Real Man

Chapter 118:

Chapter 118

The presentation was not only meaningful to Yoo-hyun.

Jo Chan-young, the executive director, was also quite surprised.

‘Are these guys really the same third part of the product planning team?’

They were nothing like the product planning team he had known, either in their speech or in their preparation.

He hid his astonishment and maintained a serious expression.

“This seems like a lot of talk, but… what do you think, Team Leader Oh?”

Oh Jae-hwan, the team leader, quickly rolled his eyes.

He had not seen the presentation content before.

To be honest, he thought it was good.

But Jo Chan-young’s reaction did not seem very favorable.

There were many constraints, so it was understandable.

“Well, I think the idea is good. And they worked hard on the preparation.”

“Do you think so? Can you take responsibility for it?”

“Yes? Ah… of course, this was all checked by Manager Kim…”

Oh Jae-hwan chose to shift the responsibility to someone else.

Jo Chan-young turned his head to Kim Hyun-min, the Manager.

“Can you take responsibility for this, Manager Kim?”

“If they presented such a good idea and a concrete plan, of course the responsibility should be on us. I think it’s good enough.”

“Really?”

Jo Chan-young quietly turned the pages of the printout.

It was challenging but realistic.

If they could really produce it like this, it would sell well in the mobile phone division.

‘Maybe this could really replace HPDA3.’

According to sources, HP had another reason for blaming the parts supplier.

They said that the PDA development itself was delayed.

If that was true, then there was nothing the parts supplier could say.

They just had to supply the products according to the schedule of the superior.

The problem was that even if they met the schedule, the production schedule could be delayed because of the PDA development delay.

They had to stop all the lines that they were setting up now.

HP was a long-time customer, but they had to prepare for this situation.

But there was something that bothered him.

“Honestly, the content is tempting. I acknowledge that they worked hard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But can you really implement all of this? The schedule seems tight. You can’t afford any mistakes.”

It was not just that they could not afford any mistakes. 

They needed all the related departments to be ready.

That was something that Park Seung-woo, the Assistant Manager, could not do alone, no matter how good his idea was.

Someone above him had to move.

In other words, Jo Chan-young’s question was whether he could move him right now.

It also meant that this was not enough.

Swish.

Park Seung-woo turned his head and looked at Yoo-hyun.

He remembered their conversation a while ago.

-I hope we can do a demo at this presentation.

-Why? It’s not a real contest. Why do we have to push ourselves?

-We need your help to make our schedule possible. And moving the related departments too.

-Well, that’s true. It would be helpful. But can you do it?

It was a tight schedule.

According to Lee Chan-ho, it worked for now.

But he thought it was not enough to just show an image. Yoo-hyun took it and did some more work on it.

And he saw the result a few days ago.

“Sir, we have prepared something for that. Yoo-hyun.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Park Seung-woo nodded his head, Yoo-hyun moved quickly.

Yoo-hyun took out a mockup from under the table and placed it in front of Jo Chan-young.

Red, blue, green.

It was a mockup with three different colors of cases.

“Did you check this out, Team Leader Oh?”

“Yes? Ah, I… I was busy with HP stuff.”

“Hmm, I guess Manager Kim really took care of everything.”

Jo Chan-young muttered to himself and picked up the red mockup.

It looked plausible from the outside, but he was more surprised when he touched the screen.

The background image matched the color of the case. The character and icons inside were surprisingly well-matched too.

He did not like it personally, but his young daughter would love it very much.

‘This is a complete phone?’

He had seen many mockups before, but he had never seen one with such quality.

He thought they would just put an image on an LCD panel. But they made a whole product out of it.

The most surprising thing was that it did not look like a panel that maximized cost reduction at all.

Even the touch performance was not bad.

If this level of performance could meet real usage conditions, it seemed possible to mass-produce it.

Rather, he felt like he had been making unnecessary over-spec products until now.

Jo Chan-young pressed his surprised chest and asked.

“Where did you make this mockup?”

“Semi Electronics.”

“A new company. Did the development team support it?”

“They just checked it. Lee Chan-ho was in charge.”

“Did they provide the images inside too?”

Yoo-hyun answered Jo Chan-young’s detailed questions without hesitation.

“I prepared those.”

“Huh…”

Jo Chan-young looked at Lee Chan-ho and Yoo-hyun in turn.

‘You prepared it without the development team? How did you manage to do such detailed parts? Is this what the newbie said about reflecting the idea?’

He wanted to dig deeper, but there were many people watching.

He could not show his ignorance in front of the young employees.

Jo Chan-young looked at the mockup again.

The presentation content was something that anyone could do with some brain work and time.

But making a mockup that even the development team could not make properly was not an easy task.

If it was easy, they would not have made such crappy mockups for the exhibitions.

“Did they say they could make domestic touch panels too?”

“Yes. I looked into several companies, but this one had the best price and stability. The pre-development team also confirmed that it looked good from the data.”

“Huh, really… why did everyone else waste their time?”

Jo Chan-young could not understand.

Then Kim Hyun-min, the Manager, opened his mouth.

“Mr. Jo, I thought you might be interested in meeting the people from the company, so I asked them to wait. Do you want to see them?”

“You asked them to wait? Did you anticipate that?”

“Yes. I had a feeling you would look for them.”

“Is this… the same product planning team I know?”

Mr. Jo Chan-young, the executive director, asked incredulously. 

Mr. Kim Hyun-min, the Manager, smiled wryly.

