Kim Jin-ju had only printed her passbooks. The sales were recorded in the system, but she hadn't done any of the finishing work, such as cutting the customers' signatures out of the forms and pasting them into the passbooks, or applying her own stamp. The printed paperwork was in the same state. Bu Ha-yun was little better. Never mind putting the passbooks into sleeves; her passbooks, cards, and documents were all separate. We'd reported to our superiors that everything had been completed properly, but tomorrow morning we'd have to turn those bare products into something we could actually hand to customers.
Fortunately, I worked quickly, and Geon-u helped me cut out the customers' signatures, paste them into the passbooks I'd stamped, and cover them with seal-protection stickers. I put the cards and passbooks into sleeves, bundled the thirty sets in groups of ten with rubber bands, and arranged the thirty forms in order. Then I wanted to set the bank on fire. Or just Branch Manager Ma Seong-geon's head.
My fingers ached from all the typing, and exhaustion flooded my body. I desperately wanted to go home. To go home and lie on my bed.
Manager Hwang shouted at me to call the restaurant and say we'd be fifteen minutes late. While apologizing to the owner, I texted document instructions to a customer I'd promised to contact. Assistant Manager Bae locked the inner safe, which was packed with cash. People hurriedly tossed documents containing personal information and the day's new accounts into the outer vault, pressed the button, and checked that its heavy door locked automatically. We shut down our PCs and locked every desk drawer, some with keys and others with automatic locks. Everything we should have done today was pushed to tomorrow morning.
We took our bags into the customer area, counted heads, and switched off all the lights. We locked the darkened bank's door with a key, lowered and locked the shutter, tapped the security company's card to arm the system, then finally called to confirm everything was secure. It was 7:22. Our restaurant booking was for seven. The back entrance was quiet except for the crowd of bankers.
Senior Manager Gu Ji-hye showed the branch manager a glimpse of what was in her paper bag and smiled.
“A VIP customer gave me some liquor to share with the staff. You know, that doctor's wife who comes in all the time.”
“Ah, her. That's kind of her. Neither she nor her husband drinks.”
I caught sight of the names Glenfiddich and Kavalan inside the bag. The hunger I'd felt before dinner vanished at the sight of the alcohol. Assistant Manager Bae slipped away from the pack of starving bankers heading toward the restaurant, said she was leaving, and went home. I wanted to follow her and escape. Or perhaps that doctor's wife held a serious grudge against Goldlight Bank's Taecheon branch and had poisoned the whisky. I could only hope.
The 122 Taecheon University passbooks and cards we'd been hounded to finish in a single day sat in the outer vault for three days before Manager Song finally delivered them. Whether he was loafing around or doing something else afterward, he never returned to the branch and went straight home from his outside appointment.
Having plenty of work was a blessing. It reduced the pressure to hit sales targets. The less work there was, the greater the pressure. Officer Eun, how many cards? Savings accounts? Funds? At four every day, Hong Hui-gyeong either asked us aloud or sent everyone a message. We had to report that day's numbers, and low sales brought criticism of every kind. At first, I felt like human garbage, a failure who couldn't meet the company's expectations, and even felt a little guilty. Over time, I grew a thicker skin.
All I could think was, What am I supposed to do if I offer a product and the customer doesn't want it? I couldn't threaten someone into buying a fund they'd already declined. Of course I'd ask whether they might like the cheapest option, 50,000 won, alongside their installment savings account. But if they said no, what could I do?
Then a customer closing a savings account landed me in trouble with Hong. They'd saved 830,000 won a month, reached 10 million won, and come to withdraw it at maturity for living expenses. I congratulated them, told them they'd done well to keep saving until maturity, and asked what they planned to use it for. I wanted to rule out voice phishing or another scam. They said it was for paying off a loan at another bank or taking a trip. At my suggestion, they opened another installment savings account for 830,000 won a month, but didn't put the withdrawn 10 million won back into a deposit account.
After they left, Hong summoned me and gave me a dressing-down for failing to get the money redeposited. Was I out of my mind? She yelled that whenever a customer came to close a savings or deposit account, I had to get her permission first. I couldn't just hand customers money.
“Are you going to give away all the branch's money? Get your act together, Officer Eun! Is this how they taught you at your old branch?”
