“Director Jang Yunmi.”
- Yes, CEO.
“It’s been hard lately, hasn’t it? With so many reservations and inquiries.”
- No, it’s all right. I’m fine.
“I’d like to go over and help you, but I’m in a situation where I can’t leave right now. I’m sorry.”
“It’s my job. And it is busy, but it’s manageable.”
“Don’t try to do everything alone. Hire someone. If that won’t work, at least get a part-timer.”
- No. I don’t want to. If you hire the wrong person, it only makes things harder. I had a really bad experience once before. It’s just more comfortable doing it alone. If I’m alone, even if it’s tiring, I can handle things one by one, but if you hire the wrong person, you end up doing the work twice. So I’d really like to decline that.”
“I’m just worried it’ll be too hard on you, Director.”
- I’ll handle things here somehow. If it doesn’t work, I’ll hire a part-timer, find an employee, or ask someone I know for help. I’ll take care of it, so please just focus on the local guides, CEO.
“All right. Once the reservations slow down and things stabilize, come over again. With your husband and child.”
- I really want to. I can’t forget the night sky I saw then. CEO, where did you find a place like that? I was so shocked when I saw Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake back then. That’s also why I’m working even harder now. I truly want to recommend it. That place isn’t embarrassing at all. I want to urge people to go there. It feels like such a waste when the reservations fill up. I want to send people I know, but the spots fill up first. Hohohoho.”
“Hahahaha. Then I’m glad.”
- Don’t worry about things here. You should take care of yourself, CEO.
.
.
.
After hanging up, Jang Yunmi couldn’t help but laugh.
Whenever she thought of her young CEO, she laughed.
He wasn’t even a funny person, but he was cute.
She remembered the day she had come for the interview.
He had been more awkward in the office than she, who was visiting it for the first time.
He had been more nervous than she, the interviewee.
And yet he had tried not to show it. That was her young CEO.
To Jang Yunmi, who had spent a long time in office life, all of that was plain to see.
But it didn’t look bad.
If anything, it looked good, because it seemed like he was trying his best.
So she had readily said she would work there.
Originally, she had been deliberating because her former workplace had asked her to come back.
The reason she couldn’t make up her mind easily was the commute, which was too far and too long.
It took more than an hour by subway.
Since her baby had been ill,
she felt burdened by being far away from the child.
That time and distance bothered her.
If the baby got sick, she needed to be able to come home at any time.
If she went back to her former workplace, that seemed difficult.
While she was debating, she saw Candy Tour’s recruitment notice.
This was a place she could walk to and from home.
There was a daycare center on the way, too.
It was perfect.
She thought that as long as it wasn’t too strange, it would be nice to work there, so she went for the interview.
She was truly confident in the work.
Once she actually came, not only did she like the young CEO,
but he said it seemed she would have to run the Seoul office and gave her full authority.
As long as the work got done, he said it didn’t matter what time she came and went, or even if she worked from home.
Then he told her she would need one, so she should buy whichever laptop she liked.
Our CEO is truly strange.
He is young.
He still shows many signs of inexperience.
He lacks a lot when it comes to running a travel agency.
No, he knows nothing at all.
After working a little, she could tell right away.
So she gave him realistic advice.
Travel agencies aren’t easy.
This is an industry where even people who have rolled around in travel agencies for twenty years go out, start their own, and fail.
So think it over again, even now.
I’m saying this as someone older, with more life experience.
Then he grinned and said,
“Don’t worry. I absolutely won’t let your salary be late. I’ll give you bonuses, too. So don’t worry.”
He said he was going to the Philippines, and then one day he told her to come over to the Philippines.
He sent her a ticket. Business class.
So she went.
“We should see it at least once, right? What we’re selling.”
That was when he showed her Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake.
She nearly collapsed.
Because it was so incredible.
While working at travel agencies, she had really been all over Southeast Asia.
She had been to plenty of places called famous, too, but there was absolutely nowhere like this.
‘Ah! This will work. This will absolutely work.’
So what if he had no experience?
It would be stranger if he had experience at that young age.
She was there to fill in that experience.
She could take care of that for him.
That was why the CEO hired her.
Once she thought of it that way, she felt she had to work even harder.
After returning to Korea, she made the tour program.
Then she intended to recruit travel YouTubers, send them on trips, give them some advertising money, and promote it.
She had even prepared the script and all the main points.
But whatever he had done in the Philippines, inquiries from people wanting to make reservations came in endlessly.
As soon as the tour program was posted, it sold out.
And then came the endless inquiries and demands.
“Are you not working? Why is it always sold out?”
“When will the tour open again? Please tell us the dates.”
“Can we reserve only the tour separately?”
“I’ll bring my own tent, so can’t you just let me join?”
I want to post more, too.
Desperately.
