Chapter 179 – 179. Team Leader Kim Mi-Young

Tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap tap.

The quiet office was filled only with the sound of keyboards, but even the employees who seemed to be working diligently were glancing at their watches and then looking at someone, gauging the situation.

The time was 5:54 PM, and the end of the workday was approaching, but any office worker would know.

If the highest-ranking superior in the office doesn’t leave, it’s natural to feel awkward about leaving.

Especially in large corporations like the Choi Han Group, where employees receive very high salaries, they’re expected to work two to three times more than others, so there are hardly any departments that leave work on time.

“It’s almost time to go home. Everyone, finish up what you’re doing and head out.”

“Yes, understood.”

The employees of Sales Team 3, except for the team leader, were happy that they could leave work early today and began to quickly finish their tasks.

To be precise, they already knew that the team leader would tell them to leave, so the subordinates, who had already finished most of their work, quickly tidied up and got up from their seats.

“See you tomorrow.”

“I’ll head out first.”

“See you all tomorrow~”

One by one, they got up from their seats and left work, while the team leader was still sitting at her desk, working alone.

It was a common sight in Sales Team 3. The team leader worked the longest and left the latest, but no one said anything.

The sales department was performing reasonably well, so no one had any reason to complain, and leaving work earlier than others had become routine.

Employees from other departments looked on with a bit of envy, but their own team leaders seemed like they had no intention of going home after fighting with their wives yesterday, so they were forced to work overtime again today.

As time passed, employees from other departments also left work one by one, but only the team leader of Sales Team 3, who had left the earliest, remained until the end, working.

“Hoo… I think that’s enough… Ugh!”

She stretched and made a sound to relieve her stiff body, but all the other employees had already left.

Team Leader Kim Mi-young of Sales Team 3, who could relax without worrying about others, looked at her watch.

“9:30 PM… I’m leaving a bit early today.”

She had stayed behind to work even after everyone else had left, and now she was finishing up and getting up from her seat.

If she had delegated the work to other team members, it could have been finished with about 30 minutes of overtime, but she had deliberately taken it all on herself, not because she was kind or a pushover.

It was simply to subtly change the ideas that other team members had come up with into her own work by taking on most of the processing.

In a way, it was an act of stealing other people’s ideas, but she had quickly risen to the position of team leader using this method.

Even though she was still young at 33, the reason she was able to get promoted so quickly was because she was good at using both carrots and sticks, and she worked late into the night as if it were a daily routine.

Her peers were still at the level of section chief, or for the faster ones, deputy general manager, and some of her less capable peers were still at the level of assistant manager.

She was the only one who had been promoted so quickly, and even with this method of stealing ideas, no one on her team complained because, while the ideas themselves were from other team members, she was the one who handled most of the work.

The team members who had come up with the ideas or could come up with them were living a satisfying life, receiving higher salaries than others for less intense work and leaving work early.

Instead, the team leader, who took good ideas as her own, had thrown away work-life balance and took responsibility for the work, ensuring the work-life balance of her team members.

While other team members might not get promoted or have good performance reviews later, these days, employees are more interested in a free and relaxed life, so they are satisfied.

It was a win-win strategy, and that was why her team members had much higher job satisfaction than other departments.

Of course, she had almost given up her daily life because of it, but for her, who aimed to go higher and faster, her current life was more satisfying.

“Well, shall I go?”

It was dark after everyone else had left, but for her, who had never left work while the sun was still up since joining the company, the night was more familiar.

After tidying up, she went downstairs, and the security guard in the lobby greeted her with a smile.

“You’re leaving late again today.”

“I’m more used to leaving at this time now. Here, have a drink while you work.”

“Oh… Thank you!… By the way, this weekend…”

“Well, have a good night.”

They exchanged friendly greetings, but as soon as the conversation tried to move into a personal area, she cut it off sharply and left the company.

To others, it might seem like they were close, but the reality was completely different.

She had deliberately become friendly with him for her own benefit, but it wasn’t because she particularly liked him.

The security guard was always in the lobby, so he was in a position to quickly know when an important person came or if something happened, which allowed her to get information faster.

Especially since other executives or the president sometimes came to the company late at night, it was a good opportunity to score points, so she was friendly with the security guard, even though she didn’t particularly like him.

“The person who was here before was good because he didn’t try to approach me so openly… It’s a bit of a shame.”

For some reason, the security guard, who had been a good source of information, had been fired overnight, so she had to make new connections with another security guard.

“Well, it’s the weekend now, so I should rest.”

She could be called a workaholic, so it might seem like she would work even on the weekends, but in reality, she minimized work or didn’t do any at all on the weekends.

Since she worked late every day during the week and woke up early to go to work, she was very tired, so she tried to relax as much as possible on the weekends.

Of course, she was always prepared to go to work immediately if there was work at the company, which was a very tiring life for others to see, but she had been working harder than anyone else to achieve the goal she had set since she was a child.

‘Even if it’s hard, I have to do this much to become the president.’

Others might say that it was a bit too much, but she had been preparing for this goal for almost 20 years.

Mi-young first decided that she would become the president of a large corporation when she was in middle school.

She was no different from other kids, but when a transfer student came to her middle school, she realized for the first time that there were people living in a different world than her.

Even though they were the same age, the transfer student wore, lived in, and rode in things that were completely different. It was the first time she had seen someone from the top 1%, and what she felt was a sense of emptiness.

Mi-young had never been dissatisfied with her life because she lived in a relatively good family, but when she went to the house of her transfer student friend, she realized that there was a different level of life.

Her house was several times bigger and more luxurious than her own, and there were housekeepers who took care of the house, which was the life of the upper class.

The cosmetics that she had begged her mother for days to buy, which cost several hundred thousand won, were just ordinary cosmetics in her friend’s house.

The transfer student’s father was an executive director at the Choi Han Group headquarters, so she lived a different kind of life, which was enough to make her feel jealous and envious.

Normally, people would just feel envious and jealous after seeing such a different life, but from that moment on, Mi-young had a goal in life.

She would climb to a higher position…

From then on, she studied like crazy and always ranked in the top three in her school. She went to the best university, obtained various certifications and qualifications that companies wanted, and confidently joined the Choi Han Group headquarters at the age of 25. She then worked even harder and was promoted to the position of team leader at an incredibly fast pace.

She had worked so hard that her mother would sometimes fight with her, telling her to please rest when she was studying in her student days.

Even so, she didn’t stop and rose to the top faster than anyone else, but she was still not satisfied.

“At this rate, I think I can get promoted to executive within a few years… The problem is after that.”

It was very difficult to become an executive, but it was possible for someone with her abilities and frequent outstanding performance.

However, climbing higher than that was very difficult for her.

No matter how good her performance was, this country was not a place where people were evaluated solely on their abilities.

Without connections, such as school ties, regional ties, or family ties, it was almost impossible to climb to the position of president, even if you were promoted to an executive position.

That’s why Mi-young was trying to make a good impression on the executives, not just focusing on her work.

Thanks to that, quite a few capable executives had a good opinion of her, and she didn’t have to worry too much about being promoted to executive.

“I need to rest for now…”

She was working tirelessly to reach the position of president, but she was still human, so rest was important.

Since tomorrow was the weekend, she would be able to sleep for more than six hours for the first time in a while, and she fell into a deep sleep.

(Team Leader Kim Mi-young!!!!)