WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Mistaken for an S-Class Employee ◈
Chapter 27: Someone With Nothing to Lose
──────
Morning commute.
It was 8:50 a.m.
I quickened my pace.
I usually made sure to arrive thirty minutes early, but writing had taken longer than expected, so I had left home late.
“Good morning.”
I arrived five minutes early.
Everyone in the Original Part except me was already at work.
I wasn’t late, but I still felt awkward, so I quietly went to my seat. Fortunately, no one paid me any attention.
I turned on my laptop and checked my email first.
Ding!
An in-house messenger notification chimed.
[Jeon Seung-hyeon, Assistant Manager, Operations Team]
“Ah!”
I let out a sound before I could stop myself.
[Senior T_T]
Smiling, I immediately sent a reply.
[Why are you crying so early in the morning? Have you been well?!]
[Senior T_T You haven’t contacted me even once...]
[Sorry. I’ve been so busy adjusting. You could’ve contacted me too, Assistant Manager Jeon.]
Actually, I had held myself back from contacting them several times.
They would need time to adjust to the empty spot I had left behind, and I didn’t think me constantly reaching out would help.
I wondered how the Operations Team was doing.
[Everyone’s doing well, right? Is Assistant Manager Song handling the acting team leader duties okay?]
[Haah... Don’t even get me started, Senior.]
Why was Jeon sighing as soon as I asked how everyone was doing?
[Why? Is Assistant Manager Song giving you a hard time?]
A position could change a person, so I asked just in case.
[No. It’s not Assistant Manager Song. It’s the new person...]
I knew they had received a new team member on the very day I transferred.
[They’re a complete jerk. A total political operator.]
I felt a certain responsibility toward the Operations Team.
The moment I heard that, my hackles rose.
[What are they like?]
[You know they came over when the Merchandise Marketing Team was dissolved, right?]
[Yeah.]
[I don’t know if it’s survival instinct, but they’re making a huge fuss trying to expand their influence...]
In just a few days, they had cowed Assistant Manager Song, the team’s most senior member, turned Nam Ha-neul into their lackey, and completely excluded Assistant Manager Jeon from important work.
They were also taking on every imaginable task while showing off to other departments, acting as though they would handle everything personally.
[It’s gotten so bad that I almost think Team Leader Kim was better.]
[Is Director Yoon just letting this happen?]
[Haah...]
Assistant Manager Jeon sighed again.
[That person only cares that the work gets done without problems, whether we’re fighting among ourselves or not.]
Right... Director Yoon was that type.
Not a bad person, but not a kind one either.
[They even seem to think it’s livening up the organization.]
The more I heard about the Operations Team, the heavier my heart became.
Maybe it was none of my business.
But I couldn’t just feel sorry for them and watch from across the river.
[Let’s meet and talk.]
[Do you have time? Where should we meet? The cafe on the first floor?]
[No, I’ll come to the Operations Team.]
* * *
After lunch, I returned to the office and approached Part Leader Ryu.
“Part Leader, I’ll be visiting my old team for a little while.”
I considered sneaking off without saying anything, but I reported it instead.
I felt like I could do that with Part Leader Ryu.
“Anything urgent this afternoon?”
“No. I finished the urgent work this morning.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
They did not even ask what it was about. I was grateful for that.
It made me want even more strongly to help a boss like this succeed.
“Thank you.”
It was only a different floor. We were still in the same building.
I took the elevator and entered the familiar hallway.
‘Operations Team.’
Knock, knock.
I knocked, pushed open the door, and greeted everyone brightly.
“Hello!”
I entered with energy, and then...
“Oh my, look who it is?!”
“Senior!”
“Hello, Assistant Manager!”
Everyone in the Operations Team welcomed me enthusiastically.
“Assistant Manager...”
Assistant Manager Song’s eyes reddened.
Her expression was complicated, a mixture of happiness and hurt.
“It’s been a while. You should be happy to see me. Why do you look like that?”
“I’m sorry...”