But this program here is a bit different from the one in the Philippines.
In the Philippines, they gather customers on-site and leave right away.
As a one-night itinerary.
There’s nothing to worry about.
But here, that isn’t the case.
The flight ticket, lodging, and tour all have to line up before a tour program can be sold.
The problem is that she hadn’t prepared many tickets because she hadn’t known the product would sell this well.
Plane tickets are purchased in blocks from airlines before the season.
For example, buying all sixty seats from row 21 to row 30 on a plane bound for the Philippines.
The tickets we commonly call last-minute dump tickets are exactly these tickets.
When demand is forecast incorrectly and too many tickets are purchased, they come out cheap later as the departure time approaches. Those are dump tickets.
In Candy Tour’s case, it was the opposite.
She had thought, How many people would go? and hadn’t prepared many tickets, but it blew up.
She belatedly inquired with airlines and other travel agencies as well, but there were no tickets she could obtain.
She couldn’t tell whether they had them and weren’t giving them, or whether they truly didn’t have any,
but there were no tickets available.
So she couldn’t sell the product.
Couldn’t they just sell the tour program separately?
Our CEO said that was not possible.
He said they had to control the number of people.
She knew they were adjusting the number of people every day on-site in the Philippines as well.
He said it couldn’t be helped in order to maintain the quality and scenery.
That was why there were people who wanted to join the tour even if they had to pay a premium.
Thanks to that, our program changed a little, too.
The lodging went from a four-star hotel to a five-star hotel.
The transportation became luxury yachts and limousines.
It became a luxury Philippines trip.
*********
The main office of the Bureau of Immigration in Manila, Philippines.
I was sitting face-to-face with the section chief in charge of special visas.
“Your visa has been prepared.”
The section chief in charge of special visas held out my passport, stamped with the SVEG visa, and my ACR I-Card to me.
No, isn’t this the sort of thing you just pick up at the counter?
Isn’t a light supposed to come on the electronic board, and when they call your name, you exchange documents through a glass partition?
Why am I sitting in the section chief’s office receiving my passport?
I feel like things are getting bigger.
I hate this kind of thing.
It makes me uneasy.
But I can’t exactly throw a fit and leave, so I say something polite.
“Thank you. It was processed quickly thanks to your attention.”
“You are working hard for our Philippines, so of course I should pay attention. I heard the inspection from DOLE, the Department of Labor and Employment, went wonderfully. Truly, thank you.”
“Not at all. I’m the one who’s grateful that you gave me a good opportunity. I’ll do my best to make sure it becomes an even better opportunity for the Filipino employees as well.”
“The employees’ satisfaction was so high that DOLE was surprised. I hope we can grow together here in the Philippines.”
“Thank you for your kind words.”
“Then shall we take a photo together?”
“Pardon? A photo?”
“Yes. It’s to commemorate the occasion, so let’s take a photo.”
“Ah… yes.”
Holding my visa and ACR I-Card, I took a commemorative photo in the section chief’s office.
It wasn’t even a selfie. A professional photographer came, took the photo, and left.
Click.
This is all Patrick’s fault.
Fuck. Patrick. You’re dead.
.
.
.
“Sandro. I’m going to go back to Korea for a bit. Please take care of things here.”
“Korea? Why?”
“It’s been over twenty days since I entered the Philippines. So I have to leave and come back. With no visa, I can only stay for thirty days.”
“You can just apply for an extension.”
Sandro, that’s not it.
There are eyes watching me.
So I have to behave myself.
“Anyway, I’ll go and come back.”
“Then you have to go back and forth to Korea every thirty days?”
“Right?”
“Isn’t that way too inconvenient? Besides, you go to Hong Kong once in a while too.”
“Even if it’s inconvenient, what can I do?”
That was when Patrick, who was beside us, spoke.
“Boss. How about obtaining a visa?”
“A visa?”
“There are several visas someone like you could receive, Boss. There’s the special investor’s resident visa and the special visa for employment generation in specific industries, but rather than those,
I think it would be best for you to receive the Special Visa for Employment Generation.”
“What? Employment generation?”
“Yes. That’s right. It’s a visa created because of the high unemployment rate in the Philippines. If you hire ten or more Filipino citizens, you can receive the visa. As long as you maintain that number, you can stay without limit. Your family as well.”
“Ah, there was something like that? Then we can do that. You bastard. If you knew about something like that, why didn’t you say anything?”
Sandro cut in.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was this issue. I have classmates from a Philippine university at the Bureau of Immigration. Should I look into it through them?”
“Of course you should look into it. Hurry up and apply. Express. You know, right? Fast, fast.”
“Yes. Fast, fast. I’ll handle it fast, fast.”
Unbelievable.
“Sandro, why are you deciding my problem?”
