This is not my style.
“Right, it is not my style either.”
“But what can we do? It is work.”
“Still, the clothes are such a waste. I do not think I will ever wear them again.”
“You only say that because you have never worn them. If they are at home, maybe you will wear them sometimes. Style can change. It is hard to try something new, but at least this makes us try.”
“Should I just wear it once and sell it?”
“Who would pay money for clothes like these? If there were no event like this, even if someone said they were giving them away, I would think, ‘So this is garbage disposal under the name of sharing.’”
“Still, even if I keep it, I probably will not wear it… In the end I think I will throw it away.”
“If it were light green or yellow, I would feel the same, but since it is black, maybe it could be useful if you decide to change your style.”
“The age for blind dates is over, and now it is the age for arranged meetings, so I suppose that is possible.”
“You can wear it when jeans feel inappropriate.”
“Even my jeans are black. These days almost anything works, so why this?”
“Too light for a funeral, a little heavy for standing in front of people… Then there must be some job where clothes like this fit perfectly.”
“Yes, a part-time job like this.”
“Even aside from part-time work, it is just right for coming to a place like this, as long as it is not much colder or hotter.”
“We just do not live the kind of cultural life where we would wear this.”
“One of us should have been making money.”
“If that had happened, that bastard would have taken the seat, and you would have stupidly suffered while being painted as the only bad one. It works out at the company because there are two of us.”
“So we become the union chairman’s lackeys?”
“So? That person is responsible for at least thirty percent of my stress. Will he apologize?”
“If you tell him to apologize over a drink, he will probably say he is sorry.”
“Then why meet him?”
“I told you, I asked to meet.”
“Still, he must have said he would come because he has something to say too.”
“When he said the union was going to step in, I told him to come out and explain in detail.”
“Will he talk about that?”
“He sounded excited.”
“Excited to talk about that?”
“Yes. When I said I could not understand the union stepping in, he sounded ready to make a PowerPoint.”
I could guess what Manager Han wanted to say. He was probably thinking of satisfying revenge and justice served. But when I went to the union, the atmosphere was quite different. I explained in detail how Deputy Choi was setting people against one another and taking credit for other people’s work, and asked for help, but they said there was not much they could do with words alone. I understood. There was only one side of the story, so if they stepped in and it backfired, that would be a problem. But since I was saying I could not continue working because of him, they could not simply seat the two of us face to face either. I was grateful that they comforted me with kind words, but I did not think they would actually step in. Yet when I heard that they were doing so, I was glad. Maybe the fact that I had taken leave had become a kind of signpost.
The part-time job was exciting and fun. I had not known an art exhibition could be so attractive. It looked quiet and static, so I thought it actually was, but behind the scenes it had preparation and stories no less than a concert. The only difference was that one naturally imagines busy chaos behind a concert, but does not imagine it behind an art exhibition. One visitor said that the atmosphere she was looking for was this and that, but the works felt slightly off. Based on what I had felt and memorized, I thought hard and guided her to a painting right in front of the entrance, asking whether this one might work. She said she must have missed it when entering, and that everything she had been looking for was in that painting, then went in to make a purchase.
Just as I was thinking it was amazing to see stickers placed on more than half the paintings, the tension eased and my heels began to throb. I had worn dress shoes only during commuting, and even at work I wore slippers while sitting, but today I had stood all day in dress shoes. Even at lunch, to avoid leaving my spot for the bathroom in the afternoon, I ate roughly, brought coffee back, and drank it while wandering. Perhaps I was more tense because it was my first part-time job in twenty years.
Manager Jung came near.
“Ugh, thinking we have to do this for two weeks is hard.”
“Still, does it not give you energy when you guide people?”
I smiled, but Manager Jung looked miserable.
“This painting looks like that painting… When I see the painting, everything I memorized disappears from my head. Manager Kim, your face looks good. I guess this work suits you.”
“I find it fun. The paintings are all different. Maybe you did not study properly.”
“No, say a work’s title and I can explain all of it. But it does not match the painting. I remember faces well, but paintings do not feel like people.”
“Maybe that is true for you. I cannot remember people’s faces, but with the paintings here, I think I could guess which number each was hanging at even if people took them home and bragged about them.”
“The shapes are different, but the color tones are all the same, ugh…”
“So, did you make a mistake?”
“If I had, would I be standing in front of you saying this is hard? I would already have been kicked out and gone home.”
