Part 2. Article 1, Section 1. Friendships Grow Stronger Over Time

　　The Taejang Electronics Digital Lifestyle (DL) Unit’s headquarters towered right between Gangnam and Yeoksam Stations.

　　The head of the department on the seventh floor was General Manager Gye Taesik, who had a rather uncommon surname. In spoken Korean, the difference between “Gye” and “Gae” (dog) was barely noticeable. Probably why he had no idea that people called him General Manager Mutt more than they did Gye.

　　Today was the start of another day at the company, just like yesterday, the day before, and the week before that. Amid the soothing ASMR of typing and occasional phone calls in the quiet office, Iho reviewed the issues that had come in overnight.

　　“Song! Where are you, Song?!”

　　The general manager’s yelling shattered the peace, echoing loudly well before the man reached Iho’s desk. Which gave Iho just enough time to save his work before he stood up.

　　“Yes, sir?”

　　“Did you even check the code before you sent it to me?!”

　　Gye was being so loud that even the copier in the next office could tell Dev Team Lead Song Iho was getting chewed out by General Manager Mutt this morning.

　　If it had been anyone else, they would have asked if there was a problem at this point. But the head of the dev team just output the facts in response to the question.

　　“Yes, sir. I did.”

　　“Are you sure?”

　　Iho had thoroughly verified that every single function worked without issue. There were no errors.

　　“Yes.”

　　“Wow! Unbelievable. Pull up the code! We’ll see if you bothered to check it!”

　　Iho opened the code and ran the compiler as told. It compiled the build without any issue, displaying the exact screen he had checked earlier.

　　“No, not that! The code!”

　　Code that spanned hundreds of thousands of lines in total, in which the general manager searched for the word “lunch.” The moment Iho saw the result, his head began to spin. Ugh…

　　…
if (!request) {return;}

　　//What’s for lunch today?
/*Brown rice, mallow soybean paste soup, grilled Pacific sand lance (yangmiri), rolled omelet, seafood meatballs, yogurt.
Omg, they’re serving sheep’s heads (yangmeori)? How do you even eat that…?
Not sheep’s heads, sand lance! It’s a fish lololol*/

　　The codebase was shared across the entire development team. He knew his team members occasionally messed around in the comments, but he never imagined something like this would still be in there.

　　Since it was just a note completely unrelated to functionality, it made sense that Iho had missed it. He had only bothered to check whether the final build worked, not what his team left in the comments.

　　“You think work is some kind of game? Huh? No wonder your whole team acts like this. Their team lead’s always trying to take the easy way out! What’s the point of finishing your work if you screw up something like this?!”

　　“…I’m sorry, sir.”

　　It was like turning in a finished product with a doodled-on sticky note accidentally left on it. If there was anything unfair about the situation, it was that this was closer to an interim report than a final delivery.

　　What else could he do but lower his head? As the barrage of criticism drifted further and further off-topic, a set of footsteps slowly approached. Cha Mingyu, the head of the neighboring team, peered over Gye’s shoulder to look at Iho.

　　“…”

　　Taking in the scene, Mingyu moonwalked back to his chair like a smooth criminal.

　　“Ahem.”

　　You’re insane.

　　Fortunately, it looked like Iho was just stifling a cough, so the general manager only raised an eyebrow. Even so, his ordeal was far from over. Iho desperately sucked in his gut as he swallowed the laugh threatening to burst out. Because he was trying so hard to hold it in, the department head’s lecture failed to register. Something about managing his team members, probably.

　　Noticing Iho glance past his shoulder, the general manager turned around. All he saw was Marketing Team Lead Cha Mingyu, playing the part of the perfect model employee.

　　“Cha, get over here and take a look at this!”

　　“Huh?”

　　As Mingyu stood up and walked over, Gye pointed at the offending screen. And so, Mingyu was given the cafeteria menu from a certain day last week.

　　“Sand lance (yangmiri)… Sheep’s heads (yangmeori)…”

　　A sigh too quiet for anyone else to hear slipped from Mingyu’s lips. The glance he threw at Iho carried a silent question. How on earth did you get caught up in this so early in the morning?

　　“You really crossed the line this time, Iho. Why’d you put the lunch menu in here? I mean, how many years of experience did you have again? How can you still fail to separate business from personal matters? And it’s not like you even go to the cafeteria that often.”

　　“Wait, Cha.”