“Who else would it be? Haha.”

“…”

There was a moment of awkward silence after Mr. Kim Hyun-min’s ill-timed joke.

“Ah, Mr. Kim, you’re so funny. Let’s just listen to them first. Hehehe.”

Fortunately, Mr. Jo Chan-young didn’t make a big deal out of it.

Then, the people who were listening with their eyes wide open started to laugh along.

“Haha. Hahaha.”

Among them was Mr. Oh Jae-hwan, the team leader.

He was stunned right now.

It was a report that would have been rejected long ago.

But somehow, he managed to listen to it all, and even answered the questions thoroughly.

He thought that would be enough, but he even brought out a mock-up and had the company ready to go.

It was as if he read Mr. Jo Chan-young’s mind and made a perfect report.

‘Why didn’t I pay attention to him before…’

He regretted it in his eyes.

Mr. Oh Jae-hwan was feeling anxious when it happened.

Squeak.

The door of the conference room opened and Mr. Lim Han-seop, the assistant manager of Semi Electronics, and Mr. Kang Jun-ki entered the room.

Yoo-hyun, who guided them to their seats, said.

“I’ve already opened it on my laptop, so you can just start.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Lim Han-seop nodded to Yoo-hyun and bowed his head to Mr. Jo Chan-young.

“Mr. Jo, hello. I’m Lim Han-seop, the assistant manager of the sales team at Semi Electronics.”

“Just relax. Relax.”

Maybe it was because of the mood?

Mr. Jo Chan-young gestured casually like a friendly person.

“Hehehe.”

He even tried to lighten up the atmosphere with a laugh.

Of course, from Mr. Lim Han-seop’s perspective, it was not easy at all.

How should he start?

How much time should he use?

He really wanted to do well on this important report, but he didn’t know what to do.

The gazes that came at him felt like they were choking him.

That’s when Yoo-hyun whispered to him.

“You’ve already done the mock-up demo, so just mention the specs and schedule for 5 minutes, and emphasize the reliability part for the touch components. It should take 15 minutes in total. Leave 10 minutes for questions.”

“…Oh. Yeah, that sounds good.”

“If you’re having trouble speaking, just show them the screen. It’ll be fine. I’ve already delivered the printed report, so they’ll look at it themselves.”

Yoo-hyun smiled and leaned back.

It felt like his dark vision brightened up like magic.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Mr. Lim Han-seop nodded to Yoo-hyun and started his report.

And 25 minutes later.

The whole report ended with Mr. Jo Chan-young’s smile.

Mr. Jo Chan-young looked very happy today.

He complimented the part members including Mr. Park Seung-woo, and had a separate tea time with the Semi Electronics staff.

He also thanked Yoo-hyun for his hard work.

Watching him, Yoo-hyun wondered.

What kind of person is Mr. Jo Chan-young?

To Yoo-hyun’s eyes, he was just an ordinary executive.

If everything goes as planned, he will be dismissed from his contract next year.

He was curious.

So he asked Mr. Park Seung-woo, who was sitting across from him on a bench in the smoking area on the first floor.

“Mr. Park, what kind of person is our director?”

“Hmm… Sometimes he seems like an old-fashioned jerk, but sometimes he seems very cultured.”

“And when he gets angry, I wonder why he acts like that.”

“Puhahaha, right? Anyway, he’s not very nice. But well, he’s not too bad either?”

“I guess so.”

Mr. Park Seung-woo’s evaluation was similar to his own.

But when he heard what he said next, it wasn’t.

“Do you know why I say he’s not too bad even though I get scolded every day?”

“Because he doesn’t swear at you?”

“No. He’s actually a very caring person.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He even came to the funeral when my grandmother passed away. It was pretty far away.”

“Oh…”

He didn’t know that.

“He takes care of all the condolences. From the employees to the directors. I thought it was easy, but it wasn’t.”

“It’s not easy.”

“Yeah. He’s just a bit peculiar in his expression, but he’s a good person.”

That’s why, he never saw anyone gossiping about Mr. Jo Chan-young behind his back.

He was a humane person.

He didn’t look into his heart, but at least he wasn’t a trash.

Yoo-hyun asked bluntly.

“Then what about Mr. Lee Kyung-hoon, the team leader?”

“No comment. I don’t want to give you any prejudice.”

“He doesn’t look very nice.”

“He’s very political and greedy. He’s capable, but too selfish.”

How did Mr. Park Seung-woo know that?

He was usually careful about judging others, so he was curious.

“How do you know?”

“Well, my colleague…”

He told him how Mr. Lee Kyung-hoon took away the bonus money from his colleague, and made him do personal errands at his house.

That was a common story.

But what Yoo-hyun experienced from Mr. Lee Kyung-hoon was much worse.

He was a person who would never help the company or its future.

“I see.”

“Yeah. So be careful. I think he has a crush on you.”

“Will you protect me?”

“Puhaha, of course. Do you think I’m a mentor for nothing?”

Yoo-hyun smiled at Mr. Park Seung-woo, who laughed heartily.

‘I’ll protect you.’

For the sake of the people he worked with, he had to get rid of Mr. Lee Kyung-hoon.

The problem was before that.

He had to survive the contest period that was right in front of him.

He had to stop him from interfering and lead him to success.

At the same time, he had to prepare to completely destroy him.

He needed to move more busily.

“Shall we go?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Yoo-hyun walked with determination.

Once he decided, he never backed down.

It was the same in his new life.