| Episode 64. How to Resolve Friction with Your Boss: Get Rid of the Boss (2)
After Kim Iwol submitted his proposal to the Planning Team, the frequency with which he visited the Management Division dropped sharply.
Naturally, Min Ju-gyeong, who belonged to the Management Division, also had very few occasions to see Kim Iwol.
At least, until Kim Iwol requested a meeting through Im Chan-yeong, the manager in charge of the trainees.
Meetings with a team that managed people were usually all more or less the same.
At most, the biggest issue would be someone wanting their manager changed.
So when Kim Iwol entered the conference room looking worn out, Min Ju-gyeong assumed he had simply had a lot on his plate lately, or that his feelings had become complicated with his debut approaching.
But the problem this young trainee carefully brought up was an issue that had never existed at UA before.
“PD Yu hit you?”
At a subject she had not even dared to imagine, Min Ju-gyeong straightened her posture and asked again.
It was not because she doubted Kim Iwol. It was because she could not believe that something that should never have happened had happened.
Kim Iwol, who had hesitated before finally forcing the words out, nodded faintly.
“When?”
“……A few days ago.”
He was a kid who always met people’s eyes and spoke clearly whenever he talked to them. But today, Kim Iwol could hardly raise his head.
‘Does he think it happened because he did something wrong?’
Min Ju-gyeong’s heart sank.
No matter how much someone might have “done something to deserve it,” you still could not hit a person. But even aside from that, Kim Iwol was not the type to deliberately do things that would put him in someone’s bad graces.
Everyone at UA knew how polite and diligent Kim Iwol was, didn’t they?
Min Ju-gyeong asked as calmly as she could so Kim Iwol would not become even more nervous.
“Did something happen with the PD?”
“……To be honest, I’m not sure.”
Kim Iwol said it with an awkward smile. That blank little smile made Min Ju-gyeong even more concerned.
At that moment, something flashed through Min Ju-gyeong’s mind.
It was a conversation that had come up not long ago when she had lunch with a colleague from the Planning Team.
‘Ju-gyeong, be honest with me and only me. PD Yu really parachuted in, didn’t he?’
‘Why PD Yu?’
‘That bastard is completely hopeless. He can’t do his job, he talks like shit, and on top of that he has no tact. How the hell has word not spread in the industry?’
It was well known that the Planning Team had not had a single day of peace since PD Yu Han-su joined.
Even Min Ju-gyeong’s colleague, for one, had become so full of complaints that she wondered if this person had always been like that.
And every one of those complaints stemmed from Yu Han-su.
‘The team leader doesn’t say it outright, but I think that Yu Han-su guy even has an inferiority complex toward Iwol.’
‘An inferiority complex?’
‘Yeah. Whenever Iwol does anything, he picks a fight with him, seriously. He keeps bringing in such garbage that when we ask about the background, it’s a total spectacle.’
‘Come on, what’s the age gap between Iwol and PD Yu?’
‘I’m serious. At the last meeting, all of PD Yu’s ideas got shot down and Iwol’s was chosen instead, right? You should’ve seen PD Yu’s face then, Ju-gyeong.’
Her colleague had definitely said that Kim Iwol’s opinion had been chosen over Yu Han-su’s idea.
She had heard before that it was not the first time something like that had happened. But the news that every single one of a producer’s opinions had been completely rejected was such a big deal that it spread all over the company.
“Iwol, around when did the PD lay a hand on you?”
Min Ju-gyeong asked carefully. She desperately hoped that a full-grown adult had not hit a barely twenty-year-old kid out of ugly jealousy.
But the answer she received did not stray from her expectations.
“A few days ago. Would the date be important?”
“Not necessarily. I was just wondering if you remembered.”
“If I look at my calendar, I’ll be able to find the date. It was about three days after the meeting with the Planning Team, and I wrote down all the meeting schedules on my calendar.”
The sight of Kim Iwol trying to speak calmly somehow looked pitiful.
As Min Ju-gyeong was wondering what she should say, Kim Iwol hesitated, then took something out of his pocket.
“Um, I thought you might not believe me, so…….”
Unable to say anything, Min Ju-gyeong accepted the bundle Kim Iwol handed her.
When she unfolded the wad of paper, small fragments of metal were revealed.
Min Ju-gyeong was not foolish enough to fail to understand why Kim Iwol was handing her this at this point.
Nor was she unaware that electronic devices made in Korea did not break this badly just because someone stepped on them lightly.
Min Ju-gyeong let out a low groan. It was clear that this was not an issue she could simply handle with a meeting at her level.
* * *
After thinking for a moment, Min Ju-gyeong asked for my understanding and brought in the head of the Artist Management Team.
The management team leader, who had entered with a bright expression, had a face ashen as dirt within three minutes.
If the people at the company had reacted lukewarmly, I was planning to make a fuss, saying that Yu Han-su had frightened the other trainees too. Thankfully, that unfortunate turn of events did not occur.
Thanks to that, all I had to do was explain, wearing an expression as if I were exhausted by all the affairs of the world, just how arduous my days of being ground down under Yu Han-su had been.
