That evening, after a client dinner, I came home drunk and started making a PowerPoint presentation for the students at midnight. I included the very basics: what deposits and installment savings were, what funds and insurance were, the difference between debit and credit cards, why they should get a debit card, what to do if they accidentally gave their account PIN to a voice-phishing caller, what to do if they lost a wallet or card, and why saving mattered.
I fought through drunken sleepiness and went to bed around one, thinking I'd done quite well with so little time. In the morning, a complete mess of a presentation greeted me cheerfully. I hastily finished it, copied it to a USB drive, and went to work. After saying our goodbyes to the branch manager, deputy branch manager, and everyone else, Geon-u, Song, and I headed to the private high school. I had to give the same lecture three times to groups of twenty students. Before starting, I handed out the forms they needed to complete.
“It's a pleasure to meet you, first-year students of Guryong High. I'm Eun Su-won from Goldlight Bank, here to give you a short lecture on finance. Before we begin, please fill out the forms in front of you.”
Geon-u collected the quickly completed forms and IDs. While I lectured, he assisted the mobile teller we'd requested from Pyeongan regional headquarters, churning out passbooks, cards, and savings accounts like a machine. As the teller issued transaction-account passbooks, installment-savings passbooks, and debit cards, Geon-u did the finishing work: cutting and pasting signatures, cramming two passbooks, an ID, and a card into each sleeve. Every sale bore Song Byeong-jun's employee number. During all this, Song apparently enjoyed tea and conversation with the principal and vice principal, handed over his gift, then slipped away to spend his time on phone calls, games, and videos.
After my first lecture, I checked my phone and found eight missed calls from the branch manager. I'd had it on silent and hadn't noticed. Geon-u, meanwhile, had to report our sales totals almost every ten minutes. Ma kept pestering him for numbers, saying he'd lose face for requesting a mobile teller from Pyeongan if we didn't produce enough sales. Assistant Manager Gwon Yu-hwa, the mobile teller from headquarters, eventually took the phone from Geon-u and asked him to have some patience and wait.
By the time we finished that afternoon, Geon-u, Gwon, and I were exhausted. Gwon in particular had driven the mobile banking truck over, set it up on the high school's grounds, and spent practically the entire morning inside, using its computer, passbook printer, and card issuer like a human passbook machine. Geon-u handed out tissues and toilet paper as promotional gifts, repeating the usual requests to keep using Goldlight Bank as naturally as breathing.
Across the three lectures, I fielded questions like: Which university do you need to attend to work at a bank? Which major? Is it true AI makes it hard to get a job now? How are bankers different from ATMs? Can you do everything through an app now, or is there still a reason to visit a branch? Hardly anyone comes in, so don't you just sit around doing fuck-all? (Who on earth had spread that bullshit?) How much do you make? Do bankers often marry each other? Is it true androids are replacing all of you? Still, you finish at four, so isn't it a fucking cushy job? (Join us. Let's see how cushy you find it.) If you embezzle 10 billion won and serve your prison term, do you get to keep it? (I don't think you should join a bank.) Don't bankers all quit before forty? (Please make our branch manager quit.) Only when Geon-u arrived could I finally escape.
We had to shut those inquisitive customers' mouths with completed passbooks and gifts. When we'd first discussed giving the students hamburgers, Song had asked who would eat such cheap rubbish. We'd considered canceling them, but the high schoolers devoured them as though they never got fed. Without the burgers, they might have chewed through the passbooks and eaten the bank staff too.
Once the work was done, I had nothing left. Geon-u, Gwon, and I sat dazed, chewing a hamburger each for lunch. Only when nearly everything was finished did Song approach the truck, carrying an iced Americano for himself alone, and say obnoxiously:
“Why do you think banks hire poor people? They need people to do the menial work, and those people can't quit no matter how hard it gets.”
Then he tapped my shoulder.
“Officer Eun. What is that suit? I'll buy you a decent one sometime. It pains me to see a junior of mine dressed like a beggar.”
I assumed it was his usual bullshit. A few days later, he actually gave me a suit he'd brought from somewhere. Its logo meant nothing to me. I didn't know many designer brands and had no interest in them, but an online price search horrified me. Five million won for a suit? Had Song been scammed? My suits averaged 200,000 won each.
