Choi Minsu Never Apologized First to a Customer

Choi Minsu never said sorry first in front of a client.

He knew that once an apology entered the room, the deal turned into a feeling, and a deal that turned into a feeling left no record of who had paid the cost.

"Shipment got pulled up two days." Minsu said, switching off the screen in the purchasing team's conference room. "If we can't make that, it means giving back part of the advance payment."

Taegyeong looked at Lee Jeongwu, the counterpart from the client company. Jeongwu wasn't playing the villain. His own factory's production plan had changed, rumors had reached him that Hanrim Tech was reviewing a new structure, and so he was someone asking again about delivery dates and who was responsible.

"Is this a full cancellation?" Taegyeong asked.

"No. We'll take only the quantity you can actually process. But we need the advance payment back for whatever can't ship. Our assembly line stops too."

Minsu turned his laptop around. One cutting machine, Dongho's jig, two assembly stations, three inspectors. The names Jiseok had written down yesterday were sitting right there on the delivery schedule.

"If we stay within this scope, we can do half the quantity." Minsu said. "You're free to cancel the rest. I'll write down the refund amount and refund date right now."

Jeongwu's eyebrows moved. "You're saying we don't have to hand over the full order?"

"That's the correct terms. Taking on the full amount and then missing the delivery costs more."

Taegyeong felt those words scrape something inside him. The old him would have said he wouldn't lose the order. He would have promised to run the equipment harder, put more people on it, ship it out no matter what. But on the schedule in front of him now, next to each person's name was written "awaiting choice." Neither Dongho nor the other workers had signed on to the new work yet.

"Please disclose the refund terms." Taegyeong said. "And we'll write the quantity we can actually handle as a separate line in the contract."

Jeongwu looked at Minsu. "Your CEO is saying this himself."

"We decided not to make promises the CEO doesn't know about."

Jeongwu thought for a moment, then nodded to his purchasing manager. Half the quantity, a two day delivery, a refund of the advance for the unshipped portion. The client signed with a choice in hand. Hanrim Tech hadn't held onto the whole order, but it also hadn't written down anything bigger than what it could promise.

Outside the conference room, Minsu said, "That doesn't mean the client promised not to leave."

"I know."

"Still, if we hand over the right to cancel first, next time they'll at least remember we didn't hide anything."

Taegyeong nodded. Minsu wasn't someone who grabbed a client by the ankle to prove his loyalty. He was someone who held onto only the deals he could put his own name on.

On the way down to the parking lot, Minsu slowed his steps. When the elevator doors closed, he took out his phone and showed it to Taegyeong. On the screen was a message from a contact at another supplier. "Confirming availability for this batch."

"They already reached out to our client too." Minsu said. "That's not something I can stop."

Taegyeong looked at the screen for a moment and handed it back. "I know."

"If you tell me to hold onto the client, I could do it. Talk like our schedule's already locked in, make it hard for them to cancel."

"Don't do that."

Minsu put the phone back in his pocket. "I'll keep that on record. Later, if we lose the order, you can't say it's because I wasn't loyal."

"I won't say that."

"Words alone aren't enough." Minsu pointed to the blank space at the bottom of the delivery sheet. "Available quantity, refund terms, the date the client chose. There should be a line showing you confirmed it too."

Taegyeong hesitated for a moment. Putting his name on a sales document wasn't the same as an approval. That line closed off the hole where responsibility could be dodged if the quantity fell through later. But it was also the same thing he'd been learning since morning. If you don't write down whose choice it was, eventually everyone calls someone else's choice their own loss.

He took the pen Minsu held out and wrote his initials under the date.

"What I confirmed is that we let the client choose. Not that you promised to hold onto the client."

Minsu didn't fold the paper. He put it straight into the file. "That's enough."

Before the afternoon meeting started, Taegyeong went to the materials warehouse behind the factory. Boxes from three suppliers were stacked along the wall. The same parts carried different dates and different stamps depending on the box. Kim Mijeong was standing in front of them, counting quantities.

"Is this for the next order?" Taegyeong asked.

"We don't know whose order it's for yet." Mijeong said. "These are materials we already received under the existing corporate entity. If we want to use them for the new work, we might need the supplier's consent. If we use them and the return terms change later, the books get tangled."

Taegyeong opened one of the boxes. Small, sturdy parts sat packed inside, compartment by compartment. He'd always thought a factory got shaken by big machines and big money, but what actually stopped work were these small pieces of metal.

"So what can we use right now?"

Mijeong pointed to only one of the three boxes. "This one just needs a reconfirmation within two days. The rest need an answer from the supplier first."

"If we use this, does it push back another order?"

"It's possible. So we need to write down first which order it's going to."