What bullshit. It was the customer's own money. Why did they need Hong's permission to close the account and take it? Maybe I should tell them exactly that. You can't just take your own money, sir. You need permission from our Manager Hong Hui-gyeong first. Get along at work. Just get along. For failing to secure a redeposit of a mere 10 million won, I had to listen to a lengthy speech about my incompetence and stupidity. After being asked whether I had a brain and whether I was in my right mind, I apologized, promised to be more careful, and returned to my desk.
Once she was done with me, she called Bu. Bu was literally trembling like an aspen leaf. Apparently she'd also failed to secure a redeposit that day. Her customer needed 10 million won for the deposit on a rental home. However much Bu begged them to redeposit it, they couldn't; they needed it for their housing deposit. Hong was tearing into her too.
Bu stood there terrified, tears falling as Hong shouted. This only seemed to make Hong angrier.
“Do you think crying fixes everything? Women like you ruin the image of all women! You're the one who messed up! Why are you crying when you're the one who did it wrong? Why are you making me look like the bad guy?! How do you expect to work at a bank if you can't even get a customer to redeposit their money?! If you don't want to work, quit! Plenty of people are desperate for your seat!”
She'd spent about five minutes raging at me. She spent another ten going apeshit at Bu.
Manager Kim Ji-won at Hwapyeong would have said that if a customer wanted their money, they should be allowed to take it. Bankers couldn't threaten people into redepositing. She'd have said she didn't understand why branch deposits counted toward our sales figures and wondered whether the higher-ups' heads were full of shit.
None of Taecheon's supervisors stopped Hong's tirade. Hwang even watched Bu trembling in terror with an amused little smile. Eventually Senior Manager Gu stepped in to stop Hong's branch-shaking tantrum.
“That's enough, Manager Hong. You'll lose your voice.”
“So many kids these days are beyond training. Like Officer Yu, who quit. And that one.”
Hong jerked her chin vaguely in a direction that could have meant Bu, Bae, or me. Gu gave an equally vague smile.
“Be patient with them. What can we do? New hires don't listen these days. We're the old ones; we have to give way. Regional headquarters seems to think Taecheon is a training center for rookies. It's not as if we can refuse.”
“That's right. I'll just have to be patient. You're the only one who understands me, Senior Manager Gu.”
Patient when? All you ever did was throw fits. Kim Jin-ju, Bu Ha-yun, and I pretended not to hear their conversation and continued our closing work. Curious about the departed Officer Yu, I asked Hwang about him when he was thoroughly drunk. It seemed Yu Seong-u had quite a temper of his own.
Apparently, when Hong criticized his sales figures, he'd talked back, saying he couldn't force customers to buy products they didn't want. He'd also said he was a new hire who'd only done what his superiors at Taecheon taught him. If he'd done something wrong, wasn't that a problem with the people who'd trained him? That had touched a nerve with Hong and the other supervisors.
Hmm. He was right. Every word Officer Yu had said was right. That must be why he quit. Banking didn't run on what was right.
Banks had a thoroughly established chain of command. The higher someone rose, the less they tolerated disagreement from subordinates. They'd endured it as new hires themselves. Once they climbed the ladder and earned a title, they believed they were entitled to behave that way too. By the time someone became a branch manager, their power within the branch was absolute. In the old days, branch managers supposedly threw ashtrays at the foreheads of employees they disliked. Low sales or an answer of no could get your head split open. These days, of course, smoking was banned inside banks and there were no ashtrays to throw. Ma threw documents instead.
Apparently he'd told Hong to keep the officers under control, squeeze them hard, and raise sales. I mostly let her nagging go in one ear and out the other. Officer Eun, you've been in the job longer than any other officer at Taecheon. Aren't you ashamed in front of your juniors? You need good sales so they can learn from you. Smart officers bring in business on their own, but you can't do a thing. You're the stupidest officer I've ever seen. Don't you want to become an assistant manager? What do you even do here? She demanded that I hit my targets somehow. I nodded and mechanically said, That's right. Yes. Understood. Then I went on doing what I always did.
It wasn't as if I could steal sales from somewhere, or kidnap passersby and take their IDs.
Hong put particularly heavy sales pressure on Bu and Geon-u. She was even harsher with Geon-u, perhaps because he was an intern who'd be gone in three months. He was someone they wouldn't miss. She seemed determined to suck every last sale out of him while he was an intern, then ship his empty shell to another branch if he was lucky enough to become a permanent employee. Fortunately, he didn't seem especially passionate about dedicating his life to Goldlight Bank. If he got a job here, fine. If not, whatever. The confidence of someone who hadn't graduated yet, I supposed. Lucky him.