Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

When Gun-Ho was getting ready to get off work that day, he received a call from President Song.

“I just finished my meeting with the plant manager at A Electronics’ factory in Dangjin City.”

“Well done. What did he say?”

“He gave us several product molds. Since these molds are owned by A Electronics’ factory in the Danjin City location, they leased them to us. He asked us to make a few sample products using them first.”

“What about the volume of their product orders and their prices?”

“He said that since these products are the parts of their exporting products, they would need a high volume of them. They will probably need 100,000 pieces per each product on a monthly basis. There are five different products.”

“Really?”

“Their unit price is in the range between 4,500 and 6,500 won. This price is from last year, so we should expect a bit higher unit price reflecting the increased labor cost. And, I want to recalculate it to see how much we should expect if we use the raw materials from Dyeon Korea.”

“So, since there are five of them, we will be making around 2 to 3 billion won per month.”

“It would be 2.75 billion won to be exact.”

“That will make 33 billion won per year. Wow, that’s great.”

“Since we already have the molds for these products, we can produce the sample products even tomorrow. Once we bring the sample products to them, they will perform a test on them. Once they do, they will send their personnel to us to look around our factory. We can sign the supply contract afterward.”

“Hmm, I see.”

“Some of these products require assembly work with the parts manufactured by another A Electronics’ designated company. According to Director Jong-Suk Park, who was with me during the meeting, we don’t need to outsource this assembly work, but we can organize an assembly team within our factory and do the assembly work ourselves. That way, we would be able to produce those products faster.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

“For the moment, Director Jong-Suk Park undertook the sample product production, and he will bring them to A Electronics once they are ready. It was a good idea that I went there with Director Park. He quickly figured out the cause of their defective products previously supplied by their former vendor company. He said that the bubbles on those parts were created during the refrigeration step. The problem was that they refrigerated them when the parts were still at a high temperature. Manager Chang-Hoon Seo in the sales department wouldn’t have figured that out.”

“Good job.”

Gun-Ho had a class at the Advanced Center for Administrative Development at Seoul National University in the evening. He loaded his car with 40 pieces of rice cakes and 40 healthy drinks. The total number of students in the class was 20, but since they were all high-ranking workers in their field, they were all accompanied by their chauffeurs. So, he had to count their chauffeurs when he prepared snacks for the class.

“Chan-Ho, take this bag with you, and you distribute them to the chauffeurs who accompany the students. They will probably feel bored and slightly hungry while standing by.”

“Thank you, sir. As a matter of fact, I usually do feel hungry. The class ends after 9 pm, and I start feeling hungry at around 8 pm. These rice cakes are very tender, and the wrappings look luxurious.”

When Gun-Ho arrived at the classroom, Minister Jin-Woo Lee was at his desk already. Thinking of the deal he made with A Electronics’ CEO Park to support Minister Lee’s political activities, Gun-Ho looked at his face. Minister Lee knew Gun-Ho was there, but he didn’t say anything but kept clearing his throat. That was it.

He didn’t mention a thing about A Electronics. Gun-Ho couldn’t ask him about it either. As far as he knew, Minister Lee wouldn’t admit his acknowledgment about the deal even if he was aware of it. Even though Gun-Ho asked him directly about it, he would utterly deny his knowledge about the deal. Moreover, he would possibly call it off since Gun-Ho didn’t keep his words about keeping the deal strictly between A Electronics’ CEO Park and himself.

‘Politicians are highly intelligent and smart. I have to be careful in dealing with them.’

Gun-Ho also cleared his throat as if he responded to Minister Lee’s reaction.

When he found it not fun exchanging drying coughs constantly with Minister Lee, he talked to him, “It was hot today, wasn’t it?”

Minister Lee responded, “I know. I was hoping that it would rain today to cool it down a bit.”

At that moment, Attorney Young-Jin Kim from Kim & Jeong Law Firm poked Gun-Ho in the side with a pen and said, “You are not going to China these days?”

Attorney Kim had no idea what was going on with all those dry coughing between Gun-Ho and Minister Lee.

“No, I haven’t been there lately, and I have no plan to go anytime soon,” Gun-Ho answered.

“What about Jien Wang and Seukang Li? Have you heard from them recently?”

“No, nothing.”

“You were thinking of doing a terminal business there, aren’t you? How is it going?”

“The person who would be in charge of the joint venture business there is leaving for China tomorrow. I decided to make my investment there.”

When the first class was over, Gun-Ho handed out the rice cakes and healthy drinks to the class. When they had started taking classes together in the beginning, the class was usually quiet since they were not close to each other. Now, it had been eight months already, and they were making lots of jokes to each other, and the classroom was always filled with noise, especially during the break. Their favorite topic for a conversation was about health. That was probably because most of them were over 50s, and they were all interested in keeping themselves healthy and energetic like their old days.

“Our class manager brought rice cakes today.”

“Is it okay for him to buy us the rice cakes this often? It could cost him a fortune. Do we have to worry about him going broke? I know he is wealthy enough, but I feel sorry that we get free food from him all the time.”

After a while, when Gun-Ho started making a round while holding a trash bag to collect the trash, Minister Jin-Wook Lee walked to the front of the class, and he said, “Can I have your attention, please. I have an announcement to make.”

“Be quiet. Our class president is now talking.”

Minister Lee continued to talk, “We have Minister of ooo here sitting in the first row, who is always quiet and has lots of grey hairs. His daughter is getting married soon. Let’s give him a big round of applause in congratulating him.”

“Oh, really?”

“I wonder if his daughter has grey hairs too.”

“Hahaha.”

A congressman teased the minister.

Minister Lee handed a bunch of wedding invitations to Gun-Ho and said, “Please distribute these to the class.”

Gun-Ho began to hand out the wedding invitations to the class. Since many of the students there were in their mid or late 50s, they often saw someone’s daughter’s wedding rather than someone’s son’s wedding.

Minister Jin-Woo Lee added, “Umm, it had been eight months already since we studied together.”

A mischievous minister chipped in, “Did we study here? We’ve been actually having fun here for the past eight months.”

Gun-Ho could hear people laughing here and there.

Minister Lee didn’t seem to mind some stupid comments, and he continued to talk, “Ever since I undertook this position as a class president, I don’t believe that I have done much for the class. And also… after about four months, we will graduate by obtaining our certificate for this course. By then, we won’t have a class or anything where we could see each other. I want this class to go on like friends. Even though we are too busy to be at one place frequently, I’m suggesting meeting maybe once or twice per year. We can get together sometimes and talk about how things go in our lives while having a drink. What do you all think?”

“I’m in!”

“That is the best thing that you have ever said ever since you became our class president.”

The students clapped.