Chapter 11
The Dangerous Intern's Presentation (1)
"Does your family have money or something?"
The moment Kang entered the office, Director Kim asked the question.
"Huh?"
"I'm talking about the suit you're wearing. It looks ridiculously expensive. Doesn't match your résumé at all."
Smiling, Kim placed Hwang Junhyun's résumé on the desk.
"Your father runs a convenience store in the countryside, right? And you're an only child. Isn't that correct?"
Was that right?
Kang vaguely remembered seeing something like that on the original owner's laptop.
"Isn't that suit a bit difficult to afford with that kind of background? Even at a glance, it looks outrageously expensive."
"Did you call me in here because you're curious about the brand?"
"What?"
"I happen to be quite busy with both public and private matters. If there's no actual business, I'll be on my way."
"Public matters, sure. But private matters? Aren't you an intern? What private matters could an office worker possibly have?"
"Really?"
Kang suddenly felt sorry for the company's employees.
No personal lives at all?
Wasn't that a little excessive?
He wanted to end the pointless exchange quickly, but Kim kept smiling for no apparent reason.
Something was definitely up.
"I heard you declared you weren't participating in the intern presentation. Is that true?"
These office workers sure have loose lips.
Even a stupid intern presentation had made its way to a managing director?
"Follow the procedures and the rules. Even if your presentation is terrible, you still need to do it. Otherwise we can't hire you full-time."
Kang realized Kim hadn't simply surrendered to Executive Director Song.
He must have gained something.
Otherwise he wouldn't have backed down so easily.
Petty bastard.
Couldn't even see the fight through to the end.
Probably accepted a few crumbs from Song and called it a victory.
"Is full-time employment guaranteed?"
"You probably noticed already. Firing you would just create unnecessary trouble. So we're hiring you. But we can't hire someone who didn't even complete the final intern presentation. That would be recruitment corruption. Damn it, these days people scream about fairness even when a startup hires delivery workers."
"I understand. I'll do it."
To Kang, the presentation wasn't about getting hired.
It was about obtaining a Choi Sung Group access badge.
Annoying or not, it had to be done.
"Then I'll take my leave."
As Kang turned to go, Kim stopped him.
"You're changing desks."
"...What?"
"I've cleared a desk outside. Sit there and kill time. You can be my errand boy."
"What?"
What was wrong with this guy?
A mere managing director moving people around at will?
Then Kang remembered he was an intern.
Right.
Interns didn't really have positions.
They got dragged around doing odd jobs.
"Fine."
"'Fine'? Seriously... What kind of person did they hire? Even for an intern, you're too much."
"The HR department belongs to the Support Division, doesn't it? Maybe you're the one who hired someone like me."
Kim was speechless.
What kind of lunatic was this?
"Enough. Get out. Move your desk and report back."
As Kang left, Kim shook his head repeatedly.
"No matter how I think about it, he's strange. What exactly is he?"
***
Kim had said he'd use him for errands.
Apparently he meant it.
Kang was transferred to the General Affairs Department.
The General Affairs Department of the Support Division barely interacted with Sales at all.
It was essentially the errand-running department of the Support Division.
Their primary duty was managing office supplies.
When someone requested supplies, they bought them.
That was basically it.
"Wow... now that I look at it, everyone here survives on caffeine. How much coffee do these people drink?"
Kang seriously wondered whether banning coffee mix packets and paper cups throughout the group might quadruple net profit.
Assistant Manager Jo, who had become his mentor, laughed.
"If coffee mix, paper cups, or A4 paper run out, a rebellion starts. Always order extra and distribute extra."
Something seemed strange.
These people had graduated from good universities and passed one of the toughest hiring processes in the country.
Yet they spent their days reviewing receipts and distributing coffee supplies.
And they didn't seem unhappy.
Did none of them have ambition?
It wasn't just Assistant Manager Jo.
The department manager and all six employees seemed relaxed and satisfied.
Even the manager, a college graduate, acted like a carefree loafer.
As a result, nobody ordered Kang around simply because he was an intern.
If anything, they seemed determined to stop him from working.
"Don't worry about anything. Just prepare for your presentation."
That single sentence from the manager ended the discussion.
Nobody cared when he arrived.
Naturally, nobody cared when he left.
Kang wondered whether Kim had known this before assigning him here.
The managing director who claimed he would use him for errands never once called for him.
Was he really giving him time to prepare?
Unfortunately, there was one thing they didn't know.
Intern Hwang Junhyun had absolutely no idea how to use Microsoft's PowerPoint.
***
"Hey, don't you have your final presentation today?"
"Today?"
Assistant Manager Jo stared at him in disbelief.
But after several days together, he knew this was exactly the kind of person Kang was.
Director Kim had already warned them.
"You didn't even know it's after lunch in the main conference room?"
"I know now. So I can just go."
"What about your presentation materials?"
"Why would I need materials? I'll just go talk for a bit and come back."
He hadn't known today was presentation day.
But he'd already decided what he was going to say.
A presentation that would make every executive in the room lose their minds after hearing just a few names.
"Oh, forget it. I can't tell whether you're fearless or brainless. If you somehow become a full-time employee, please don't come to our department. I couldn't handle you."