I refused several times, saying it was too much, but he refused my refusal. It had been a gift to him, he said, and he'd left it unused because it didn't fit. That much seemed true: I was bigger than him. I thanked him, praised his generosity, and shoved it into my residence wardrobe. When he asked why I wasn't wearing it, I made excuses about saving it for later because it was too nice. If he ever demanded it back while we worked together, I'd return it exactly as it was.
Geon-u had helped him enormously on this trip. Preparing the forms, collecting completed paperwork and passing it to the mobile teller, cutting out student signatures and pasting them into passbooks, packaging IDs and passbooks without mixing them up, delivering them to classrooms, and getting students to fill in or check anything they'd missed: he'd done all of it. When I asked him, he said he'd never received so much as a handkerchief from Song, let alone a suit. He gave an awkward smile.
“That's being an intern. You do the work, but you don't get treated as an employee who works here.”
He confided that Song disliked him. Probably because of his height. When he'd first arrived at Taecheon, Song had asked how tall he was, looked him up and down, then asked how high his shoe heels were. Since then, he barely acknowledged Geon-u's greetings.
Gwon Yu-hwa left Guryong High looking exhausted and headed straight back to Pyeongan headquarters. Returning the equipment was a better idea than making a special trip to Taecheon to say goodbye, Gwon said. The tone clearly conveyed no desire to meet Ma. When I asked whether Gwon knew him, the answer was something else.
“There are a few branch managers like that. You can tell from the calls. You must be having a hard time. Hang in there.”
Ma had called like a madman, and we'd already reported several times from the school. Still, on returning to the branch, Song entered the manager's office with his chin raised like a general returning victorious from a fierce battle. Apparently he reported his triumph. I was startled by the queue. Forty customers were waiting. Even accounting for the lunchtime backlog, that was far too many. Bae, Kim Jin-ju, and Bu were genuinely glad to see me. The angry customers were already exhausted from waiting. I focused on calling tickets, working quickly, and getting them out of the bank.
At four, Ma summoned the desperately busy staff to his office for a meeting. In front of everyone, he received Song's fourth report of the results, smiled extravagantly, and embraced him like a king praising a general's astounding victory.
“My most treasured employee.”
I'd thought that was Hong Hui-gyeong. Ma patted Song's shoulder, a rare smile at the corners of his mouth.
“To think I have such a treasure working at my branch.”
“It's all thanks to your excellent guidance, sir.”
“Is that so? Ha ha ha. Our Byeong-jun. What a remarkable fellow. I treasure you. A junior I can be proud of. Indeed.”
Self-congratulation and empty praise followed one another endlessly. My weak stomach threatened to turn. I wondered how I'd dodge him if my involvement meant he tried to hug me too. Fortunately, Geon-u and I were invisible to him. What a relief.
I'd lectured for three hours until my mouth was dry. We'd opened sixty transaction accounts, issued sixty debit cards, and created sixty installment savings accounts for 10,000 won each. We'd made everyone install Goldlight Bank's app, verify their identities, and log in, earning another sixty smart-banking registrations. All of it counted as Song's sales. Geon-u and I were treated as if we'd merely wandered around Guryong High wasting time. I wished we really had spent the day loafing around.
Meanwhile, Bae had worked like a mother bird with a rookie under each wing. The queue reached forty, and nobody cared when customers protested during the lunch rotation. Apparently she'd faced plenty of angry people. She watched all this with hollow eyes and a drawn face, as though her soul had left her body. I probably looked much the same.
Song brought in sales from somewhere even without working. That was why the branch manager and his deputy loved him. He didn't drink at staff dinners, sometimes ordering lemon-lime soda or cola, and neither of them criticized his drinking habits. Often he only attended the first meal and skipped round two entirely. He even frequently missed dinners with his own corporate clients.
Officially, nobody except Bae could skip staff dinners. Song was the exception. When he said he'd be leaving instead of attending a client dinner, a rare smile appeared on Ma's mastiff-like face. “Of course. Manager Song is a busy man. I have to understand.” Then he let him go home.
High sales and a light workload didn't mean we could leave early. A first-place branch really was different: it invented work to torment employees when there was none. One example was making hundreds of promotional gifts by hand.