DS Construction’s personnel reassignment was proceeding at an accelerated pace, regardless of the Basmaiya Project.
The vacant spots left by dismissed executives and managers were filled by newly promoted individuals, and the lower ranks moved up to fill the subsequent gaps, swiftly resolving the previously stagnant personnel issues.
As a result, the company’s atmosphere brightened, to the point where it was hard to believe restructuring was underway—employees even celebrated together in a friendly, cheerful mood.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why should you apologize, Secretary Kim? It’s fine. The company’s atmosphere is great. It’s only natural to congratulate those who got promoted.”
Outside the meeting room, Secretary Kim looked embarrassed at the sound of staff laughing and congratulating each other.
He was worried that the relaxed attitude of employees, who should have been nervous before a meeting, might irritate Park Jin-hyuk.
However, contrary to Kim Jun-woo’s concern, Park Jin-hyuk was rather pleased.
He knew well how other companies, in the name of restructuring, would cut the most diligent employees just to reach a certain headcount.
In his mind, restructuring should be like this: clear out the upper ranks, and let the flow carry those below upward.
The employees who had been congratulating each other hurriedly bowed when they suddenly noticed Park Jin-hyuk’s arrival.
Park Jin-hyuk accepted their greetings with a slight nod and entered the meeting room.
As he walked in, all the seated employees immediately stood to greet him.
This meeting gathered all the newly promoted managers, so there were over a hundred people in the large conference room, including support staff.
Their simultaneous rising at Park Jin-hyuk’s entrance was a striking sight.
Park Jin-hyuk passed by them naturally and sat at the prepared seat of honor.
“Let’s begin.”
As Park Jin-hyuk spoke, Team Leader Kim Jin of the Management Analysis Team, in charge of the restructuring headquarters, picked up the microphone and began to speak.
The reason all the DS Construction executives had gathered was to simplify the ongoing DS Construction projects.
They aimed to prioritize the various segmented businesses to accelerate progress and restore normal operations.
For that, they needed every team to present their current projects and share information in this assembly.
When Kim Jin finished speaking and stepped back, the pre-arranged first presenter came forward.
“I’m OOO from Domestic Sales Team 1. Our current project is the creation of a new industrial complex in the Gyeongnam region, about 50,000 pyeong in size. This site…”
As Park Jin-hyuk sat at the seat of honor and listened to each person explaining their project in turn, he thought to himself.
‘This is more trouble than it’s worth.’
Truthfully, he didn’t need such a meeting.
With his own eyes, Park Jin-hyuk could easily assess a project’s feasibility.
But skipping all the intermediate steps was not an option.
He needed enough action and justification to satisfy others’ perspectives and opinions.
By holding this kind of meeting, displaying careful consideration and thought, he would later be able to sufficiently explain any decision he made.
Knowing this, Park Jin-hyuk suppressed his boredom and listened to the project explanations.
“Ah~ ou.”
After about two hours of lengthy reports, Park Jin-hyuk exited the conference room, stretching his stiff neck as he spoke to Kim Jun-woo.
“Bring me the contracts for all the projects the teams reported on earlier.”
“The contracts? All of them?”
“Hm. Maybe all is a bit much… Just start with the Gyeongnam industrial complex project that was presented first, and gather the domestic projects. I want to check the feasibility myself.”
“You mean, you’ll review them personally, Director?”
“Huh? Why? Do you think I can’t?”
“No, not at all… Understood. I’ll prepare them right away.”
Park Jin-hyuk nodded, smiled, patted Kim Jun-woo’s shoulder, and walked off.
Kim Jun-woo, who had assumed he’d just have to sign off on the documents organized by the restructuring headquarters, was surprised by Park Jin-hyuk’s intent to personally assess the projects and watched him leave.
This surprise quickly spread to the restructuring headquarters.
“How much should we gather?”
“As much as possible. There’s no harm in being thorough.”
“Hey, hey. Just gathering isn’t enough. It’s important that the Director can distinguish them at a glance. Don’t just dump everything together.”
“Shouldn’t we prepare summaries too? Let’s organize summaries and the forecasts we’ve determined so far so the Director can see everything clearly.”
As Kim Jun-woo walked around the department preparing the documents, he noticed them gathering more than just the original contracts and stopped them.
“No, he only needs the original contracts from when the deals were signed. Please just gather those.”
“Huh? But with only the original contracts, it might be hard to see the full picture.”
“The Director prefers it this way. He said he wants to review the original analyses, so you don’t need to include any additional data.”
At Kim Jun-woo’s words, the staff, though puzzled, began transferring only the contracts and related documents from the time of each project’s signing into boxes.
Hyun Yi-soo watched this from behind with a satisfied smile.
“Manager, will the Director really be okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to review all that by himself? I get wanting to handle it personally, but isn’t that too much for one person? Usually, a director of his level would rely on briefings and make decisions based on reports, not go through every contract himself. I’ve never heard of a director personally handling this.”
“Hey. Don’t you know the Director by now? Just watch. He’ll come up with results not much different from what we found. Then, for what matches, we just move forward. For what differs, we check again. Get it? Just like during the last executive review.”
The other team leaders, hearing Hyun Yi-soo’s unwavering faith in Park Jin-hyuk, said nothing.
They, too, had come to trust Park Jin-hyuk after seeing his abilities a few times.
But what they were witnessing now seemed to go beyond what was humanly possible.