　　“And I mean. You’re a grown man, Iho. It’s kind of embarrassing that you can’t tell a sand lance (yangmiri) from a sheep’s head (yangmeori). I can’t tell if it’s because you lack the brains to do a quick search, or if it’s because you’re too biased to broaden your horizons.”

　　Over the partition, one of the dev team members turned beet red with their head hung low like they were about to cry.

　　“Um. Cha. That’s not the point. I wasn’t chewing out Song for writing that comment. I was chewing him out because the comment wasn’t deleted before the code got sent up. Song didn’t write it. It was one of his team members.”

　　“Oh. Really?”

　　Mingyu put on an exaggerated show of surprise and patted Iho on the back.

　　“Apologies. I don’t know the first thing about code, so I had no idea what was going on. My bad, Iho.”

　　“Fat lot of good you are. Go back to your desk.”

　　Once Mingyu went back to his desk, Gye was just about to lecture Iho again, only to end up snapping at Mingyu in the back instead.

　　“And stop ruining morale!”

　　“I’m sorry, sir.”

　　Mingyu lazily bowed his head in feigned apology. Clicking his tongue, Gye let out an annoyed sigh and glanced at Iho. After watching Mingyu make a fuss over something so trivial, he felt sheepish about his own behavior.

　　“Look. Just be careful, Song. You know I’m only tough on you because I have high expectations, right?”

　　“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

　　“Ahem. Alright, then. Get back to work.”

　　A storm had swept through first thing in the morning, deepening the dev team’s usual gloom.

　　“Sorry, Iho… I should have looked it over one last time…”

　　Assistant Manager Kim, supervisor for the newest hire, peered over the partition.

　　“It’s fine.”

　　Iho waved a dismissive hand. As annoyed as he was over how badly he’d just been chewed out, it would be silly to single someone out and reprimand them. Compared to a critical bug blowing up somewhere, this was nothing.

　　“I mean, we’re nowhere near the final release… and this wasn’t even a proper interim report… Why’s the Mutt making such a fuss over a comment in a test build…?”

　　The quiet complaint drifted over from another corner of the office.

　　…Tell me about it.

　　To be honest, as much as Iho sometimes thought it was stupid to be making fun of someone’s name, especially their surname, at age thirty-three? At times like this, he couldn’t help repeating “Mutt” in his head.

　　“You all heard him. Keep the personal chatter out of the code from now on. …Understood, Taegyeong?”

　　“Y-Yes, sir…!”

　　Startled by the callout, the culprit behind the comment bolted upright. Iho had only spoken up because the poor kid had kept his head down the whole time, but it had backfired on him.

　　Truth be told, this wasn’t the first time he’d warned them to keep small talk out of the comments. Of course, back then, it had been a polite recommendation from Iho. Not that it stopped them. His team usually scrubbed the comments clean before submitting the code to him. Hence why Iho hadn’t thought to double-check this time.

　　And it wasn’t like it was anything inappropriate, now that he thought about it. It was just cute chatter, so why all the yelling? Once the dust settled, resentment over the pointless scolding started flaring up. Why crush his team’s morale? It’s not like they had any energy left to spare. Amidst the silence, Iho closed his laptop and got up from his seat.

　　“I’m heading out for a meeting.”

　　“Oh. Did you have something scheduled, Iho?”

　　“Yeah. The dev team leads agreed to a meetup.”

　　There were still about thirty minutes left, but leaving early would give his team room to vent about the general manager or cheer Taegyeong up and lighten the mood. Hanging around after getting that mouthful from Gye would only drag out the awkward silence.

　　As Iho walked past the marketing team, his eyes briefly met Mingyu’s. Mingyu scrunched up his nose, to which Iho narrowed his eyes in return before turning away.

　　“Looks like the two team leaders are having another staring contest…”

　　Iho didn’t hear the quiet murmur as he left the office, but Mingyu caught it and smirked.

　　“Oh, Mr. Song, you’re here early.”

　　“Good morning.”

　　Team Lead Kim took a seat two chairs away from Iho.

　　As part of some sort of initiative to improve corporate culture, employees in the DL Division were encouraged to address each other by their given names rather than job titles. The idea was to prevent new hires from feeling intimidated by the corporate hierarchy.

　　And while this was strictly enforced around the office, dropping titles in executive meetings drew intense glares. More accurately, nobody dared to even try it. Thus, everyone from manager on down was shielded by PR, executives were shielded by raw power, and middle management was left to fend for themselves.

