Chapter 98
“This is driving me crazy.”
Assistant Manager Woo of Daemun Transportation sighed, looking at the woman next to him filing her nails.
She was a beauty, dressed in a semi-formal suit, with long, slender legs and friendly eyes. But to him, she was a devil.
“Hey, Woo.”
His manager approached him, noticed the woman, and whispered,
“There’s a problem with the bus schedule at the Gyeongnam terminal. Look into it.”
Assistant Manager Woo glanced at the woman.
“Me? How?”
“Figure it out. Do I have to tell you everything?”
“Ugh, fine.”
As the manager walked away, Assistant Manager Woo sat down, pondering what to do. He saw the woman stand up and head towards the restroom, his eyes gleaming.
The moment she left the office, he grabbed the phone on his desk and quickly dialed the Gyeongnam terminal.
“Hello, this is Daemun Transportation. There’s a problem with the bus schedule. Yes, yes, we agreed to maintain the current schedule, didn’t we?”
He frowned as he listened to the response.
“What? Reduce it to 30 minutes? We’re already losing money with the 40-minute interval because there aren’t enough passengers. How can we reduce it further? The round trip takes three hours, and we’re only getting four passengers per trip. We can’t even cover the fuel cost, let alone the drivers’ wages. Please, understand our situation. We have a contract, you can’t just change it unilaterally.”
As he was trying to persuade them, a chilling voice came from behind him.
“That’s right. You can’t just change the schedule unilaterally. There’s a contract.”
A shiver ran down his spine. He turned around stiffly, like a robot.
The woman, whom he thought was in the restroom, was standing behind him, her expression cold.
“Uh… uh…”
“Hang up the phone.”
“J-just a moment. Let me finish this call.”
“Hang. Up. The. Phone.”
He hurriedly apologized to the person at the terminal and hung up.
“Did you use the phone while I was gone?”
“N-no, it’s just…”
“Move.”
She pushed him aside roughly, picked up the phone, and examined it closely with a magnifying glass.
“Who did you call?”
Assistant Manager Woo said, sweating,
“The Gyeongnam terminal.”
“Gyeongnam? Gyeong-nam? You dialed 11 digits, including the area code, on our collateral? Are you out of your mind? What if the numbers on the dial pad wear off? How are you going to take responsibility?!”
He looked at his colleagues for help, but they all avoided his gaze.
Some of them were standing at their desks or sitting on the floor.
“You too, get up from the chair.”
Assistant Manager Woo’s face turned pale.
“P-please, not that!”
“What if your butt leaves a smell on the chair, or the wheels wear out from you sitting on it? Get up! I don’t care if you stand or sit on the floor, just get up! Or…”
She smiled coldly and waved a document.
“Shall we take legal action?”
“Ugh…”
It was an injunction prohibiting the use, sale, or damage of the collateral due to the risk of depreciation.
Assistant Manager Woo reluctantly stood up, and the woman walked towards the chair with a model-like gait, sat down gracefully, crossed her legs, and said,
“I would have let it slide if you were handsome.”
She ignored his flushed face, looked around the office, and then said coldly,
“Hey, you!”
A female employee was writing something with a pencil.
“Y-yes?”
The woman walked towards her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m writing a document.”
She was using a pencil and paper because the computers were off-limits. It was a pitiful sight, but the woman said sharply,
“Who said anything about writing a document? Why are you using our collateral?”
The employee said with a determined expression,
“I bought the paper and pencil with my own money.”
The other employees gasped.
“She bought them herself! That’s a valid excuse!”
“Even that witch can’t argue with that!”
The employee gained confidence.
“That’s right! I bought them with my own money, so what’s the problem?”
But the woman scoffed.
“The paper is fine. The pencil is fine. I won’t say anything about you buying them yourself. But why are you writing on the desk?”
“What?”
“What if you scratch the desk with the pencil? Will you compensate us? Write on the floor if you want to write! And how can we be sure you bought them with your own money? Do you have a receipt? Shall we take legal action?”
The employee burst into tears and ran out of the office. The other employees looked at each other with grim expressions.
The woman had initially caused a commotion by barging in and making unreasonable demands, but the document she had was a legitimate court order, and the executives, unsure how to respond, had been flustered. And now, this woman, who wasn’t even an employee of Daemun Group, had become the office tyrant.
She sat back down, filed her nails, and said,
“Don’t mind me and get back to work. I’m just here to protect the collateral, not to disrupt your work.”
