Chapter 14

The person who always gets it done, that’s Executive Yoon.

The power of space.

It makes me realize anew how terrifying it is.

Descending to the training room, it felt as if the nightmare-like events of that time were replaying vividly before my eyes, not a single cut erased.

It was five years ago, just after I had been promoted to deputy of the Spain 1 team, obsessed with performance.

The desire not to lose.

That’s what drove me crazy about performance.

Deputy Chief Oh Ji-won, the ace of the Spain 2 team.

Even without the performance pressure from Jung Chang-ho, the then manager of our team, there was a time when our team overflowed with a fighting spirit, insisting we must never fall behind Team 2 in performance.

Such desperation, urgency, and the desire not to lose ... It seems those feelings led me to hit the jackpot.

The Andalusian olive farm recruitment plan.

Like a lie, the name Andalusia, which no one had even glanced at, began to weave countless webs in my mind, shaping into a massive project.

I have no talent for music or singing.

But I empathize with the stories of very famous songs, pop songs, that continue to be sung by people for decades, many of which the composers say were inspired and completed in just a few minutes.

That was me.

I set up the main team on a business trip to Granada, and formed the Andalusian farm negotiation team.

In the endlessly sprawling Andalusian olive farm region, there are a total of 43 farm complexes, and astonishingly, there are only three owners for all 43 complexes.

If we could recruit just those three, all Andalusian olives would henceforth carry the name of Daeyoung Trading and go out to the world.

Since it’s a monopoly of Daeyoung Trading, it’s also effective to package and promote the region of Andalusia itself as a producer of top-quality olives.

Various olive products derived from there.

Soap, air fresheners, pickled olives, olive seedlings, cosmetics, supplements ... Favorable negotiations with such companies are also possible.

If we can just establish a stable business seed, we could set up a branch in Madrid, operating it with the basic turnover left from Andalusia, while forming a diverse business chain including luxury Spanish brands and spa clothing brand licensing businesses.

We have the ironclad backing of Daeyoung Trading, the Daeyoung Group.

All those ideas began to form in my head in just one day, like the basic melody of famous songs and pop songs that were created in just a few minutes.

Fleshing them out, assessing the financial risks, and planning for personnel deployment on-site was done in a flash.

The basic concept itself was so solid, so worth trying, that when developing the plan, the support fire from Park Je-dong, the then deputy, was indeed substantial.

The rehearsal for the project presentation took place right here in this training room.

With the entire Spain 1 team and Park Je-dong in attendance.

During the rehearsal, Park Je-dong and Jung Chang-ho whispered incessantly, all the while keeping their eyes and ears open to my ongoing presentation.

And when the rehearsal was finally over, Park Jedong left with nothing but a “Not bad,” and walked out. Then, Jeong Changho approached me and said,

“Deputy Yoon, let’s record a video.”

“A video?”

“It’s for a presentation to the executives. The sophistication of the delivery is just as important as the content. Let’s do the presentation you just did one more time.”

I never imagined it.

That a subordinate’s prepared presentation would be claimed as his own.

To record my presentation rehearsal and present it exactly as it was, without missing a single key point, that’s what Park Jedong did in front of the executives a few days later?

Even though I was the presenter.

It was an extraordinary case for someone at the deputy level to present to executives, and I was thrilled to have been given the opportunity, only to face the reality that followed.

This training room is such a place for me.

A space where everything was taken from me.

That’s why I chose this space.

To reclaim what was taken from me, right here.

I had just finished preparing a presentation to convey the future direction of the European division to all its employees.

And soon, the door opened, and the office staff began to enter one by one, maintaining their tension.

There’s no need to listen.

I’m not curious.

But I ask anyway.

Because there’s such a thing as formality.

After all the employees of the European division were seated, I slowly stood up in the center of the training stage.

A podium that reached up to my diaphragm.

Standing behind it, I raised my hands to the top of the podium on both sides.

And slowly, making eye contact with each employee, I mimicked the distinctive smile of Executive Kang Moon-jung.

The smile he often used when summoning department store, hotel, and mart managers and representatives from the distribution headquarters to turn them around.

Because of that smile, the executives of the distribution division get nervous at the mere mention of the three syllables of Kang Moon-jung’s name.

No one is unaware that even if he smiles, it’s frightening, and if he becomes expressionless or looks upset, bigger trouble is coming.

“About an hour ago, the director came to my room. He said the atmosphere in the office was quite bad due to a personnel announcement that was made a few hours ago ... something like that.”

Atmosphere.

Atmosphere, they say, always has a catalyst for its creation.

Finding that catalyst was not a difficult task.

Those clueless newcomers, still with the fuzz of inexperience, surely they couldn’t be the ones setting the office mood.

It must have started with the support staff, gaining momentum from the managers.