previous iteration, Hwi-kyung didn’t know because Lee Sung-ha wasn’t the vice president, but now he understood why Kang Moon-chul would eventually be kicked out of BK International after some time passed.
He was too easy to take advantage of. He worked hard, but he wasn’t savvy about looking out for himself. The HR team didn’t have quarterly performance evaluations like the sales team. Yet Kang Moon-chul diligently did whatever Park Bong-joon told him to do.
In a way, that bear-like quality was praiseworthy. It was the perfect attitude for living as a servant in a noble household. However, his nature of not being able to present proper evidence when other servants framed him made him perfect for being backstabbed.
“Shall I help you a bit?”
“Ah, no. I’ve already taken on managing the team’s operating expenses.”
“I’ve completed that and sent it to the operations team.”
“Already?”
“Yes. I’ve also emailed it to the team leader and manager.”
“…Then could you make this into an Excel file and organize it?”
Hwi-kyung intended to create clear evidence so that Park Bong-joon could be kicked out instead of Kang Moon-chul. It was important to leave evidence, whether through company messenger or email. Records of who uploaded and changed files on the company intranet had to be left to avoid responsibility.
The HR team’s shared drive was almost like Kang Moon-chul’s personal folder. All file owners were Kang Moon-chul, and he alone uploaded and downloaded files on the shared drive.
Hwi-kyung applied for access rights to the shared drive under the pretext of helping Moon-chul. Despite Hwi-kyung being employed for only a few months, Park Bong-joon granted him access without much thought.
It took less than an hour to complete the work Kang Moon-chul had assigned. Hwi-kyung set up a scheduled email with the work file to send to Moon-chul, and spent the remaining time examining all the files on the shared drive. He was careful to check only through previews, as opening files would leave records.
Even after skimming through just a few, it was clear that Park Bong-joon had messed up quite a bit. Although he wrote vaguely to avoid leaving unfavorable records, it was certain that personnel evaluations had not been fair.
Corruption in hiring went without saying. Hwi-kyung carefully checked even the hiring corruption of the executive director’s son that he had learned about in the previous iteration. Then he copied the viewed files and transferred them to his personal USB.
He didn’t forget to delete the copy records from the drive history. His experience working as a developer helped in erasing browsing records and logs.
“Manager, I just sent you an email.”
After checking the drive usage records and the time, it was when the scheduled email should have been sent. Kang Moon-chul thanked Hwi-kyung, completely unaware that Hwi-kyung had rummaged through past files and downloaded all the content that could get Park Bong-joon in trouble.
“You’re really good with Excel.”
“I learned a bit in college.”
“I see. Indeed, young people these days are quick with their hands.”
Universities don’t teach Excel skills useful in society. Hwi-kyung was good at Excel because he was an office worker who had regressed fourteen times. Excel work that didn’t require complex processing was one of Hwi-kyung’s callings.
But Moon-chul, unaware of this fact, marveled at Hwi-kyung’s fast work speed. Thinking that although their new employee lacked social skills, he was really good at his job.
* * *
The incident broke out two weeks later. It was when the company-wide notice for promotion candidates was sent out.
Many employees expressed dissatisfaction with the unfair personnel evaluations. Although no one made an official objection, they couldn’t prevent talk behind the scenes.
“Oh come on, we just did what we were told from above. I know you worked hard too, Min-chul. Why wouldn’t I know that?”
“But why did my evaluation come out as C…”
“We didn’t give you C because you did poorly. If everyone did well and we gave all As, huh? Would A have any meaning then? It’s just that when we followed the ratio, you ended up getting C because you were a bit lacking.”
“……”
“Don’t feel too wronged. You can do better next time, right?”
There were also cases where people came to the HR department to inquire about their personnel evaluations. Park Bong-joon soothed and placated the employees who came to him with a kind face.
He said he was comforting them, but in reality, it was a series of sophisticated verbal attacks that eroded their self-esteem. When an employee who had complaints left the office, Park Bong-joon sighed loudly as if for everyone to hear.
“Who would want to be an HR team leader for long, having to be feared? I’m the only one always suffering, taking the bullet.”
Hwi-kyung began to doubt his own judgment from the twelfth iteration when he had positively evaluated Park Bong-joon. While it was true that his social skills were excellent, he must have spoken well of Hwi-kyung to his face but talked behind his back about how the young guy was acting up.
He regretted joining the HR team in the last iteration, naively thinking that Park Bong-joon had treated him well. How could he have believed that there were people who were only good in this world? Even after living for so long, unable to escape his lowly position, he had to learn in this way every time that there was no one to trust in the company.
In any case, thanks to the goodwill he had built up, Park Bong-joon was bombarded with calls about irrational personnel evaluations and promotion omissions until lunchtime.
“Manager Kang and Hwi-kyung, you two go eat first.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Go when I tell you to go. You should eat before working.”
Thanks to Park Bong-joon, who was stuck in the office after lunch time, caught up with other people, Hwi-kyung was left alone with Kang Moon-chul for the first time in a very long while.
Hwi-kyung, who had finally managed to bring Moon-chul to a restaurant far from the company despite his insistence on eating at the company cafeteria, asked this to Kang Moon-chul, who kept checking the remaining lunch time:
“Manager Kang.”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t Team Leader Park going to be disciplined soon?”
“Huh? Why?”
It wasn’t always easy to pretend to be a clueless new employee. Hwi-kyung tilted his head sideways with chopsticks in his mouth, looking innocent.
“You know the file I asked before if it was okay to submit to the higher-ups as is?”
“Yes. The file of those omitted from promotion?”
“I double-checked the email address because I was afraid of making a mistake…”
“Yes.”
“When I checked again today, it was the former vice president’s email.”
“What?”
“I thought, ‘Is this okay?’ But Team Leader Park kept telling me not to ask and just handle it…”
It was half true. Hwi-kyung had subtly included Lee Jung-hye’s public email in the upper management email, but Park Bong-joon hadn’t noticed.
However, Jung-hye checking that email was entirely due to Hwi-kyung personally. Jung Hwi-kyung had contacted Jung-hye right after sending the email. “Former Vice President! The company is about to collapse, please check your email!”
Who would think now that Jung Hwi-kyung had a personal connection with Lee Jung-hye? People in the company thought Hwi-kyung had been inserted into the company with Lee Sung-ha’s help, not Lee Jung-hye’s, because of Lee Sung-ha’s occasional appearances in the HR department.
Jung Hwi-kyung continued his act as an innocent new employee while inwardly cursing, ‘It’s damn hard to get someone kicked out…’ Playing the clueless new employee was even harder than working behind the scenes.