"I don't plan on delivering coffee mix for a living either, so I won't be coming here."
Kang smiled.
"Oh, and after watching this department for a few days, I figured out why everyone in General Affairs seems so satisfied despite being in a dead-end position."
"What, you have advice for me now?"
"Seeing office-supply distributors constantly begging to take you out for meals, I realized this is actually a sweet position."
Assistant Manager Jo's face instantly changed.
The department purchased tens of millions of won worth of supplies every month.
Countless distributors desperately wanted a piece of that business.
"Getting free meals, drinking on someone else's tab, maybe even receiving a little pocket money—that's fine. But don't get greedy. That's how people get caught. The higher-ups aren't ignoring it because they don't know. They leave you alone because you stay within acceptable limits."
Jo's face turned pale.
Kang continued.
"But that woman over there."
He nodded toward a female employee.
"Doesn't that handbag seem a little too expensive? If that's only the beginning, she'll get even more reckless. Either stop her now or get rid of her. Otherwise this entire department could go down with her."
Leaving behind a completely pale Assistant Manager Jo, Kang stood up.
"Anyway, I'm off to lunch. Then I'll finish the presentation and come back."
He headed toward the company cafeteria.
Surprisingly, he liked the food there.
His mind belonged to a chairman, but his taste buds still belonged to a young man.
I wonder what's on today's menu.
****
Outside the conference room, the interns were gathered together, nervously chatting.
"Oh? Why are you here?"
The guy who had almost become Kang's partner blocked his path.
"I told you I'm not planning to ride your coattails. Move. I'll do my presentation separately. You can beat your own drum."
Every intern's gaze landed on Kang.
The guy who had dared crash into the chairman.
The guy who had wandered from department to department and was probably working his final day.
Nobody pitied him.
This wasn't a college club.
It wasn't a social gathering.
It was an arena where people with short reach, slow feet, or poor brains were eliminated one after another.
Everyone carried burdens too heavy to spare sympathy for someone else.
Fail today's presentation and they'd be back to being unemployed job seekers.
"All interns, please enter the conference room. We'll begin shortly."
An HR employee opened the doors.
The interns shuffled inside like livestock heading toward slaughter and took seats in the back.
After some time, executives and department heads entered with imposing authority.
Finally, even the CEO appeared.
Kang found the executives amusing.
But seeing President Choi left him speechless.
Was the CEO's position really that relaxed these days?
He came all the way here to watch intern presentations?
Still, it wasn't a bad thing.
Kang was curious how President Choi would react to his own presentation.
"Let's begin. Team One, please come forward."
The talent show started.
Though it was a special kind of talent show.
Instead of showing how childlike they were, the interns competed to show how grown-up they could pretend to be.
The first slide from Team One was filled with grand phrases.
Vietnam.
Petrochemical raw materials.
Market domination.
The moment Kang saw those keywords, he snorted.
Even he, as chairman, had never dreamed of dominating Vietnam's petrochemical raw-material market.
Yet these interns, who had been working for only a few months, talked as if they were multinational CEOs.
If those two passed, he thought, they should immediately be appointed CEOs of Choi Sung Chemical and Choi Sung Trading.
Some were at least a little more realistic.
One team proposed upgrading the logistics system to reduce costs.
But they still failed to understand a simple truth.
In the end, lowering costs usually meant squeezing suppliers.
"Next, Team Four will present."
As the guy who had almost been his partner walked forward, Kang felt like smacking him on the back.
Relax.
Otherwise whatever you prepared is going to become a complete disaster.
The nervous intern couldn't even get started.
"What is this? Why are you alone?"
President Choi suddenly barked.
The intern immediately turned pale.
"W-Well... my partner... said he wasn't doing the presentation..."
An intern refusing to present?
There was usually only one explanation.
He had already secured a job elsewhere.
The room buzzed with whispers.
At that moment, Director Kim quietly leaned toward President Choi.
"That guy?"
"Yes. But he says he prepared something. Why not hear him out at the end?"
President Choi let out a sigh through clenched teeth but nodded.
"Continue."
The intern was already finished.
His rhythm was completely shattered.
He stumbled through the presentation so badly that nobody could even understand what he was saying.
Not a single word registered.
By the time he returned to his seat, it was a miracle he wasn't crying.
He glared at Kang, who had caused all of this, before lowering his head.
The presentations that followed felt like walking on thin ice.
The company president had shouted at an intern.
Everyone became intimidated.
The tension reached its peak.
No intern possessed enough courage to shake off the crushing pressure filling the conference room.
The grand finale of the disastrous presentation session was Chairman Kang.
He slowly walked to the front and picked up the microphone.
"What is this? You didn't even prepare materials?"
One executive barked in disbelief.
Kang calmly replied.
"Materials are a means of conveying information, not the purpose itself."
"What?"
Before the executive could explode, Kang began.
"Yujin Networks."
"KD Global."
"Fine Dynamics."
"Samhwa Soft."
As company names continued to leave Kang's mouth, President Choi and the executives stared in shock.
"If we terminate business with these companies, annual net profit will increase by over 10 billion won."
"That's all."
Kang put down the microphone and walked back to his seat.