The first day at a new branch was chaos. Sure enough, my note counter was broken. Put in a million won and it called it 980,000, then 990,000, then a million. Complete madness. A note counter was a banker's fingers. Mine were effectively mangled, so I asked Bae for the number and called a repair technician.
I also messaged the whole branch to ask whether anyone else's counter was faulty. At Hwapyeong, when a technician came, we had them look at every broken machine, not just the one that prompted the call. Bae replied. So did Hong. Are any of the counters here working properly?
The technician said the earliest arrival would be after eleven. Until then, I had to ask Song beside me to share his machine or count by hand. When the technician arrived, I asked him to look at Bae's before mine. A head teller had more reason than anyone to be driven mad by a faulty counter. Only afterward did he come to mine. Meanwhile, I'd been counting money other than foreign currency by hand for the first time in a while. I probably counted more notes by hand today than on any other day this year. We learned how at the training center, but apart from foreign currency and 50,000-won notes, we mostly relied on machines.
Just in case, I asked him to check the managers' machines too, then went back to work. Each time I called a number, the customer's request sent my wits flying or brought them back. Existing customers occasionally asked where Officer Yu had gone. I told them I'd heard he'd left to pursue his dream of becoming a civil servant and that I was the new arrival. Between canceling standing orders, replacing cards, taking credit card applications, renewing deposits and savings plans, extending loans, and discussing new loans, I suddenly received a branch-wide message from the manager.
It concerned the first lunch shift. The new arrivals were to eat with him at noon. It was eleven fifty-two, cutting it a little fine to call another customer. I stopped after the one in front of me and messaged Bu to do the same once she finished with hers. In the seven minutes before lunch, I quickly checked my cash. A discrepancy would turn the entire day into a literal shitshow.
I counted each denomination through the machine, wrote the totals on a sticky note, bundled the 50,000-, 10,000-, 5,000-, and 1,000-won notes together with a rubber band, and locked them in the drawer. I couldn't account for shortfalls among the smaller denominations. Three months into the job, I'd learned that one reason bankers were paid well was so they could cover their own cash shortages. I hadn't particularly wanted to learn that.
Once, an extra 50,000-won note had gone out to someone. Thinking one of the customers who'd withdrawn that denomination had received it, I'd called them all. Hello, this is Officer Eun Su-won at Goldlight Bank. You visited us to make a withdrawal today. Could you please check how many 50,000-won notes you have? Is it twenty? Ah, I see. Understood. Thank you. Nobody said they'd received an extra note. Then where the hell did mine go? Weeping inwardly, I'd had to make up the 50,000 won from my own pocket.
Banks usually took lunch in two shifts, noon to one and one to two. Roughly half the staff, including the branch manager, went first. The deputy and the rest went second. The two managers could eat together, but that complicated transaction approvals. Some branches shared passwords so staff could approve urgent matters while the manager or deputy was away. Others took the view that you'd touch their computer over their dead body.
If a customer arrived wanting to transfer 500,000,000 won, you couldn't tell them that transfers of 100,000,000 or more needed electronic approval, both managers were at lunch, and they'd have to wait until someone returned. Most branch managers and deputies therefore ate separately. Of course, it might also have been because looking at each other during that precious lunch break would give them indigestion.
But if all the new officers leave together for the first shift with the manager, doesn't that leave only Bae? Is that all right? A lot of managers seemed to be leaving too. More than twelve customers were waiting, but the branch manager didn't care. At Hwapyeong, even employees dedicated to corporate banking called queue numbers when it got busy. This didn't seem to be that sort of place.
We went to a nearby Korean restaurant. The manager kept saying how good it was, but I was more worried about the broken note counter. Beside me, Bu looked terrified on her very first day at the bank. Understandably. Press the next-number button and you didn't know who would come, what they needed, or what they would ask. Pressing it must have been sheer terror.
All the training center taught us was essential financial knowledge and very basic system operations: what an internal transfer was, opening an account, deposits, withdrawals, remittances, currency exchange. Learning even that took four weeks. For my first six months, I'd been overwhelmed with worry every time I called a number. Now I figured I could deal with whoever came, asking someone for help if necessary. But I still remembered that rookie anxiety.
