Surely this nonsense at Taecheon would end in three years at most? Either that, or it would end only when every one of those bastards quit. The branch manager, at least, would be transferred within a year. Unless he threw a fit at HR and refused to go. I shouldn't worry about it now. Worrying wouldn't solve anything anyway.
There was something strangely comforting about a dark night under bright moonlight. I melted into the night and enjoyed the empty stillness. In this darkness, everything happening to me seemed trivial and insignificant. That offered a little comfort. I liked feeling that this too would pass, that it wouldn't last forever, and that the darkness could cover all the garbage happening at work.
But it lasted only a moment. As I walked beside the river, watching the water flow silently through the dark, one fact became painfully clear: I had work in nine hours. The thought that I should go back and sleep fought with the thought that I didn't want to return to the residence.
The maintained path beside the stream was empty too. Not even a jogger. I walked along the bank, thinking about quitting. But why should I leave when people like them got to keep their jobs? Just as the question grew more tangled, I noticed someone on a bench beneath a streetlamp.
A blood-covered woman lay slumped on the riverside bench. I didn't know whether to call an ambulance or the police first, but decided on an ambulance if she was alive and approached. Her hair was so long it trailed on the dirt. Up close, I realized it was a man with exceptionally long hair. Ah. So that was why I'd thought he was a woman.
“Are you all right? Are you badly hurt? Do you need help?”
He didn't answer. I was entering 119 on my phone when I heard a voice.
[Support me.]
Judging by the way he spoke, he seemed fairly lucid. But before I pressed the call button, my body stopped. As naturally as anything, I put my phone in my pocket and helped the man leaning against the bench to his feet. Then I took this complete stranger onto my back.
He looked like a tall adult man with long hair, but on my back he was horrifyingly heavy. I weighed seventy-seven kilograms. Was he over a hundred? Supporting him was difficult. He must have bones, yet he seemed to keep flowing down my back. I'd rather carry two drunks. I wanted to abandon him right here. Why was he so heavy?
The long-haired man wrapped cold arms around my neck and shoulders as though it were his right.
[Take me to where you live.]
I couldn't take him to the residence. How could I bring a stranger there? What about my coworkers? Who was this man? His command overrode every question in my head. I thought I should slam him onto the ground and run for the apartment without looking back, but my body wouldn't obey me.
With the suspicious man on my back, I moved slowly, one step at a time. It felt like walking with Mount Tai on my back. Less than five hundred meters seemed impossibly far. Too heavy. Like carrying three people. By the time I staggered, panting, into the apartment building's ground-floor entrance, I was ready to faint. Even the bench would have been lighter. No matter how I considered it, this wasn't the weight of an adult man.
The elevator ride felt unbearably long. Even as I panted and carried him, my mind was frantic to throw him off. I couldn't take him inside. I couldn't bring someone this suspicious to the residence. It was like carrying a heavy bomb. I entered the door code and came in. From the inner doorway, I saw Deputy Branch Manager Kim asleep on the living room floor and Senior Manager Lee in front of the shoe cabinet. Hwang wasn't there, so he must have made it to his room. Still carrying the man, I barely managed to kick off my shoes in the entryway before going to my bedroom. Hearing the front door lock automatically behind me, I despaired. My feet moved toward my room on their own. I entered, almost driven mad by how badly I didn't want to.
My body moved automatically and lowered the injured man onto my bed. Sweat poured off me. My body screamed at the unaccustomed exertion. What on earth had I carried here? Feeling as though my back and knees had been smashed, I lay on my side on the floor, gasping. Sleep swept over me instantly. I passed out.
My phone alarm woke me at 6:50 a.m. This was the alarm that meant leave through the front door the moment you heard it. The time sent a string of curses through my head. I had to be at the branch by 7:20. Allowing for the drive, I had only ten minutes left. We opened at nine! Why did I have to be there by 7:20?! I rushed into the bathroom, showered and brushed my teeth in seven minutes, then ran back to my room and threw on clothes. While putting on my socks, I shook the deputy branch manager and senior manager awake in the living room. They must have come in during the early hours. I must have been too sound asleep to hear them.
Kim woke with his hair like a bird's nest, complained that his whole body hurt, and asked whether there was any gimbap today. He was one of the most frequent thieves of my breakfast. How did he drink that much and live in such a mess without dying? Wasn't human life remarkably tenacious and unfair? People who never drank died of liver cancer, while someone who guzzled alcohol like this could live free of it and keep spouting bullshit.
The deputy branch manager yawned wide enough to split his face, went into his room, and emerged with only his shirt and socks changed. Lee merely splashed water on his face and came out in yesterday's clothes. My phone hadn't been charged and had nine percent battery left. Had I gone to sleep without plugging it in? In the rush out of the residence, I shoved the still-drunk men into my car and drove. Was this working life? I wanted to kick every smelly man out of my lovely little car and commute alone.
Once, sick of this routine, I'd gone in early by myself. Kim, Hwang, and Lee had all arrived late together. All six supervisors spent the entire day calling me selfish, saying young people only thought of themselves. It hadn't been a good choice. I was a new hire with less than two years at Goldlight, while they'd been at the bank for ages and had at least three mouths between them. If bad rumors spread, I'd be the only one to suffer. Still, I couldn't stop wondering: How far did teamwork extend? Where did company business end? Was waking coworkers and getting them to work part of my job too?
