By Zephyria 
The Taejang Electronics DL (Digital Lifestyle) Division building stands tall right between Gangnam Station and Yeoksam Station.
The head of the department that Yi-ho’s development team belonged to was Gye Tae-sik, a man with a rare surname. In actual pronunciation, it is difficult to distinguish between ‘Gye’ and ‘Gae’ (dog). Therefore, he likely didn’t even realize that he was called ‘Head of Department Gae’ more often than ‘Head of Department Gye.’
Today, the company began its day just like yesterday, the day before, and last week. Amidst a silence filled with the sound of typing and the occasional phone call flowing like ASMR from all directions, Yi-ho checked the issues that had arrived overnight.
“Team Leader Song, Team Leader Song!”
The calling was loud even before he reached Yi-ho’s desk. It was plenty of time for Yi-ho to stop what he was doing and stand up.
“Yes, Department Head.”
“Did you properly check what you sent me?”
The volume was enough for the news that ‘Team Leader Song Yi-ho was being interrogated by Head of Department Gae this morning’ to reach the photocopier in the next office.
Anyone else would have asked, “Is there a problem?” at this point, but as a development team leader, Yi-ho first output the facts regarding the question.
“Yes. I checked it.”
“Really?”
He had certainly checked that all functions were running without issue. There were no errors.
“Yes.”
“Hah, honestly. Open it. Open it and see for yourself!”
Yi-ho did as he was told, opening the code and running the compiler. It built without a hitch, and the screen he had checked earlier appeared.
“No, not that. The code!”
A long stretch of code totaling hundreds of thousands of lines. The Department Head searched for the word ‘lunch’ within it. The moment he saw the results, Yi-ho’s vision blurred. Sigh…
…
if (!request) {return;}
//What’s for lunch today?
/* Brown rice, mallow soybean paste soup, grilled Yangmiri, rolled omelet, seafood meatballs, yogurt.
Whoa, is it sheep’s head? How do you eat that..?
It’s not sheep’s head, it’s Yangmiri. It’s a fish name lol*/
The code was shared by the entire development team. He knew the team members occasionally played around with comments, but he hadn’t expected this to remain.
Since it was a memo function completely unrelated to the actual functionality, it was easy for Yi-ho, who only checked the final operation, to miss it.
“Is company work, uh, a children’s game? Is this why your team members act like this, because you try to take the easy way out? What’s the point of getting all your work done if you fail in places like this!”
“…I’m sorry.”
The current situation was like a single graffiti Post-it note being accidentally attached to a finished product. If there was one thing that felt unfair, it was that this was closer to an interim report than a finished product.
But what choice did he have but to bow his head? As the criticism continued, gradually losing its context, a set of footsteps approached. Team Leader Cha Min-gyu from the neighboring team looked at Yi-ho over Department Head Gye’s shoulder.
“…….”
After glancing at the situation, he moonwalked smoothly back to his own chair.
“Ahem.”
‘You crazy bastard.’
Fortunately, it seemed as though he was just trying to stifle a cough, so the Department Head only twitched an eyebrow and kept talking. However, Yi-ho’s crisis continued. Yi-ho tightened his stomach, forcibly suppressing the laughter that was about to burst out. Because he was focusing so hard on that, the Department Head’s voice didn’t quite reach his brain. It sounded like something about managing team members.
Noticing that Yi-ho’s gaze kept drifting over his shoulder, the Department Head turned around. There stood only Team Leader Cha Min-gyu, pretending to be the epitome of a perfectly normal office worker.
“Team Leader Cha, come here and look at this!”
“Pardon?”
As Min-gyu stood up and approached, the Department Head pointed to the problematic screen. The cafeteria menu from some day last week was shared with Min-gyu as well.
“Yangi-miri… sheep’s head…”
A sigh escaped Min-gyu’s lips, unheard by others. The glance he shot toward Yi-ho contained a question: How did you get caught in this since early morning?
“Team Leader Song Yi-ho, you’ve gone too far. Why would you write the menu here? With your years of experience, you can’t distinguish between public and private matters? Aren’t you someone who hardly even goes to the cafeteria?”
“Now, Team Leader Cha.”
“Even so, I think it’s somewhat embarrassing for an adult to be unable to distinguish between Yangmiri and a sheep’s head. Whether it’s a lacking brain that didn’t even search for it, or one’s own narrow-mindedness for not expanding their knowledge to that extent.”
Behind the partition, the face of one development team member, who had been bowing their head, flushed as if they were about to cry.
“Team Leader Cha, the problem isn’t that Team Leader Song wrote that, but that it came to me without being deleted.”
“…Ah, is that so? I’m sorry. I’m a layman when it comes to coding, so I didn’t know the situation. Team Leader Song Yi-ho, I’m sorry too.”
“You’re no help. Go back.”
After Min-gyu retreated, Department Head Gye tried to say something more to Yi-ho, but then inhaled and shouted loudly toward Min-gyu in the back.
“You’re just ruining the mood for no reason!”