If not for what they had seen, they might have suspected his motives—claiming he’d analyze by himself what would normally take fifty employees days to review.
Worry filled their hearts.
“All we can do is watch and do our jobs. He’s handling the domestic projects, so let’s focus on the overseas ones. Come on, let’s all pitch in and help organize the materials to send up.”
With a clap, Hyun Yi-soo led the way, and everyone set about gathering the original contract documents for domestic projects.
With the materials gathered, Kim Jun-woo headed up to the president’s office on the 22nd floor with the boxes.
*****
Park Jin-hyuk was startled by the number of boxes before him.
“There’s this much?”
“These are just the ones organized so far; Section Chief Kwak will bring up the rest soon.”
“This is crazy…”
What Park Jin-hyuk actually needed was just a single contract.
He didn’t need the detailed plans or anything else—just the signed contract in the photo of the CEOs shaking hands would suffice.
He believed the value of the deal was written on that single sheet.
And he was right.
Even with the documents folded so the project name was barely visible, the number on top told Park Jin-hyuk the project’s worth.
[300 billion]
To confirm which project was worth 300 billion, Park Jin-hyuk opened the document.
[Gyeongnam Industrial Complex Construction Project]
“How much was the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex project for again?”
“We won the bid at 350 billion.”
“From what I heard during Domestic Sales Team 1’s presentation, after winning the 350 billion bid, we’re supposed to meet our profits by selling parcel rights. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right. After securing the rights, we make profits by selling the parcel rights.”
Kim Jun-woo, in the middle of arranging more tables in the office per Park Jin-hyuk’s instructions, answered without turning his head.
He was having the workers set up tables in the center of the office, stacking the gathered documents by type.
This was also Park Jin-hyuk’s idea—if the documents stayed in boxes, he couldn’t see their value, so he wanted them spread out.
Park Jin-hyuk began picking up the documents related to the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex.
They were filled with rosy projections of feasibility, profitability, and anticipated gains.
“What happens if we give this up?”
“Give it up?”
Kim Jun-woo, in the middle of unpacking more documents from the 21st floor, paused and turned to Park Jin-hyuk.
Just then, Section Chief Kwak came in with more boxes.
“Just in time, Section Chief Kwak. Do you know what happens if we give up the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex project?”
Kwak hesitated for a moment at the sudden question.
He couldn’t immediately recall everything, so he couldn’t answer right away.
“I’m sorry, Director. I haven’t checked that yet.”
Park Jin-hyuk, seeing Kwak Seok-gi unable to answer, pushed the contract for the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex aside and said,
“This project seems to be a losing deal even without digging through too many papers. Check what damages we’ll incur if we cancel, and review its feasibility. It’s still before any groundwork’s been done, so if we back out now, our losses shouldn’t be too great. All right, let’s start by reviewing the cancellation of the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex. Take those related documents back down.”
Kwak Seok-gi looked bewildered—only minutes had passed since he brought the documents up, and yet, Park Jin-hyuk had already flipped through a few pages and determined whether the project was viable or not.
As directed, Kwak gathered the relevant documents and went back downstairs.
He then distributed the documents among the staff.
“Check the feasibility and profitability, and calculate our damages if we forfeit the project.”
“Didn’t you just take these upstairs?”
“They’ve already been reviewed up there.”
“Already?”
The staff, exchanging looks as they took the papers, were amazed.
It hadn’t even been a few minutes since the documents went up—was it possible they were already reviewed?
“So, the Director determined the project wasn’t feasible?”
“Why else would the papers come back down? Let’s get to it. Since the papers came back as soon as I went up, we’d better hurry if we want to keep up with these review orders.”
Encouraged by Kwak, the staff began reviewing the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex’s feasibility.
While things bustled below, Park Jin-hyuk sat cross-legged atop the table with the contracts, looking out the office window and smoking.
Just as he expected, each contract’s value was right there on the paper.
Using this method, he figured the restructuring headquarters’ review and organization of all projects could be finished in less than half a day.
After all, you could simply add up the contract value and project cost for each.
But he couldn’t do that.
If he resolved things that easily, people would become suspicious.
He thought it best to only show the bare minimum of superhuman ability—just enough to appear at the very edge of human capability.
His goal was to act while straddling the line—where people wondered if he might not be human, yet still seemed possible for a human.
Knock, knock, knock.
Kim Jun-woo knocked and entered Park Jin-hyuk’s office.
It was already dark outside, and work hours were long past, but the headquarters staff remained, reviewing the documents Park Jin-hyuk had sent back down.
Now, with the results in hand, Kim Jun-woo entered Park Jin-hyuk’s office.
“As a result of the project feasibility review, the Gyeongnam Industrial Complex project would actually be a loss if carried out.”
Without turning, Park Jin-hyuk replied, still seated on the table, smoking and gazing outside.
“And if we forfeit the project?”
“We’ll be barred from bidding on projects in Gyeongnam for a year.”
“So, compared to the loss from proceeding versus the penalty for forfeiting, what benefits us more?”
“Yes. The restructuring headquarters judged that forfeiting is better for us.”
“Then what about alternatives for not being able to work in Gyeongnam? Surely you didn’t just say it’s better to lose a year with nothing?”
At that, Kim Jun-woo recalled what Hyun Yi-soo had told him earlier.
[If the Director asks whether simply abandoning the Gyeongnam project is the answer, please answer like this, even if it’s embarrassing.]
Kim Jun-woo wetted his lips several times before finally replying with difficulty.