“Why is this your problem? It’s our problem. You’re our boss, so you can’t keep leaving your post.”
That was unexpected.
To think the word boss would come out of the mouth of proud Sandro.
Did that mean he acknowledged me?
I had never thought I wanted to be the boss, but it didn’t feel bad.
.
.
.
“Boss, we applied for the visa, and they say DOLE will come for an inspection this week.”
“Really?”
Since it was the Special Visa for Employment Generation, or SVEG visa, in order to receive it, the Department of Labor and Employment had to come out for an inspection and check things.
Unlike Sandro, who seemed completely unfazed, I felt uneasy.
Was it because I remembered being inspected and reviewed when I was in the military?
I felt like I had to prepare something.
“Patrick, then what do we need to prepare? Should we train them or something? Or do we need to handle paperwork?”
“What? Where else is there a place as clean as ours, with employee satisfaction as high as ours, that we’d need to train them?”
“Huh?”
“The kids you brought in and employed. The kids who used to work under me.”
“Yeah.”
“You hired all of them as employees and set up social security, SSS, health insurance, PhilHealth, and the housing fund, Pag-IBIG, for them. The kids were moved by that. They said it felt like they were being treated like people for the first time. Like they could finally live as proper human beings. When we were having a drink, the kids cried and thanked me. They said they’d be loyal for life.”
You crazy bastard, that’s like the four major insurances in Korea.
Of course we have to do it.
Isn’t it stranger not to?
“That’s something you’re supposed to do.”
“But Filipinos and even companies that come into the Philippines don’t do that thing that’s supposedly obvious. There are even employees who don’t like it. Some people hate it because they feel like their salary is being cut for nothing if they receive it.”
“No, health insurance is absolutely necessary.”
“Right. And it’s not just that. Here, we pay monthly salaries instead of daily wages. So they get days off, and the kids’ satisfaction is extremely high.”
I thought that might make sense.
Unless it’s a large hotel, most places pay daily wages.
It’s not that paying daily wages is bad,
but if you’re paid daily, you can’t receive money on days you don’t work.
So you have no choice but to work every day without days off.
Even after working like that, what you end up with in hand is between 500,000 and 700,000 won.
After living in the Philippines myself, I found it hard to get by on about 500,000 to 700,000 won.
So I was paying around a million won, and everyone did work hard.
They did their best.
“Ah! The uniforms you provided are getting a really good response too.”
That was because the kids wore such filthy clothes,
it was an eyesore, so I gave them out.
And from a distance, you could tell they were Candy Tour employees.
It raised the employees’ sense of belonging, promoted Candy Tour,
and customers could easily ask someone in uniform for help, which increased trust.
It could also give off a professional image.
Compared to the money spent, the effect was enormous.
Why wouldn’t anyone do this?
The employees were happy that they had new clothes.
They said that when they wore the uniform, they felt like they had become someone important.
They wore them all the time, whether they were working or not,
to the point that I had to issue a guideline telling them to wear them only during working hours.
“And if anyone throws a fit, just slip them some money. Why are you worrying about something like that?”
Sandro spoke of bribery as if it were nothing.
No matter how I thought about it, the Philippines was a place very different from what I had imagined.
.
.
.
After the site inspection, they said there would be an interview, so I had to go to Manila in person.
They said I just had to do the interview there and get my visa.
Patrick said he had already talked to everyone in advance, so I could just go and pick up the visa.
He said they would only ask a few simple questions, so I didn’t need to prepare.
And so I visited the immigration office.
Instead of going to a counter, I was escorted—no, practically dragged—straight to the section chief’s office.
There was no interview either.
They endlessly lavished praise on me.
“I hear you’ve been working hard on developing Bohol.”
“I’ve heard the tour programs you’ve already created are explosively popular.”
“We received a report that the number of tourists to Bohol has increased by more than 30% overall.”
“The employees’ job satisfaction was remarkable. I’ve never seen such satisfaction anywhere in the Philippines.”
“They say you’ve changed the landscape of Bohol tourism.”
“We ask for your continued support in exchanges with Korea as well.”
“I hear you’ll be entering the hotel and resort business in the future. We will actively assist you. Please contact us anytime.”
Honestly, I wondered if hiring thirty employees was enough to receive this kind of treatment.
I found out later that when Patrick expedited my visa, he had heavily embellished things.
He had also hyped me up to his connections.
Bohol tourism had completely changed after I arrived.
I had become Bohol’s game changer.
I was someone who would dominate the tourism industry in the future.
I would become a big figure in the Philippines.
They needed to get on my good side while they could.
Now was the lowest point to get in.
He had spread all sorts of rumors like that to his heart’s content.
That was why even the section chief in charge of special visas was trying to make a connection with me.
And why he was taking photos too.
How could I not curse Patrick for this?
You’re dead.