She blew on her nails and said, feeling the employees’ resentful gazes,
“Ah, this is so relaxing.”
The employees’ suffering began when Kim Min-sik, the long-time manager who had been the subject of ridicule, was suddenly appointed president.
He would follow them around, accusing them of ignoring him, or stand in their office, staring at them, claiming that’s what he had to do when he was a manager.
His petty and childish acts of revenge were annoying, but they couldn’t ignore him. He was the president.
Some employees even developed alopecia areata from the stress, but they couldn’t quit. If the company was hell, the outside world was hell on earth.
And then they were assigned this task, a perfect outlet for their stress.
“This is a dream job.”
No boss, no stress, just protecting the collateral by any means necessary.
The more unreasonable they were, the more praise they received from Kim Min-sik. It was fun.
And the best part was the expressions on the faces of the Daemun Transportation employees when they threw a tantrum.
It was exhilarating.
It was enjoyable.
The methods of harassment they learned from Kim Min-sik were always new and entertaining.
“I understand why the president acted like that now. This is so much fun. I wish things could stay like this forever.”
The woman, after finishing filing her nails, shouted,
“Who just sighed?! Will you take responsibility if the A4 paper flies away because of your sigh? It’ll get dirty and become unusable if it falls on the floor! Hey, why are you bringing a mop? What? You need to clean the floor before you sit down? Why are you using our collateral to clean the floor! Aaargh!”
“This is insane. This is driving me crazy.”
It took ten days for the court to issue the injunction after Hanho Savings Bank filed it.
An injunction was filed when the creditor suspected the debtor of disposing of or damaging the collateral without their knowledge. It usually took 3-4 days to process, but the ten-day delay meant the court had carefully considered the case.
“Is this even legal? What was the legal team doing?! Isn’t that their job? They’re getting paid a fortune, they should be doing something instead of twiddling their thumbs! Explain yourselves!”
The head of the legal team said nervously at Chairman Moon Kyung-sik’s outburst,
“I apologize. I have no excuse.”
“I don’t need your apologies! The loan term is six months, and it’s only been one month! How can they issue an injunction already?! Is this even possible?!”
The legal team leader fumbled through the documents.
“The reason for the injunction isn’t the loan repayment, it’s solely about the potential damage to the collateral. There was a lot of debate within the court because of the unprecedented nature of the collateral. But they decided that the creditor’s right to preserve the collateral’s value was as important as the debtor’s right to use it. If the injunction was about the loan repayment, the court wouldn’t have accepted it since the deadline is still far away.”
Chairman Moon, still furious, threw everything on his desk.
“Who doesn’t know that?!”
The legal team leader, hit by a pencil holder, trembled with humiliation.
He was a successful lawyer, envied by many, but he couldn’t do anything in this situation.
He understood the chairman’s anger and endured the humiliation.
“What’s the solution?! What are we supposed to do?!”
“We can file a motion to dismiss the injunction. It’s absurd for a large corporation like Daemun Group to be paralyzed because of some office supplies. We’ll win for sure. But the problem is…”
“The problem is?”
“Time. Legal interpretation is subjective… We have to determine if there are any relevant clauses in the civil code regarding the items listed in the injunction, and if they apply to our company. There are many hurdles to overcome.”
Chairman Moon shouted,
“What kind of law is that?! Isn’t the law supposed to prevent such absurd situations?! Why are the laws so flawed?!”
Chairman Moon, who had exploited legal loopholes and used underhanded tactics to crush countless small businesses and individuals, was now experiencing the other side of the coin.
He felt a sense of injustice and resentment.
“It’s just desks, chairs, and computers…”
But he couldn’t just ignore the court order and force Hanho Savings Bank’s employees out.
He glared and said,
“You should have stopped them when they filed the injunction! You should have twisted the legal interpretation in our favor! Don’t we have anyone on our payroll in the court? Everyone’s corrupt! What were they doing?!”
The legal team leader shook his head dejectedly.
“I don’t know. The judge and everyone else are being unusually cautious…”
Just then, a commotion erupted outside the chairman’s office.
“You can’t go in there! Please wait!”
The door burst open, and President Kim Min-sik of Hanho Savings Bank entered, ignoring the secretaries’ attempts to stop him.
He smiled brightly, waving his hand.
“Hello! I’m from Hanho Savings Bank! Oh?”
He saw the items scattered on the floor, picked up a pencil holder, and said with a concerned expression,
“This is our collateral. You shouldn’t be throwing it around like this. It’s valuable.”
A vein throbbed on the chairman’s forehead.