Taegyeong nodded. Every rescue came with a budget attached. Not just money, but a budget for deciding which order got a given piece of material first. To save the order that had been left half-filled today, they had to give up time somewhere else.

He told Mijeong, "Write two columns for each supplier. What we can receive right now, and what we'd have to give up to receive it. Don't hide it, bring it to the meeting."

Mijeong looked at him, surprised, then started writing numbers. Next to "available" she added quantity and time, next to "pending" she attached the name of whoever needed to consent. The memo read as dry as any factory report, but to Taegyeong it looked like a way to keep the work moving without choking anyone.

At the creditors' meeting, the chart Sanghun had put up had grown wider than before. Client refunds, materials on hold, worker choices, equipment usage. Each cell listed a person in charge and a deadline. The creditors' representative read through the chart for a long moment before speaking.

"You're asking us to let your factory line things up in order. If that doesn't happen, we start recovery proceedings."

"It's not enough to just line up the factory." Taegyeong said. "Let's line up whose money each line uses, too."

"That takes time."

"Going back to personal guarantees would be faster. But then no one would know how far that money actually reaches on this chart."

Someone sighed. Taegyeong didn't ask whether that sigh was aimed at him or at how long the meeting had run. Instead he thought of the boxes he'd seen in the materials warehouse. If you mixed things together out of urgency, eventually you couldn't tell whose money was whose or which portion belonged to the new order.

The creditors' representative ended up granting one more day. But he attached a condition. By the same time tomorrow, submit each supplier's delivery availability and recovery terms, along with whether the factory workers were choosing to take on the new work.

Walking out of the conference room, Sanghun said quietly, "We bought some time."

"Time isn't free." Taegyeong said, looking at the red numbers on the chart. "If we can't deliver tomorrow, that's just more debt on top."

That evening, when he called Dongho, the ringtone went three times.

"I'll talk to the workers tomorrow." Dongho said first.

"About what."

"Whether I'll lend out the jig, who I'll work with. Don't tell me to fall in line just because it's our father's factory."

Taegyeong looked out the window. Trucks passed by on the wet road. A few of them weren't heading toward Hanrim Tech.

"Fine. You decide."

"It's not just me deciding. I'm going to ask the people I'll be working with."

Even after he hung up, Taegyeong couldn't set the receiver down for a while. Those words weren't an order to save the factory. But for the first time, someone was saying he wouldn't give up his own right to choose in order to save it.

In the afternoon creditors' meeting, that deal was immediately translated into shrinking cash. Sanghun put the chart up on the wall. Money coming in, money to be returned, functions that would disappear if they stopped, items that had to be decided within fourteen hours. Someone spoke up.

"The factory's orders have dropped and you're still reviewing splitting off functions? Right now we need to put in more normalization funds."

"Who's putting it in?" Sanghun asked.

"The CEO could..."

Taegyeong didn't wait for the rest of the sentence. "If I put my house on the line, where does that money get used first?"

The room went quiet. Sanghun pointed to a line on the chart. Existing unpaid wages had already been paid out. But the remaining borrowed funds, the factory's outstanding debt, and the material costs for the new order were still money that shouldn't be mixed together.

"If money put in through a personal guarantee gets used for both existing debt and the new order at the same time, no one will be able to tell what saved what." Sanghun said. "What we need right now isn't a bigger promise. It's confirming which function stopping means which money disappears."

The creditors' representative demanded delivery availability and recovery terms for each supplier within 24 hours. Taegyeong's factory was no exception. The factory was no longer something that could be put off based only on Taegyeong's own circumstances.

After the meeting ended, Taegyeong called Dongho. The ringtone went on for a long time.

"I'll talk to the workers tomorrow." Dongho said first.

"About what."

"Whether I'll lend out the jig, who I'll work with. Don't tell me to fall in line just because it's our father's factory."

Taegyeong looked out the window. Trucks passed by on the wet road. A few of them weren't heading toward Hanrim Tech.

"Fine. You decide."

"It's not just me deciding. I'm going to ask the people I'll be working with."

Even after he hung up, Taegyeong couldn't set the receiver down for a while. Those words weren't an order to save the factory. But for the first time, someone was saying he wouldn't give up his own right to choose in order to save it.

That night, a file arrived from Minsu. Delivery dates by client, refund terms, alternate suppliers, the quantity Hanrim Tech could actually take on. At the end of the file were Minsu's name and the time it was written. He hadn't hidden the file, and he'd also written down exactly how far his own responsibility went.

Taegyeong stared at the screen for a long time, then marked the calendar for tomorrow's visit to the workshop. He knew now that there was something he needed to hear before any board vote.