Chapter 4: The Part My Father-in-Law Goes Crazy About

It’s more convenient to wear your employee ID around your neck.

Once it’s around your neck, you’re at least free from the carelessness of leaving it somewhere, and you can avoid the messiness of frantically rummaging through your pockets or bag.

And besides the employee ID, we’re required to wear the firm’s badge as well.

It isn’t simply there to attract attention. No matter that we’re a foreign company, our employees are all native Koreans. To them, the badge serves not only as a symbol of belonging, but also as a symbol of loyalty to the firm.

“Company loyalty is a good thing… We love you. Very, very, very much… Huh?”

The badge was missing.

I had almost made the mistake of attending a meeting with partners present without wearing my badge. I hurriedly needed to attach it to my jacket lapel.

“Damn…”

I had definitely put on the clothes my wife gave me that morning, and the badge should have been in the pocket of that jacket.

I ran my hands over my entire body, searching in case I had somehow put it in another pocket.

Nothing.

Maybe it had happened because of the traffic accident that morning.

I must have dropped the badge from my pocket while fumbling around.

Fortunately, I remembered that I had a spare badge in my desk drawer.

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Mr. Lee Jin-ho!!”

That voice belonged to a staff member on my team.

Kim Anna.

She had such an energetic personality that I could recognize her just from her voice.

It was the sort of positive energy you expected from a new recruit.

The hierarchy within our firm was somewhat different from that of an ordinary company.

We didn’t use titles such as employee, junior associate, senior associate, or manager.

Instead, our ranks were Staff, Senior, Manager, Senior Manager, Director, and Partner.

And for a long time, we had maintained a horizontal culture in which everyone below Director simply called one another “Teacher.”

So then, what exactly was a Partner, the position above Director?

And what exactly was the reason my father-in-law had chosen me?

Let’s start with Partner.

Put simply, it was a title above Director.

It was a position that even a little kid could understand—roughly equivalent to an executive director or senior executive in an ordinary company.

But to put it in slightly more complicated terms, it was the position every accountant dreamed of reaching.

It was like becoming a general in the military.

In other words, it was the equivalent of earning your stars.

Roughly 900 people began chasing that dream every year at the Big Four accounting firms.

That was just an average estimate, but of those 900 accountants, fewer than 50 would actually become Partners.

That number—50—was enough to say that they had survived the jungle.

They could be called the champions of survival of the fittest.

Even looking at it purely in terms of survival rate, Partner was unquestionably a prestigious position.

So what exactly did that honor, attainable by only five percent, actually look like?

First of all, Partners received executive titles equivalent to Managing Director or Senior Managing Director.

That part wasn’t particularly different from an ordinary corporation.

A Partner was basically provided with a company vehicle, just like an executive at a major corporation, and was assigned a personal secretary.

Basic welfare services, from all kinds of communication devices to the necessities of everyday life, were provided as well.

Immediately after becoming a Partner, you were given at least a large domestic sedan, though quite a few people switched to large foreign luxury cars.

Those at the Senior Managing Director level and above were provided with drivers as a matter of course.

On top of that, golf memberships, hotel annual fees, and similar expenses were provided free of charge.

You think that’s all? Ha. Of course not. If this were all there was to it, my father-in-law wouldn’t be drooling over the position.

If you looked a little deeper, a Partner at an accounting firm was even more special.

Unlike a Managing Director at an ordinary corporation, becoming a Partner meant becoming a co-owner of the firm at the same time.

That was the key point.

And it was one of the parts my father-in-law went crazy over.

As an aside, my wife had given me a score of ten out of ten.

But to my father-in-law, I was still only a seven.

So I had to keep running.

Continuing with the explanation, because an accounting firm was structured as a limited company, Partners held equity in the firm and assumed management responsibility proportional to their shares.

That made them closer to owners than ordinary employees or executives.

In reality, major decisions within an accounting firm were made at the Partners’ General Assembly.

And because Partners were owners, unlike employees who received bonuses from the income generated each year, the profits remaining after employee distributions were divided among the Partners—the owners.

On top of that, once you became a Partner, your primary job shifted away from hands-on work and toward building deep relationships with major clients.

When we talked about major clients, we were talking about groups such as Shinhu Group, Inhwa Group, Dow Group, and so on.

And what exactly did that mean?

They say there isn’t a place in the world where you can’t find dust if you sweep it.

So wasn’t this simply a matter of becoming either the sister-in-law or brother-in-law in the old saying, “What benefits one benefits the other”?

It was practically an open invitation to profit from the system.

With this much on the line, it’s worth running for, isn’t it?

I turned around at the sound of her voice.

There she was, smiling and bowing her head in greeting.

“Oh, Ms. Kim. You’re here.”

Everyone below Director was addressed in exactly the same way.

“Teacher.”

It was actually a rather pleasant title to hear.

“Yes, Teacher. But did you lose something? Why are you so restless? You look kind of cute.”

She was a little cheeky, but incredibly lively.

That was Kim Anna.

She was the kind of person who became a vitamin to everyone around her.

I didn’t want to scold her for that cheerful personality.

“Ah, I forgot to put on my badge. I have no idea where it fell.”

She must have seen me from a distance, fumbling around while searching for my badge.

It was a little embarrassing.

Her eyes widened.

“What? We have a meeting today… And the Managing Director is a total old-school grouch…”

“Haha, I know.”

Kim Anna suddenly began taking the badge off her own lapel.

As she fumbled with it, I felt a little moved.

The reason I didn’t particularly reprimand her despite her occasional lack of tact and childish behavior was probably because of this pure goodwill.