“True. But my heels hurt badly. I need to go home and soak them in hot water.”
“Are you not going?”
“Where?”
“You said you were having dinner with Manager Han later.”
“Manager Han? Han Ji-hyun?”
“Yes. You do not remember?”
“Ah, I am so tired… If I have to do this again tomorrow, I should drink only a little today. This is a problem.”
“Still, would it not be better to hear him out? If Manager Han says he is excited to talk, there must be a reason.”
“Fine, let us hear him. Where is it?”
“I told him I did not even want to look toward the company, so I told him to come here. You know the alley in front of the subway station? The food alley we pass on the way to the subway. The red octopus place.”
“Ah, then we can eat quickly and go home. Working with the body after only working with the head is hard.”
“This is also work done with the head. It just happens to be standing work.”
“Fine, fine. Then let us at least go to a cafe. We have time, right?”
“Hey, there are still two hours until we get off, and the reservation is three hours away. Go to a motel and soak your body if you want.”
“I will sit and drink coffee. That is too expensive.”
After going in and out of several cafes, we found a franchise with an empty sofa seat and entered. I leaned into the sofa as if sliding down. To order, I would have to stand and walk again, and putting strength into my soles felt like torture.
“What will you drink, Manager Kim?”
“Are you ordering for me?”
“Yes. I made the appointment and stopped you from going straight home, so it is on me. What do you want?”
“Just a hot Americano.”
“Then one Americano and one latte. Large?”
“If large, make mine decaf. They have it, right?”
“They do. I will order.”
He said he would order, but kept sitting. I waited a little, then asked irritably.
“Are you not ordering? You said you would.”
“I ordered through the app. Why are you nagging? Thirsty? Want water?”
“How old are you, following young people and ordering by app? You still do not look young.”
“I am not doing it to look young. The people taking orders prefer this to someone going up and spitting while ordering. If there are people who make technology, there have to be people who use it. Manager Kim, you are frustrating. Is it because you are tired?”
“Yes, I am tired. What are you going to do?”
“Oh, are you? Are you tired? I am tired too.”
We giggled, then soon became quiet. Like the others in the cafe, we quickly focused on our phones. A call sounded from the counter, and soon Manager Jung’s phone rang.
“Manager Kim, I will bring you your coffee. Please wait a moment.”
“Yes, Madam Jung, please hurry.”
“What the!”
We giggled again, and Manager Jung immediately brought the tray of coffee. I looked around, wondering if we had been too noisy, but no one cared. Even to me, the two of us were too tired to be loud.
I sipped the hot coffee. It did not feel like fatigue was being relieved. I simply wondered whether this was what old drinkers meant when they downed soju saying it felt like their fatigue was leaving.
Conscientiously, sitting in a cafe for three hours felt a little wrong. Ironically, that is why I avoid independent cafes. People who do not feel sorry sit there for hours reading and studying while complaining, while people who do feel sorry order a drink every hour or two and still sit in franchises out of guilt. Does that not make things doubly hard only for independent cafes?
“Should we have gone to an independent cafe?”
“For three hours?”
“We could order three drinks.”
“We came here because there is a sofa.”
“That is true.”
The conversation ended there. Manager Jung was tired too. Perhaps curiosity about company news was overcoming the fatigue.
We worked in the department that managed funds. There had been no problem. Unless laws or systems changed, the work only had to be done as it had always been. I had been there first, and Manager Jung came later, but it was basically a matter of continuing what the predecessor had done, so it was not particularly hard. The problem was Deputy Choi. He had worked in another department, then applied when a deputy-manager position in our department opened and no one particularly wanted to come. He brought Manager Jung, who had worked with him before. According to Manager Jung, they had gotten along very well in the previous department. Even after coming, they ate together for a while and looked close.
But Deputy Choi began picking at me over various things. He told me to bring the legal text for ratios that were legally fixed and already applied, asked whether I would keep doing things the old way if no document announcing a system change arrived, and nagged endlessly. A superior can nag, but the problem was that the intention was obvious: he wanted upper management to hear that he worked better than his predecessors. To get one-time-use materials for that purpose, he called me stupid, incompetent, and stuck in old habits. He would laugh and talk with others, then frown and raise his voice only at me. Thinking it was workplace bullying, I went to the union chair. I did not intend to make a huge issue of it. As I clearly said, I was worried that others might imitate him to look good to the deputy manager. Still, it felt cold that they only asked what was fact and where opinion began, as if it were counseling.
