Real Man

Chapter 35

Deputy Park Seung Woo pushed Yoo-hyun’s shoulder and hid behind the partition.

He whispered.

“It’s a weekly event. It’s better to hide at times like this.”

“…”

Yoo-hyun remembered that Supervisor Jo Chan Young had a hot temper even after 20 years.

He was notorious for interfering too much for his position and wandering around frequently.

Especially, he didn’t trust the product planning team very much, so he often visited them with the purpose of monitoring.

And if he found something he didn’t like, he would make a scene.

He would call the team leader and tear up the team like he did now.

“Who made this report? Deputy Park? How did you train your team members, Team Leader Oh!”

“I’m sorry.”

While Supervisor Jo Chan Young yelled for a long time, Deputy Park Seung Woo’s face became darker and darker.

He didn’t know how many times his name was mentioned in that conversation.

After the supervisor vented his anger and left, the team leader shouted this time.

“Where is Deputy Park!”

“He’s a bit sensitive today.”

“Is he?”

Yoo-hyun opened his mouth with a serious expression.

He must have tried to relax, but his trembling legs betrayed Deputy Park Seung Woo’s nervousness.

“He doesn’t usually act like this.”

“It must be a special situation.”

“Right. It will pass soon.”

He tried to reassure Yoo-hyun with a bold tone.

Did he get scared by seeing this?

Yoo-hyun felt rather friendly.

It was the same for Supervisor Jo Chan Young who scolded the team leader in front of his subordinates or Team Leader Oh Jae Hwan who vented his anger on his team members after being late.

They were just some of the people he had seen countless times before.

Yoo-hyun remembered something for a moment.

The faces of the people who swore loyalty to him excessively and bowed to him in the past.

Among them, Supervisor Jung Man Ho who had the team leader in his grip and Director Lee Jae Chul who trembled in front of his boss came to mind.

These two were exactly the same cases as now.

‘It’s funny.’

He had dominated them from above and now he was far below them.

But his eye level was drastically different from that of the new hire Yoo-hyun in the past.

He didn’t feel intimidated by their actions, but rather saw the cause and effect of why they acted like that.

Not only that, but he also saw the whole situation in three dimensions.

He understood the flow of the entire organization with just a few words of conversation in a short moment.

Experience was scary indeed.

Yoo-hyun smiled leisurely without knowing it.

Deputy Park Seung Woo looked at him with curiosity.

Then Team Leader Oh Jae Hwan’s rough voice came again, and Deputy Park Seung Woo finally straightened his shoulders and got up from his seat.

“Deputy Park.”

“Yes, Team Leader. Did you look for me? Haha.”

“…”

There was a silence like before a storm behind Deputy Park Seung Woo’s cheerful laugh.

For a moment, Yoo-hyun closed his eyes tightly.

‘You should have stayed still.’

Deputy Park Seung Woo must have done it to ease his tension, but it backfired.

From Team Leader Oh Jae Hwan’s perspective, he felt ignored by his subordinate in front of his boss.

As Yoo-hyun feared, Deputy Park Seung Woo’s appearance added fuel to the fire.

Team Leader Oh Jae Hwan, who was trying to save face, yelled at him with a whip-like voice.

“Hey! Deputy Park. Are you here to make money?”

“What? No… No.”

Deputy Park Seung Woo answered hesitantly while rolling his eyes around.

That’s when Part Leader Kim Hyun Min intervened.

He was a man who always had a relaxed smile on his round face and didn’t care much about promotion.

“We are here to make money.”

“Hehe.”

Eventually, the shoulders of the team members who were listening with their ears open shook.

Some even let out an oblivious laugh.

Team Leader Oh Jae Hwan’s face turned red enough to burst.

“Part Leader Kim! What have you done so well that you’re mumbling!”

In the end, the sparks flew to Part Leader Kim Hyun Min as well.

Yoo-hyun returned to his seat and put together the pieces of an old memory puzzle.

The PDA project.

It was the fundamental reason why Supervisor Jo Chan Young came and got angry, and Team Leader Oh Jae Hwan exploded.

Compared to the TV and IT groups that had the world’s first and second performance, the mobile group was lagging behind as the fourth in the world.

Especially in the mobile field where the customers had a strong influence, product planning was not necessary.

They just had to make what they were told.

At least that was the thought until now.

But when the competitor hit the jackpot with the panel for the Nintendo game console, Supervisor Jo Chan Young became anxious.

He tried to make up for it by focusing on the new business area, and that was the PDA that Deputy Park Seung Woo was in charge of.

And the PDA project failed miserably.

It was the decisive factor that made Deputy Park Seung Woo quit.

He remembered Deputy Park Seung Woo’s last lonely look for a moment.

How should he help?

He couldn’t let the same regrettable result happen again.

He wanted to help Deputy Park Seung Woo somehow.

He wanted to step forward and change the direction right away, but there was a restriction of being a new hire.

The moment he stepped forward, the others would become screens.

That was not the company life Yoo-hyun wanted.

He decided to live a life with others, not alone.

He needed time to do that.

Yoo-hyun leaned his head forward and looked at Deputy Park Seung Woo who was still being scolded.

“What were you thinking…”

“I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time…”

He glanced at this side, showing that he cared about Yoo-hyun.

He was a very kind person.

Yoo-hyun smiled softly without knowing it.

30 minutes passed.

“Team Leader is really…”

Deputy Park Seung Woo returned to his seat with his shoulders drooping.

