My Company Is Black

#016

The yes-man style HR team leader avoided conflicts with others.

In fact, Hwi-kyung felt a bit awkward with this iteration’s HR team leader. The HR team leader, Park Bong-joon, had been a really good person to Hwi-kyung in the twelfth iteration. He was one of the reasons Hwi-kyung had squeezed into the HR team, where openings were rare.

Although he didn’t know Park Bong-joon in detail, in the twelfth iteration, Team Leader Park had found Hwi-kyung very admirable. How he had praised him, saying such a young person had become a TF team leader. He even subtly hinted and understood perfectly, sending people to the TF team.

So he thought everything would be easier if he joined the HR team. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side; when he was in another team, the HR team had looked really good.

Park Bong-joon, who disliked fighting with other team leaders, seemed like a really nice person on the surface. During the period when Hwi-kyung didn’t know he was a yes-man boss, he thought the HR team leader did his job pretty well. He quickly dealt with work passed on from other departments.

It wasn’t team leader Park, but his subordinates who were being ground down, but Hwi-kyung, who belonged to the sales team, couldn’t easily know this fact. Moreover, there were never any bad rumors about the HR team. This was because Team Leader Park extremely avoided conflicts, so there was no friction with other teams.

For this reason, in the twelfth iteration, the young “old-fashioned” Jung Hwi-kyung joined under Park Bong-joon without knowing anything. Mistakenly thinking that Park Bong-joon would favor him as in the past.

At first, it was as Hwi-kyung expected. Park Bong-joon liked the capable new employee who had joined after a while. There was no reason to dislike having one more person to pass work onto.

Even after Hwi-kyung quickly became a deputy manager, he didn’t spare praise, saying our Deputy Jung really had a good head for work. Since Manager Kang handled most of the miscellaneous tasks in between, it was extremely rare for Hwi-kyung to directly clash with the team leader.

A team leader who only conversed at company dinners. Hwi-kyung didn’t think badly of Park Bong-joon either. Although he wasn’t good at work and kept bringing in new tasks from somewhere, his personality was good.

He didn’t get angry when mistakes were made, didn’t shout when problems arose… He didn’t sexually harass, didn’t rebuke in front of others, and promptly checked reports when submitted. By Jung Hwi-kyung’s standards, this was truly angelic.

“Deputy Jung.”

“Yes.”

“It’s really hard to see your face since you started doing secretary work. I even have to arrange a separate meeting like this.”

But even angels lose their minds when they lose their clothes.

Park Bong-joon started to become displeased when his leisurely company life suddenly caught fire. How many years of work experience did he have? If you scraped together all his water-treading experience, he had already spent 16 years under the Baekgyeong Group.

But now, a new employee who had just passed one year was sticking close to the parachute Executive Director, making his 16-year company life troublesome. He was the one who had attached him to the Executive Director, but there was no gratitude.

Park Bong-joon was well aware that Lee Gyo-ha showed great interest in Jung Hwi-kyung. This was information that had spread so widely that everyone in the company knew about it.

Even if that wasn’t the case, he couldn’t not know when he directly saw him bringing coffee every morning, saying it was for Hwi-kyung. Wasn’t it because of Hwi-kyung’s sick leave processing that attendance management had become stricter?

Just thinking about the stricter attendance management made his teeth grind. Anyway, the HR team (by Park Bong-joon’s standards) was a team with nothing to do if you just timed it right. Months without events, projects, recruitment, or personnel evaluations were very relaxed (by Park Bong-joon’s standards).

Moreover, Park Bong-joon left work 30 minutes to an hour late three or four times a week. It wasn’t overtime work, but leaving at that time allowed him to eat dinner at the company cafeteria before going home.

Whether at home or at the company, he’d just be looking at his phone and web surfing anyway, so staying at the company was rather beneficial to avoid his wife’s nagging about coming home early. On days when he did work overtime, overtime pay was deposited into his account.

So Park Bong-joon had no qualms about arriving at work about 30 minutes later than the start time. It had been years since he, as the team leader, had told team members to come to work flexibly at the team leader’s discretion because he came in late.

It was natural for Manager Kang, who used to be the youngest, and Deputy Jung, who became the new youngest, to come early because they hadn’t accumulated enough years. Hadn’t he also worked hard unnecessarily when he was young?

But to dare report to the Executive Director about attendance and make the whole team uncomfortable.

Park Bong-joon quickly came to dislike Jung Hwi-kyung, whom he had liked in his own way. What, was he the Executive Director’s secretary from the beginning? As an HR deputy manager, he was his subordinate, but going to the Executive Director and wagging his tail (by Park Bong-joon’s standards) was quite displeasing.

“Is the secretary work manageable? It must be a lot of work since you even took sick leave last time.”