　　As a result, a convoluted rule emerged for team leaders. No given names for anyone who attended executive meetings, like, say, their peers or superiors, and address everyone else by their given names.

　　The two weren’t particularly close, and in the awkward silence, both simply tapped on their phones. About three minutes past the scheduled time, Team Lead Nam walked in.

　　“Oh, hey.”

　　“Hey. Sorry I’m a bit late.”

　　“Hello, Mr. Nam.”

　　Nam exchanged a casual greeting with Kim, who had joined the company at the same time, then gave Iho a small nod upon noticing him nearby.

　　“Hey, Song. Looks like you had a rough morning. What was the Mutt’s problem?”

　　As expected, everyone in the building had heard Gye’s booming voice. Rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, Iho replied that his team members had messed around in the comments.

　　“What did they write? Don’t tell me… Were they badmouthing him behind his back?”

　　“No. I heard everything when Cha jumped in. They were just messing around with the cafeteria menu to see what was for lunch.”

　　“Ugh, seriously? That’s what he was yelling about…? He could’ve just given a polite warning. And why did Cha butt in to pick a fight?”

　　“If you ask me, pulling that on Song is just his way of discriminating against special hires. Acting all superior just because he came in through open recruitment.”

　　“Oh, I get it. Weird hill to die on. Who cares how we got hired? We’re all corporate slaves anyway. No point in trying to divide ourselves into castes. Right, Song?”

　　“Haha…”

　　Well… He couldn’t say people like that didn’t exist, but…

　　“I… doubt that was why Cha jumped in.”

　　“Huh?”

　　The other two team leads gave Iho puzzled looks, confused about why he was taking Cha’s side.

　　“Er, well… Given how busy he always is, I doubt he has the time to care about stuff like that.”

　　The two team leads exchanged glances before shrugging.

　　“True. He might just be picking a fight for no reason. He’s super strict about his work.”

　　“If it was code that Mr. Gye could read, I’m guessing it was for the company’s online store? He was the one who dumped that on you in the first place. You really have it rough.”

　　Because the DL Division was newly established, it was run somewhat haphazardly at times. For instance, management of the company’s retail site server had ended up with the software development team… Gye had just dumped it on them without warning, saying, “Hey, Song, I heard you worked on that back in R&D. The code’s all the same, right?”

　　“Comments don’t even affect the code. Or does the Mutt not know that?”

　　“No way. He probably got chewed out somewhere else today and was just taking it out.”

　　“He might actually not know. The number of people here who can’t read a single line of code is higher than you’d think…”

　　The three of them, now more fluent in Java than Korean, looked thoroughly perplexed.

　　It was through Mingyu that Iho had learned there were quite a few people in the world who couldn’t read a single line of code. Aside from him, most of Iho’s circle consisted of people just like himself.

　　“Guess that’s why this came down.”

　　Kim pointed to the inbox on his screen. The other two had received the exact same email on the same day.

　　Taejang Electronics offered various programs in the name of employee welfare. The gym on the fifteenth floor was one example, along with subsidies for company clubs and in-house lectures.

　　And behind the perks that left new hires in awe… lay the quiet erosion of someone else’s peaceful work life. A fact that the new hires would learn in ten years, once they had more experience under their belts.

　　[FW: Regarding Basic Coding Classes]

　　In this day and age, there was nothing wrong with non-majors learning the basics of coding. It was a good idea, all things considered.

　　Well, other than the fact that the higher-ups were asking for an instructor from among the dev team leads, who were already up to their necks in work.

　　A heavy silence fell over the three men who found themselves standing at the edge of this exasperating cliff. One of them had to be shoved over the edge into the misery below, and so Kim nudged Nam to take one for the team.

　　“Hey, Jinyeong. Didn’t your team just wrap up a project? You have some time to spare, right?”

　　“Are you nuts? I’ve been juggling two projects ever since that order came down. I’m still busy as hell.”

　　Nam refused Kim’s request with a deadpan glare. As the two casually bickered back and forth, Iho quietly sipped his Americano.

　　“Wait. Didn’t you TA a lot of classes in grad school, Song?”

　　Nam’s remark caught Iho off guard. Just as Kim and Nam were about to exchange a conspiratorial look, Iho hurriedly interjected.

　　“My advisor mainly handled third-year and fourth-year courses, so they weren’t exactly introductory…”

　　“Come on, what does that matter? A lecture by a Hanguk University PhD graduate! Like, that’s practically a free major course. You’ll get tons of applicants.”