He had been nagged so much that he felt like he was going crazy.

He understood why he was angry, but if he had to report to the supervisor again, he should have given him time to prepare.

“Sigh…”

He let out a deep sigh and was about to sit down.

There was an energy drink on his desk.

He tilted his head and picked up the drink, and there was a note under it.

-Cheer up.

Just four words.

Written with a name pen, Deputy Park Seung Woo chuckled and looked at Yoo-hyun.

“Han Yoo-hyun.”

“Yes, Deputy Park.”

“Are you my senior?”

He spat out as if he was annoyed, and wrinkles appeared around his eyes.

 Yoo-hyun pretended to be nervous and agreed with him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Kid. This is something a senior does to a junior. Got it? Huh? Are you hurt?”

He should have let him put him in a playful headlock at times like this, but Yoo-hyun instinctively avoided it.

He wondered how much he should go along with him when Deputy Park Seung Woo frowned and said.

“This won’t do. I have to teach you some life lessons over drinks tonight.”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh, really? You’re smiling when your senior is scolding you?”

“I’m naturally a smiling person.”

“Pfft. This kid is really funny… Hmhm. Well, I’ll drink well.”

Deputy Park Seung Woo shook the drink awkwardly and smiled.

Yoo-hyun remembered his past while looking at his affectionate eyes.

-Cheer up.

20 years ago, he had received the same message from Deputy Park Seung Woo.

He had taken care of Yoo-hyun until the end, even though he had chosen Director Shin Chan Yong over him.

He was grateful and sorry for that.

Deputy Park Seung Woo was such a warm-hearted person.

He reaffirmed his determination while looking at him smiling brightly now.

Deputy Park Seung Woo wanted to take care of Yoo-hyun more, but he was too busy preparing for the report next week.

The PDA problem that was not developing well was especially headache-inducing.

Even if he reported to Supervisor Jo Chan Young who was in charge of sales and marketing, nothing would change, but it was necessary for the sake of organization.

Yoo-hyun understood his situation well enough.

He felt sorry for him more than anything else because he was handling something that was beyond his ability alone.

And there was no one to help him.

There were only six people in the third part, including the part leader.

Director Choi Min Hee was on vacation, Deputy Kim Young Gil was busy preparing for a meeting with a client.

The only one left was Lee Chan Ho who had joined the company two years earlier than Yoo-hyun, but he was busy preparing for an exhibition.

There were so many things to do, but they had to take on things that didn’t have to be done by the third part.

It was because they were pushed by their power.

The product planning team was pushed by the sales and marketing team.

And among them, the third part took on the work while being pushed by the first and second parts.

That was the current address of the part that Yoo-hyun belonged to now.

They didn’t have a main product like a cell phone, but a side product that didn’t produce results.

And they received unreasonable demands and attention like the PDA.

On top of that, they had to deal with trivial tasks as well.

Two people had quit before because of these reasons.

In a word, there were many problems.

He didn’t notice it in the past when he was busy looking ahead and working, but now he saw it clearly.

They had all the characteristics of a failing organization.

They couldn’t get recognition because they couldn’t produce results, and they lost motivation because they couldn’t get recognition.

It should be fun to work, but it wasn’t.

They were working hard on projects that were not their own ideas but suited their superiors, so they had no interest either.

They had to handle more than one project by themselves because there were many product lines.

That’s how a vicious cycle occurred.

How could he break it?

Yoo-hyun was looking at the ceiling and thinking when someone spoke from behind.

“What are you doing? Want some tea?”

“Thank you.”

It was Lee Chan Ho’s face, who was Yoo-hyun’s senior by two years.

He opened his mouth with a vending machine coffee in his hand.

“Ha, I’m so frustrated I could go crazy.”

“It must be hard.”

Yoo-hyun matched his tone appropriately.

Lee Chan Ho kept talking without even taking a sip of his cooling coffee.

“I wish I could do some proper work.”

“Is it difficult?”

When Yoo-hyun chimed in, Lee Chan Ho said irritably.

“I’m sick of making useless reports all day. What’s the point? I get scolded every time.”

“I see.”

“No. That’s not something I should say to a new hire. Just ignore it.”

Lee Chan Ho waved his hand dismissively.

He had been spewing negative stories for over 20 minutes without stopping and then acted like that.

-What’s the point of working so hard? You should do enough and find your own way. Don’t waste your time in the wrong place.

That’s what he said when he couldn’t adapt and quit after wandering around.

He dismissed it as a loser’s words.

He had sent away another person he worked with, but Yoo-hyun was still looking ahead.

It was not funny at all when he thought about it now.

Yoo-hyun looked up at Lee Chan Ho.

His sturdy body and tall height.

He had a lot of energy in his body even when he was sitting still, maybe because he was from the military police.

But his ability to handle multiple tasks at the same time was definitely lacking.

However, he was the type to quietly do his assigned work.

He would have done better if they had worked together.

He thought it was possible when he looked back on his experience during the new hire training.

Lee Chan Ho was not behind his peers at all.

Rather, he could have soared if he had been given the right opportunity.

His strengths that were not visible at that time were clearly visible to Yoo-hyun now, who had more than 20 years of company experience.

Not only Lee Chan Ho, but everyone in the third part had their own strengths.

They might not shine when they were alone, but they could shine more than any other organization when they were together.

Yoo-hyun believed that.

And he wondered what kind of result they would create when their combined power moved in one direction.

That was the future of the third part that Yoo-hyun envisioned.