Now that I had become a Senior Manager and was approaching promotion to Director, I was beginning to understand the behavior of my seniors in the past.

I was starting to realize that their favoritism hadn’t simply been born of selfishness.

I was beginning to understand that, at a glance, you could tell who was someone you wanted to bring along with you and who wasn’t.

You couldn’t pull everyone up with you, after all.

In the end, wasn’t having your own “line” simply a natural part of social life?

The difference was that most of my seniors from back then had already packed their things and left for smaller local firms or opened their own practices.

But I had remained.

Yeah. I survived.

And if I become a Partner, I’ll make sure to bring Ms. Kim Anna along with me.

I didn’t say it out loud, but Kim Anna was a good choice.

I should remember what happened today.

“Anna, I’m fine.”

“No, Teacher. You’re at an important point in your career right now. I’m just a snot-nosed Staff member, so if I get chewed out once, that’s the end of it. But you’re different. Don’t refuse.”

“Haha. I have another one upstairs in my office. Really, I’m fine.”

As I said, I’m meticulous by nature.

I had badges in every jacket pocket, next to my watch winder, and in my office desk drawer once I got to work.

There were badges practically everywhere, both at home and at the office.

As far as I could remember, something like this had never happened before.

Today really seemed to be a day when everything was going wrong.

All sorts of things happen, don’t they?

Ding—

While the two of us were talking, the elevator arrived.

Kim Anna humorously extended both palms toward the elevator, escorting me inside.

“After you, Teacher!”

“Thanks, Anna.”

Even looking at her again, she really was an energetic junior.

“Anna, your practical training period is almost over, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Thanks to your guidance, I’ve made it this far!”

“There’s not much time left until the comprehensive evaluation exam, so don’t let your guard down.”

“Ugh… My stomach hurts. I’ve already been worrying about it so much.”

The elevator silently began ascending toward the upper floors.

“You need to worry about it. This place is a jungle, after all. If you fail, you’ll carry that label around for a very long time. The rumors will spread all over the place. Creepy, right?”

“Ah! Isn’t that too mean? Do you actually enjoy watching me suffer? That’s creepy!”

“Haha. No. I’m really saying this for your sake, Anna.”

“No way. According to my scientific brain, Teacher Lee Jin-ho is enjoying this right now. Definitely!”

Kim Anna rubbed her solar plexus as though she couldn’t believe me and looked up at me.

Her playful expression, pretending to be slightly angry, was amusing.

It was obvious that she had grown up loved and cherished in a happy family, without ever becoming jaded.

“The Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants does provide second and third chances… Anyway! I’m not going to allow you to fail, okay? Get permission before you fail.”

“What kind of nonsense is that? Anyway, Staff Kim Anna will obey your orders.”

It was casual conversation that wasn’t quite casual.

For a moment, I worried that I might have come across like some old-fashioned senior, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I wasn’t exactly eighteen anymore.

Did that really matter when I was simply looking out for a junior?

“By the way, what did you mean by a scientific brain?”

“Oh, did you forget? I’m not from a business background. I’m a weirdo from biotechnology, remember?”

Ding—

[Ninth floor.]

“Oh, right.”

Kim Anna was an oddball.

Or rather, perhaps she wasn’t an oddball so much as an ordinary gifted person produced by the peculiarities of Korean society.

The business majors might make up the mainstream in this field, but there were plenty of people from other academic backgrounds as well.

“Yeah. Even though I’m trying to make a living as an accountant, my scientific brain, trained through research and logic, is still going strong.”

“Then do you know anything about the genetics of tongue rolling?”

We stepped out of the elevator, tapped our employee IDs against the security gate again, and walked toward the office.

And there it was.

Beyond the open gate was a refreshing scene resembling a meticulously planned modern city.

The office space was set against a pristine white backdrop, with a stylish lobby and smooth marble floors reflecting soft lighting that was almost dazzling.

Once we passed through the lobby, we would finally see something that actually looked like a workplace.

“Of course. It’s an old example of genetic theory.”

“An old example? That… wasn’t it supposed to be wrong?”

“Hmm… Rather than being completely wrong, Sturtevant argued that it was partially hereditary… and Komai said something similar. But Matlock clearly demonstrated the influence of non-genetic factors. In the end, the comfortable conclusion is, ‘It might be, and it might not be.’”

A comfortable conclusion…

My mind became confused again.

Should I simply trust it and move on?

Or should I investigate the matter thoroughly?

I was afraid of destroying the happiness I had grown accustomed to, and my thoughts became increasingly complicated.

But I was already at work.

Once I’d entered the battlefield, I couldn’t retreat over something like this.

“But why do you ask?”

“No reason. It just reminded me of something.”

“To say it’s just nothing… that’s a pretty random question, though. According to my scientific brain…”

Kim Anna’s chatter, fueled by her long-dormant curiosity, suddenly stopped.

“…”

“According to it, what?”

At the end of Kim Anna’s gaze stood Choi Moon-young.

Choi Moon-young had confidently appeared around the corner.

The owner of the scientific brain reluctantly bowed his head in greeting when he spotted him.

But Choi Moon-young didn’t even move his head one centimeter.

“Man, he’s really irritating. Did someone put a neck brace on him?”

“Me too, Teacher Lee Jin-ho. Did you know that Teacher Choi has never returned my greeting even once?”

He held his neck stiffly like the longtime master of the place.

With several followers behind him, he walked straight toward us.

And he was doing it while greedily chewing on a triangle kimbap—completely out of place in this pristine office.