At first Manager Jung got along with Deputy Choi, but when another assistant manager produced materials exactly as Choi demanded, Jung began to be scolded too. Jung had company experience, so he avoided parts that would interfere with other departments. But Choi’s real goal seemed only to stand out. He praised Assistant Manager Park’s materials, which ignored such considerations and pushed new attempts unconditionally, and then one day at lunch began shouting at Jung the way he shouted at me. Jung said that in Choi’s previous department, there had been an employee Choi stopped giving work to because he supposedly could not work. Looking back, Jung said he now doubted whether that employee had really been incompetent. That employee too had been brought from Choi’s previous department.
I was angry in my own way, and Jung was angry at himself for failing to read the pattern: Choi brought people over, used them as shields while adapting, then discarded them once he settled in. So we applied for leave. After private meetings with the president and the department head on separate days, we submitted approval while Choi was on vacation, skipping over him. The president asked, “What did he do that in a department of only five people, two are asking for leave at once? If you had a child and took parental leave, at least there would be money. What will you do taking unpaid leave like this?”
I answered, “If I get sick, I will pay the hospital more money than the pay I miss.”
Manager Jung went harder. “Do not worry about the two of us. Now there are only three employees left, so perhaps more of them will ask to transfer, take leave, or resign because of stress. You should send Deputy Choi somewhere.”
Two months after starting leave and staying home, I finally found a part-time job. I say finally because I had been looking for one for two months and only now found a place. Since the leave was not for rest, I did not particularly intend to rest. The stress disappeared completely because I no longer had to see Deputy Choi. I had made a counseling appointment, so I went, but they only packed three doses of pills to take if the symptoms became severe. I tried one at first, but disliked the hazy feeling, so the other two are still there.
Blankly, an hour and a half passed. I ordered black tea, then looked at my phone again. I dozed off without noticing how time passed, and when I woke, another thirty minutes had passed. Manager Jung was still playing a game on his phone.
“Shall we start moving?”
“Let’s.”
Jung seemed slightly tense too. I felt that a moment was approaching that would decide whether, for the next ten months, we would live thinking our leave had been the right choice, feel merely relieved not to be under stress, or regret taking it.
Unlike the quiet cafe at quitting time, the street was crowded. People going to company dinners and people hurrying toward the subway were mixed together. I took a deep breath and walked toward the octopus restaurant.
Although a reservation had been made, I did not want to go in early and sit. I do not know why meeting a coworker feels so awkward when I have not even resigned. Still, I thought maybe I did not want to go in early because it would feel like arriving ahead of time to set the table for a client, as if we were salespeople visiting a client. It was also because thinking of Manager Han brought Deputy Choi to mind, a dirty situation in itself.
Manager Han appeared. When Jung waved, Han waved back.
“You could have gone in and sat.”
“Hey, are we a supplier? Should we sit in advance and set things up until the prime contractor’s employee arrives?”
Jung had apparently thought exactly the same thing I had. Since the situation was the same, our thoughts must have flowed similarly.
“Where does that come from? If I had arrived first, I would have gone in and sat.”
“Even just being on leave makes this awkward. If we had resigned, we would have run away even if you asked to meet.”
Han laughed at my words. His expression looked as if his mouth was itching to speak.
“Ma’am, please bring the reserved menu.”
A little later, stir-fried octopus came out quickly.
“You asked for it ready to eat, so we cooked it before bringing it out. You can eat right away.”
“Thank you.”
We poured soju, and Jung set the mood.
“Hey, we stood all day working part-time today. We are dead tired, but because you gave us advance notice, we came all the way here. Take a shot and tell the story.”
“Should we one-shot?”
“For a safe return to work!”
“To that.”
We each downed a glass, and Jung filled them again. Then Jung and I looked at Han together. Han looked a little embarrassed, then opened his mouth.
“It is not exactly new news, but the union seems to be trying to do something about Deputy Choi.”
“What do you mean, do something?”
“They seem to have concluded that he is doing this to get promoted.”
“So?”
“The president and the union chair talked.”
“Has a conclusion been reached?”
Jung cut him off, wanting things to move quickly. He was impatient. But Han explained one thing at a time, like Steve Jobs presenting prepared material.
“Once it is reported to the board, a decision will be made, but it seems they think it may be enough to make sure he cannot be promoted.”
“What does that mean?”