However, Park Bong-joon was not the type to express his displeasure well.

To be precise, he was good at expressing displeasure itself, but not directly. Should we say he was a master of passive aggression but lacked talent in direct attacks? Park Bong-joon wanted to be a good person even to those he found distasteful. The nature of a born yes-man doesn’t change even after 16 years of company life.

But Jung Hwi-kyung’s company life period was 54 years in total over 12 iterations.

It was that much even though he didn’t seek employment at all in the sixth iteration. It was 13 years just in the twelfth iteration, so while his long-term service experience might be a bit lacking, he was far from being called a new employee anywhere.

Thanks to this, Hwi-kyung instantly caught the HR team leader’s intention when he said “even took sick leave” in a gentle voice. Ah, this bastard is trying to pick on me…

“It’s manageable.”

“How about the Executive Director? Is he treating you well?”

“…Yes.”

“Well, I guess so. I suppose you have a lot in common since you’re similar in age.”

“……”

“Still, it’s not good to be too close with your superior. You know that, right, Deputy Jung?”

From the moment the team leader called him individually to the meeting room, Hwi-kyung had anticipated he would hear something. It had been expected since the team leader, who had never nagged the chain-smoking Manager Kang, started subtly hinting at him.

It was also within expectations that instead of saying something directly, given the HR team leader’s personality, he would probe subtly and launch passive attacks. Park Bong-joon might have had several new employees like Jung Hwi-kyung, but Jung Hwi-kyung had also encountered superiors like Park Bong-joon.

Moreover, while Park Bong-joon was seeing Jung Hwi-kyung for the first time in this iteration, it was the second time for Jung Hwi-kyung with Park Bong-joon.

Saying not to get close to superiors. It was truly ridiculous. As far as Hwi-kyung knew, Park Bong-joon was the type to volunteer as a superior’s doormat out of desire to climb to higher positions.

Who wouldn’t, but due to his strong desire for promotion, hadn’t he led the unfair internship acceptance of high-ranking officials’ children even in the previous iteration? How shocked he had been when the system window popped up with the recruitment corruption case.

Still, that level of HR corruption was cute. When even large-scale family parachuting doesn’t trigger forced regression, unfair internship acceptance of high-ranking officials’ children isn’t a big deal. In large corporations, it was common to post job openings with predetermined hires.

But no matter how cute the corruption was, it was funny for the person who actually committed it to advise “don’t get close to superiors” to his face. Hwi-kyung swallowed the words “you should talk” under his well-trained smile.

“By now, our smart Deputy Jung must have noticed why I called you personally.”

“……”

“There have been some bad rumors lately. That you and the new Executive Director are in that kind of relationship…”

“That’s not true.”

“Come on, Deputy Jung. Do you think I’m the kind of person with prejudices about such things?”

“……”

“I’m a woke person.”

Well, you’re awake since you’re not sleeping…

Hwi-kyung started the “draw patience 100 times” challenge in his mind again. If you endure 100 times, you avoid regression. If he couldn’t endure this, he’d become an anger management failure who throws coffee at his superior and regresses again.

“A man dating a man? I think that can happen.”

“I see…”

“But getting so close to a superior, causing bad rumors, and affecting team work? I really don’t think that’s right. Since you’re smart, you must understand what I mean.”

Pick one: either speak informally or formally. Hwi-kyung let the team leader’s words go in one ear and out the other as he recited the Heart Sutra. Hmm, the bullshit is really running rampant.

Thinking it was bullshit made the HR team leader look like a fat pug. It was unfair to pugs.

“So I think it might be good to hand over the temporary secretary duties to Manager Kang…”

In the end, he felt a bit sorry that Manager Kang would end up taking his work. Hwi-kyung had wanted to lighten Manager Kang’s workload, not add to it.

But among the team leader’s bullshit, this was relatively welcome news. The expectation of escaping from Lee Gyo-ha outweighed the guilt towards Manager Kang.

“I’ll take over some of Manager Kang’s tasks.”

“As expected, I like how quick you are to understand. Then we’ll reassign tasks starting next week.”

“Yes. I’ll inform Manager Kang separately.”

“Good, then…”

Just before the HR team leader was about to tell him to leave, someone knocked on the meeting room door.

“Uh, Team Leader? It’s Kang Moon-chul. Do you have a moment?”

“Oh, Manager Kang. The interview just ended. Come in, come in.”

“Well… the Executive Director is looking for you, Team Leader…”

“Me?”

Kang Moon-chul, with a troubled face, leaned into the open meeting room door and continued.

“He’s asking you to come to the Executive Director’s office right now.”

At that moment, Jung Hwi-kyung sensed it. This is a red light, isn’t it?

From the looks of it, it seemed he wouldn’t be able to quit the temporary secretary job right away.