For me, it was enjoyable since I was getting to vent in a way I had never been able to at Hanpyeong Industries, but the employees’ complexions grew worse and worse.
When I told them about how Yu Han-su had called me nonstop until four in the morning, the faces of the management team leader and Min Ju-gyeong visibly turned blue.
The management team leader ruffled his own hair and said,
“He’s making the kids see every filthy thing there is.”
Don’t worry about that. I’m a black-hearted member of society, so I’m fine.
Beside that management team leader, Min Ju-gyeong let out a heavy sigh and asked,
“We’ll need to talk to the Planning Team and separate PD Yu from Spark, won’t we?”
“That goes without saying. We’ll have to hear what PD Yu has to say too, but we need to inform the CEO about this as well.”
It was astonishing. The company’s employees were actually trying to protect me.
No matter how hard I had practiced acting in preparation for this day, I never thought they would listen so sincerely to the words of someone at the bottom. They even believed me.
Even if that was only for show, the fact remained that it was something I had never once seen at Hanpyeong Industries. Live long enough, and you see all kinds of things.
To think they cared about me this much. Truly…….
This is troublesome. I still have something left to say!
“Um, and…….”
I took the printouts I had prepared in advance from my bag and held them out. My heart was in a fucking hurry, but outwardly, I tried hard to make it look as if I were hesitating.
“I’m not sure if I should show you this like this…… but I thought I should tell you.”
“What is this?”
A document alleging corruption by Yu Han-su, painstakingly written by hand by a former HR Team employee and current trainee.
* * *
To explain the process that led me to thoroughly shake down Yu Han-su, I have to go back a few weeks.
Back to the time when Yu Han-su was dumping all kinds of work on me day and night.
My work included getting estimates from the companies Yu Han-su told me to contact.
And during that process, I discovered it.
‘The amount is strange.’
The circumstances suggesting Yu Han-su’s attempted embezzlement, that is.
In order to make the most of the budget assigned to Spark, we had to save as much as possible.
So I sold everything I could sell except my own legwork. I inquired about estimates here and there, knocked on the same doors two or three times, and organized every single quote.
In the middle of that, I found an anomaly.
The unit prices from companies where three cases overlapped—when I first went around asking for estimates on my own, when I got UA’s permission and negotiated prices using the company name, and when Yu Han-su connected me to them, saying they were companies he knew—were far too strange.
I knew that a personal inquiry was usually supposed to be the most expensive, and yet, for some reason, the more Yu Han-su’s name was involved, the higher the price climbed.
At first, I thought Yu Han-su might have been blacklisted by certain companies, but that was not it. Several companies showed the same pattern.
‘Surely not. How long has it even been since he changed jobs and came here?’
Just in case, and hoping that Yu Han-su was not that hopeless of a human being, I asked the company.
‘How should the payment be handled?’
The answer I received was regrettable.
‘Please tell him we’ll deposit the difference into his personal account like last time.’
This was a problem that came before his character, really.
As a result, no embezzlement issue actually occurred within UA. That was because an entirely different company was selected as the contractor.
I nearly died trying to find a place untouched by Yu Han-su’s influence while still having decent terms.
It would have been nice if I could have reported it internally right away, but there were more than one or two things that bothered me.
There was the possibility that Spark’s debut would be delayed if the Planning side became noisy because of Yu Han-su’s case.
And it would also be troublesome if I recklessly made a move and got my own head chopped off before Yu Han-su did.
Taking this and that into consideration, all I could do at the time was somehow make sure Yu Han-su could not find an opening to siphon off money.
But I did keep a record of the series of events.
If something like this happened again, or if I achieved my KPI and left UA, I intended to report it openly then.
And not long after, the day after Yu Han-su smacked me around.
With the intention of cutting off Yu Han-su’s lifeline, I went to the Production Team.
I took the unit price table containing only the estimates I had received under PD Yu Han-su’s name, intending to compare them against the usual price ranges that the experts would know and get cross-verification, but…….
‘PD Yu Han-su chose the company, right? Then we don’t need to look at it. It’s already all been settled.’
Well, would you look at that.
The Production Team was acting as if suspicious smells were wafting off them.
An employee colluded with a company to siphon off the budget.
But the related department pretended not to know?
If that was the case, what else could it mean except that they were in it together?
Only then did all the questions I had had until now unravel. If there was someone he was supposed to share the scraps with, then of course I, who kept getting in the way, must have been a thorn in his side.
It was not as if we worked closely together either, so on the surface, it must have been easy to deceive people.
While we’re at it, I hope they all get disciplined and shut up about Spark’s work.
With that mindset, I stayed up all night until my eyes were bloodshot, transcribing recordings into transcripts and attaching estimates.
It did not seem as if the only people connected to Yu Han-su were in the Production Team, but I decided to cut the tendon first and think afterward. I could not risk losing everything by trying to catch two rabbits at once.
And so the report I had made while weeping loudly in my heart was now in the hands of the people at UA.
My heart pounded. How would UA treat an internal whistleblower?
‘At Hanpyeong Industries, an internal whistleblower was someone who deserved to die.’
Just as I thought that, I heard the rough scrape of chair legs against the floor. It was the sound of someone springing up from their seat.