“He stepped on employees to get promoted, so if no matter what he does he cannot be promoted, maybe he will stop.”
“Can they do that?”
“As it stands, if someone receives disciplinary action of salary reduction or more, there is a rule that they cannot be promoted for several years.”
“I know that, but that rule has never actually been used. Are they going to reduce Choi’s salary? On what grounds…”
“Not that. There is also a condition everyone knows less about: more than six months without a position. That also has to be approved by the board.”
“If someone is without a position for more than six months, can they not fire him? Does he meet the condition?”
“Yes. They could fire him, but even if they do not, he cannot be promoted.”
“Can that really work… It feels good, but if things go this ad hoc, we might have headaches later too.”
“Then it would not be cider.”
“Is it cider?”
“Yes. For now the union is determined that if Deputy Choi transfers within our company, or later to a related place, they will talk with that union and properly block his path.”
“When I talked with them, they did not say that. Is it because of Manager Jung?”
“Manager Jung, yes, and you too, Manager Kim. At that time you did not react much because you did not know you would actually take leave. And when Deputy Choi and Manager Jung were in the previous department, Assistant Manager Lee was also bullied, right? He took medical leave saying he could not adjust to the company, and the union apparently went to hear his story too. They say the papers to take to the Ministry of Labor are already prepared, and they are using that as pressure.”
“So what is good for us? If it is cider, there must be a reason.”
“The union is talking about separation. When you two return, Choi will probably no longer be without a position but will be moved elsewhere. And when the two of you move somewhere else, if Choi is there, they will move Choi. In other words, Choi will not be allowed to prevent your transfers.”
“Is this cider? Is this not bullying Deputy Choi?”
“I do not know. Choi is on leave now, saying he will protest, but when the president and directors heard that, they apparently got furious, saying he was turning the tables. It seems like he brought it on himself from the start.”
“The union rarely steps in this hard.”
“Maybe this is less a union issue than the company responding because Deputy Choi ended up giving everyone a reason to need the union, which only helps the union grow.”
“In the end, we have to see whether the board passes everything and what happens when we return in ten months. If we meet Choi, he will probably rage at us.”
“If it is not work-related rage, we do not have to listen. We only listened because he kept gaslighting us, saying we could not work and were wasting salary.”
I thought I would feel excited after hearing everything, but all three of us became a little gloomy. The two of us had expected no real change in the future, had no expectations, and had simply taken leave. But there had been more change than we thought. Thinking in reverse, the change had happened because we took leave, so there was honestly nothing to regret. If we had not taken leave, Choi would still be rampaging. Perhaps it was bitter that some problems cannot be solved until someone shouts that they will stop working even without pay.
Han, for his part, seemed excited and amazed that the president and the board were on our side. But after laying it out step by step, it felt empty because it was simply Choi reaping what he had sown.
“Manager Han, does the company know you met us today?”
Jung asked.
“Yes. Everyone talked about this all day, so I said I would tell you after work and contacted you.”
“Then was the company mood today like when you excitedly told us?”
“Yes, more or less. Deputy Choi is not coming to work.”
“Is the work going well?”
“Since there is no one making us do things that are not work, we are doing only what needs to be done.”
“Right.”
We silently ate octopus and drank. One bottle of soju among three people. That should not cause problems for tomorrow’s part-time work.
“Manager Han, thank you for bringing us the news. Still, even though we are only on leave, not former coworkers who resigned, this feels awkward.”
“It does. Maybe because you came after doing other work and your clothes are different from when you commute.”
“Let us drink properly when we do not have part-time work.”
“Yes, let us choose a day when the next day is off.”
I paid for the drinks. The two of us thanked Han several more times for thinking of us. Without Deputy Choi around, I thought perhaps Han had not been a true henchman after all. Han was someone who treated company life simply as company life. Come to think of it, he had skillfully escaped both making those materials and verifying them. Truly delicate office politics. Then did he take time to meet us because he thought that when we returned, we might become part of the new mainstream?
If I think everything is calculated, it gives me chills. But if the result of that calculation rounds us up even slightly, I do not feel bad about it.
Tomorrow I should go to work a little early and look at each painting carefully. When analyzing people, one cannot know whether one is right or wrong and cannot easily depend on judgment. But with paintings, even if I analyze them, my judgment is my own and therefore free. Looking at paintings suits me better than I expected. But first, when I get home, I must soak my heels in hot water.
Original Korean article: 뒤꿈치와 사이다