The brightness that had returned to Assistant Manager Song’s face when I left was completely gone. She had gone back to how she used to be.
Nam Ha-neul looked hollow-eyed.
Assistant Manager Jeon, normally cheerful and easygoing, kept darting their eyes around and reading the room.
How could things get this bad in such a short time?
What kind of strange person had come here?
I felt guilty, and angry too.
Looking at the Operations Team members’ faces left me with complicated feelings.
“Here, have some coffee and cake. I bought them on the way over so we could eat together.”
Nam Ha-neul accepted them hesitantly. All three of them looked toward someone else.
[Ah, yes, yes. Of course the Operations Team should handle it. Just trust me. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of everything.]
Someone unfamiliar was talking on the phone in one corner of the office, with his back to us.
“Why are you all walking on eggshells? Can’t you even drink a cup of coffee?”
When I pressed them, the team members hesitantly gathered around the round table.
Then I spoke loudly enough for the unfamiliar man to hear.
“And what’s with the team atmosphere? It wasn’t like this before.”
He flinched slightly, but continued his call.
He had definitely heard me. There was no way he hadn’t.
I knew this type well. They were frequent villains in novels, and every one of them got thoroughly crushed by the protagonist.
“Come on, eat up.”
I had not come to the Operations Team for a social call.
As I urged the team members to eat, I glared at the unfamiliar man’s back.
* * *
“Go on. Eat.”
I spoke to the team members, who kept watching the man’s back.
“Yes, thank you.”
“We should be treating you.”
“Please have some too, Assistant Manager Go.”
They picked up their forks, but they still looked uncomfortable.
“Why are you acting like this? With Assistant Manager Song, the team’s most senior member, eating with you, who could you possibly need to tiptoe around?”
I knew they were more concerned with someone else than Assistant Manager Song.
For someone who had only been here a few days to make the team this way, they were clearly no ordinary person.
A little later, when the unfamiliar man took his phone away from his ear, I called out to him loudly.
“Come over here! Eat with us!”
He hesitated before turning around. He wore a broad smile like a Hahoe mask.
“What?”
“Why’s he acting like that?”
“He knows how to smile like that?”
“Wasn’t that the smile he had on his first day?”
The team members murmured as they looked at the man smiling so pleasantly.
“Ha ha, hello. You’re Assistant Manager Go Min-hyeok, correct?”
He offered me a handshake, wearing an extremely artificial smile like one I had often seen on the news.
I did not know whether people learned to smile like that or were born with it.
I had modeled villain characters after politicians before, but I had never expected to meet someone like that at work.
Thinking I might use him in a future story, I observed him carefully as I greeted him.
“Yes, that’s right. I heard you transferred to the Operations Team. Your name was...?”
“Oh, what am I thinking? Ha ha.”
The man handed me his business card.
“I’m Assistant Manager Park Seok-ju. I was in the Merchandise Marketing Team for a long time. This is my sixth year. A junior who used to follow me around at my old team talked about you often. They said you joined the company at the same time.”
“Oh, really?”
“Ha ha. Maybe that’s why you don’t feel like a stranger.”
He subtly emphasized that he was my senior, trying to establish the upper hand.
I could tell he was trying something.
I had written a villain similar to him once.
* * *
You could not casually brush off what people like Park Seok-ju said. Most of the time, there was a hidden intention behind it.
People with shady intentions had one thing in common. They were strong against the weak and weak against the strong.
It was better to come down hard so he would not get any clever ideas.
“I see. I don’t know who that person is, but I don’t like it. I don’t like people going around talking about me to strangers.”
He had emphasized being my senior, but I made it clear I did not care in the least.
“Have a seat.”
Park Seok-ju hesitantly sat in an empty chair.
I could feel him becoming wary of me. He had probably heard the rumors.
It was fairly well known around the company that I had gone up against Team Leader Kim.
I spoke to Park Seok-ju.
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got you an Americano.”
“Oh, yes. That’s good. Thank you.”