Hwang and Kim complained about how cramped my compact car was, but I was too busy driving to really hear them. We narrowly avoided being late. We'd reached the branch before the manager. Such happy, hopeful life in the residence. I hurriedly greeted everyone, logged into my PC, and plugged in my phone. Less than three minutes after we arrived, Ma came through the back door. Thinking that I'd nearly been a dead man, I greeted him as if I'd arrived twenty minutes earlier. Good morning, Branch Manager! What a shitty life.
As I opened a few frequently used screens, I realized I couldn't remember a thing about last night. Had I contacted my family? My messages showed little conversation. The call history was the same. What had I done? I'd come home early. Had I just slept? Why couldn't I remember?
......Maybe this lousy job was ruining my memory too.
Watching customers take tickets, I called the next number. The customer who came to my desk held out two checks, each for 5 billion won. People with checks like that didn't usually come to my desk at this hour.
“I'd like to put 10 billion won into a deposit.”
At Goldlight Bank, customers with over 1 billion won in assets on deposit could apply for private banking. Vilfredo Pareto had observed the pea pods in his garden and realized that a small proportion, the well-filled twenty percent, accounted for eighty percent of the total yield. He interpreted this in macroeconomic terms, publishing a paper on the socioeconomic phenomenon in which twenty percent of the population owned eighty percent of the land. The so-called 80:20 rule, the ‘Pareto principle,’ spread around the world.
People began applying it everywhere, Goldlight Bank included. Claiming that twenty percent of customers held eighty percent of the bank's total assets, it did everything possible to attract that twenty percent. Private banking was one method. Customers whose combined Goldlight deposits, installment savings, funds, trust contracts, and bancassurance balances reached 1 billion won could apply. The bank designated those who enrolled as priority customers and offered various benefits.
For example, a private-banking customer who lost a passbook could have it reissued free of charge. Ordinary customers paid 2,000 won. Card replacements were free too, as were all sorts of replacements, including physical one-time-password tokens. Withdrawal fees were waived as well. They could use an ATM anywhere, anytime, without a fee. Certificates were free, and so were transfers to other banks. The bank also offered safe-deposit boxes, normally charging according to the amount of space needed. Depending on size, the average annual cost was 300,000 to 500,000 won, but the rental deposit for these boxes was waived too. They also received around 500,000 won in cashback and roughly 20 million won in benefits as a welcome gift celebrating enrollment.
Preferential loan rates lowered interest by roughly half to one percentage point, depending on the internal rating. Deposits and installment savings had special private-banking rates ordinary customers didn't know about, usually half to one percentage point higher. Foreign-exchange fees were heavily discounted. Gold-tier private-banking customers received a ninety-percent discount on the exchange margin. Within Goldlight Bank, even private-banking customers were graded like livestock into Gold, Silver, and Bronze tiers.
Gold-tier customers could apply for a premium card with an annual fee of several million won. Only two thousand were issued across Goldlight Bank, and they were gold in color. Apparently the credit cards contained real gold. I'd never seen one myself. At Hwapyeong, serving ordinary customers kept me busy enough; at Taecheon, Gu handled those cards separately and delivered them to the customers. Apparently VVIPs whose birth charts lacked the metal element spoke very highly of them. I really couldn't understand those people.
The customer had a short bob of completely white hair. After the checks came an ID bearing the name Shin Dam-ryeong. The age on it was over eighty, but the face looked forty-something. Entering the resident registration number showed no Goldlight customer record. There wasn't even a customer number. Not so much as an ordinary deposit or savings account had ever been opened here. A new customer! My eyes lit up. With a new customer, anything could count as a sale. But talking to someone like this was too risky for me. I messaged Senior Manager Gu.
[The customer in front of me has handed over two checks for 5 billion won each. A new customer.]
[Ohohoho! That customer is mine!]
Gu flew over to my desk.
“Hellooo. I'm Senior Manager Gu Ji-hye of Goldlight Bank. Welcome to Goldlight Bank. Shall we have a chat somewhere more comfortable? I'll get you a nice cup of tea.”
With every word dripping sweetness, she led the customer away like a salivating hyena. I was happier handing them over to her anyway. I wasn't someone who instinctively understood and catered to VVIP whims.
When my intake friend Gye Eun-yeong was new, she'd once served a VVIP because the private consultation room was already occupied. The customer repeatedly complimented her beaded grape earrings. Eun-yeong thought it was an ordinary compliment and thanked them, saying she'd bought them because they were cute and was glad they liked them. Half an hour later, the branch's private banker came over and asked what the earrings had cost. When she said she'd bought them online for 50,000 won, the banker handed her 100,000 won and told her to take them off immediately. Those two earrings, glittering with clusters of purple grapes, went to the VVIP that day. Eun-yeong said giving up some earrings wasn't exactly a loss, but even if it felt unpleasant, it was awkward to dig in and refuse. Avoiding those customers, or not speaking to them at all, was better for her mental health.
Apparently Shin Dam-ryeong was registered as a Silver-tier private-banking customer on the spot.