We'd barely sat down before the manager asked the new arrivals an unsettling question.
“Officer Eun. Can you drink?”
I gave the answer I'd prepared.
“Not very well. I can barely manage a bottle of soju.”
“People who say that can always drink anyone under the table. Hahaha.”
Something's wrong with his hearing. Or his brain. I wasn't good at drinking. I especially loathed soju. The smell alone made me want to vomit, and drinking it felt like draining a spirit lamp. Beer was better. At least it had the fizz. Maybe I disliked soju even more because, at university, I'd drunk three bottles, fallen asleep on a bus, and ended up at the terminus. My limit was two bottles. I had no desire to drink with the manager long enough for him to find that out.
From what he said, he intended us to drink a great deal at tonight's dinner. Personally, I wanted to leave early, unpack the things stuffed in my car, and clean my room. Apparently, that wasn't an option. How could I refuse when the manager was welcoming us to Taecheon?
At Hwapyeong, people hardly ever pressed drinks on one another. Our recently retired manager loved wine for religious reasons and brought a personal bottle nobody else was allowed to touch. The staff respected that preference. We left the manager to it and drank what we wanted ourselves. We ordered every kind of alcohol and soft drink, and the manager respected our preferences too.
Bu and Ji faced similar questions. I learned that neither could manage more than half a bottle of soju. We're all about the same. After being interrogated about various things, Bu asked a question in return.
“Branch Manager, how much can you drink?”
“Officer Bu. I have never been drunk.”
Alarm bells immediately went off in my head. Bu was so new to working life she hadn't even received her university diploma yet. She was saying things like, Wow, that's amazing. All that floated through my head was, We're fXcked. I couldn't remember eating lunch.
Thankfully, my cash balanced. I closed my teller account at four thirty, and the branch finished its daily closing at six thirty. But with a staff dinner ahead, work was only beginning. Despite the dinner, Bae excused herself, picked up her bag, and left. I assumed she'd gone ahead to the beef restaurant. Yet only ten of us attended. She alone was missing. I wanted to ask why, but couldn't decide whom to approach. Bu asked Hong, seated beside her.
“Manager Hong. I don't see Assistant Manager Bae. Will she not be joining us?”
“She will not be joining us. She's gone home.”
Hong mimicked Bu's formal phrasing, then answered with a smile. Bu smiled back.
“Is she unwell, or does she have something to take care of at home?”
“No. She just went. Bae doesn't come to staff dinners.”
“Why...... doesn't she come?”
“Our Officer Bu has a lot of questions, doesn't she? And no sense of when to keep quiet.”
Hong smiled as she said it. Bu's face stiffened. Listening, I tensed too. Apparently, Hong wanted employees who could anticipate everything without being told. Could a twenty-four-year-old taking her first step into working life today perform like a battle-hardened veteran? What an absurd demand. The branch manager sat at the center of the middle of three tables. He told Senior Manager Gu Ji-hye, Ten bottles of soju. As though thoroughly accustomed to it, Gu shouted to the server, Ten bottles of soju, please! Surely he doesn't mean one per person? ......He did. And at every toast, he checked that everyone had emptied their glass in one go.
When Bu didn't drink, he relentlessly pestered her about why she alone wasn't drinking when everyone else was. With the whole branch watching, she forced down the soju and forced an inoffensive smile onto her face. Hong refilled the glass she'd just emptied.
“You drink just fine. Why pretend you can't?”
“I really can't drink much.”
“Then learn. You're a new recruit. Do you intend to learn nothing at work?”
“Oh. No. I'll do my best to learn!”
“Good. That's what a rookie should do. You need to become someone who pulls their weight, don't you? Aren't you going to fill my glass?”
Bu hurriedly picked up the bottle and poured for Hong, looking more and more frightened. The manager ordered ten bottles twice more. I wanted to help Bu on her first day, but defending myself was already more than I could manage.