As Park Seok-ju took his seat and accepted the coffee, Nam Ha-neul naturally unwrapped the straw and put it into Park Seok-ju’s drink.
That small action alone told me how badly he had been worn down.
I felt sorry for him, but I also thought the Operations Team had terrible luck.
Was this place jinxed? Of all people, someone like this had to come here...
“What did you do before?”
I was about to begin what I had prepared.
“I worked in Merchandise Marketing.”
“Yes, I know that. I just don’t know exactly what that department does. I was in the Operations Team, so I knew most departments, but I had honestly never heard of that one.”
An awkward tension settled around the table.
“Ah, so you didn’t know much about Merchandise Marketing. It’s simple. We turn celebrities who appear in our content into merchandise, or make clothes bearing program names. We make goods, literally.”
“Ah... So it’s a shopping mall within GoPlay?”
“It’s not quite right to call it a shopping mall. You could think of it as marketing through merchandise.”
“Oh, come on. It’s a small-scale shopping mall. How much can it possibly sell? How could that count as marketing?”
Park Seok-ju’s expression hardened.
“It sells a lot.”
“What’s the annual revenue?”
“...”
Park Seok-ju could not answer. The figure was probably too embarrassing to say aloud.
There was a reason the team had been dissolved.
“We sell a lot of units, but the prices are low, so revenue is not high.”
The Merchandise Marketing Team was an outlying department.
I had spent four years in the Operations Team, which dealt with every part of GoPlay. Of course I knew that.
I wanted the team members to know that Park Seok-ju was nothing special, and that they were absolutely no less than him.
“You must be thrilled to have come to the Operations Team.”
I packed many meanings into that one remark.
“Hm!”
He looked rather hot-tempered, but he only cleared his throat instead of responding.
That was the difference between people with something to protect and people without. I had nothing to lose in company life.
“How is the Content Team?”
Park Seok-ju’s expression changed completely as he changed the subject.
“Well, company work is all the same. Is there really much difference?”
“It’s a team everyone wants to join. I’m jealous.”
Despite our first meeting, Park Seok-ju eagerly appealed to me, showing his ambition.
“Do you want to come?”
“Oh, of course. If there’s an opening or a good opportunity, I’d appreciate your help. I’ll work hard.”
“That is something you should ask me privately. I don’t think it’s something you should say in front of the whole team.”
When I pointed it out and embarrassed him, Park Seok-ju looked flustered.
I muttered to myself loudly enough for him to hear.
“You only just transferred, and you’re already looking elsewhere... What are you, a migratory bird?”
I was someone who even went up against team leaders and directors. Park Seok-ju was nothing...
Raising my voice, I said, “Since you’re interested in the Content Team, let me offer a word of advice as someone who transferred there first. You asked, after all.”
“...”
“Reputation is extremely important, and I don’t think you build one by being good at office politics.”
Assistant Manager Jeon barely held back a laugh.
Park Seok-ju’s face hardened.
“I think the most important thing is how your team members evaluate you. A leaky bucket leaks wherever you take it...”
Park Seok-ju’s face gradually reddened, but I continued.
“Word gets around through the people around you.”
He must have understood clearly.
That I was targeting him right now.
“The next thing to consider is connections. Someone you know in the team you want to transfer to can speak on your behalf, you know?”
“...”
“For example, if Assistant Manager Park Seok-ju of the Operations Team applies to transfer to the Content Team, wouldn’t the team leader ask me, who used to be in the Operations Team, what kind of person Assistant Manager Park is?”
Park Seok-ju’s eyes lit up. He was listening very closely, and that alone showed how genuinely interested he was in the Content Team.
“My answer then would be extremely important. Why? Because the team leader doesn’t know Assistant Manager Park.”
‘If he gets on my bad side, he won’t be able to have things his way at this company.’
By now, he should have understood the message I wanted to convey.
“Let’s work with the long term in mind.”
“Yes, I understand, Assistant Manager.”
Park Seok-ju lowered his head as he answered me.
No surprise, given that he was a political operator. He really was quick to catch on.
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