“I’m sorry.”
Min-gyu bowed his head with a soulless, humbled expression. With a “Geez, really,” the Department Head glanced at Yi-ho. Having spent time nitpicking over something useless, a sense of awkwardness regarding his own behavior had set in.
“Be careful. I’m only doing this because I have high expectations for Team Leader Song.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Ahem, get back to work.”
A storm had passed since early morning. The gloom of the development team deepened.
“Yi-ho nim, I should have been the one to check it last…”
Manager Jeong peeked his eyes over the partition.
“It’s okay.”
Yi-ho waved him off. Regardless of the feeling of having been scolded, it was an embarrassing thing to pick someone out and punish them for. It was a relief compared to a fatal error exploding somewhere.
“I mean, it’s far from the official release… it wasn’t even a proper interim report… why is Head of Department Gae like that after taking something that’s just being tested…”
A quiet complaint drifted from the partition on the other side of the Manager.
‘…I couldn’t agree more.’
Actually, he sometimes thought, ‘Being thirty-three and teasing people by their names, and their surnames at that, is a bit…’, but at times like this, he had no choice but to repeat ‘Head of Department Gae’ in his mind.
“Everyone heard, so let’s not play around in the code from now on. …Got it, Tae-gyung nim?”
“Yes, yes…!”
The party responsible for the ‘sheep’s head’ jumped in surprise and stood up. Yi-ho had spoken to him because he had been keeping his head down the whole time, but it had the opposite effect.
In fact, the topic of not chatting in comments had come up before. At that time, of course, it was Yi-ho’s gentle recommendation. After that, rather than the pranks decreasing… they just came to Yi-ho cleanly deleted. Thus, Yi-ho had forgotten to check this time.
Come to think of it, the content wasn’t strange, and the chatter was cute, so why shout like that? Once the situation settled, dissatisfaction over the unnecessary scolding bloomed. Why kill the spirit of our team members? They barely have any spirit to begin with.
“Then, I’ll be heading to a meeting for a moment.”
“Ah, Yi-ho nim. Did you have a schedule?”
“Yes. The development team leaders agreed to meet.”
There were about 30 minutes left, but if he left early, it would be easier for the team members to lighten the mood by badmouthing the Department Head or comforting Tae-gyung. If the team leader who took the brunt of the scolding stayed longer, it would only prolong the silence.
As he passed the marketing team’s seats, Yi-ho’s eyes met Min-gyu’s. Min-gyu’s nose crinkled. Yi-ho narrowed his eyes to meet the gaze and then turned away.
The small murmur that ‘the two team leaders seem to be having a power struggle again…’ didn’t reach Yi-ho’s ears as he left the office, but the corners of Min-gyu’s mouth curled up.
∗ ∗ ∗
“Hello.”
“Oh, Team Leader Song, you’re early.”
Team Leader Kim sat down in a chair two spots away from Yi-ho.
As part of an effort to improve corporate culture, employees of the DL Division were encouraged to call each other by their real names followed by ‘nim’ instead of their job titles. This was to prevent creating a sense of intimidation through titles for the fresh new employees.
However, while they strictly enforced this in the office, one received severe glares in executive meetings if they dropped the titles. It would be more accurate to say they couldn’t even attempt to drop them. Thus, those below Manager were protected by the external image, and the executive level was protected by immense power, but no one protected the middle management…
As a result, a chaotic rule was established for the team leader level: call those of equal or higher rank—those who enter executive meetings together—by their titles, and call everyone else ‘OO nim.’
During an awkward silence between two people who weren’t particularly close, they both just tapped away at their phones. Team Leader Nam entered about three minutes after the appointed time.
“Hyung, you’re here?”
“Yeah. I’m a bit late.”
“Hello, Team Leader Nam.”
Team Leader Kim and Team Leader Nam, who had joined the company at the same time, exchanged casual greetings, and then Team Leader Nam, spotting Yi-ho, gave a light nod.
“Team Leader Song, I saw you struggling earlier. Why was Head of Department Gae like that?”
As expected, Department Head Gye’s voice must have echoed all the way to the photocopier in the next office. Yi-ho rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and replied that the team members had played around in the comments.
“What did they write? …By any chance, badmouthing the Department Head?”
“No. I heard everything because Team Leader Cha joined in and said something, but they were just chatting about what was for lunch using the menu.”
“Sigh, really, over something like that… He could have just said it nicely. Why did Team Leader Cha jump in and pick a fight?”
“In my opinion, him doing that to Team Leader Song is 100% discrimination against special hires. He’s thinking, ‘I’m an open recruit.'”
“Ah, is that it? What ridiculous people. Whether open recruit or special hire, we’re all just the same corporate slaves, so why divide ranks within that? Don’t you agree, Team Leader Song?”
“Haha…”
Hmm… well. He couldn’t say such people were extremely rare.
“Team Leader Cha… probably isn’t like that.”
“Pardon?”
When Yi-ho took a side, the two team leaders looked at him with puzzled expressions.