The Address on the Departing Order

The core order left at ten in the morning.

Baek Narin read the short email from the client three times. "Existing specifications switching to a competitor. Remaining plain packaging to be discussed separately." The reason for the rejection wasn't long. Just that they'd found somewhere that could ship today.

Taegyeong hadn't seen the email. The fact that the client had left showed up on the cash sheet before it ever reached a screen in the meeting room. When the accounting officer erased the projected amount for the foil pouch order, the thin line remaining before payday grew thinner again.

"How short are we?" Narin asked.

The accounting officer adjusted the figures again before answering. "We can't call it a shortfall yet for certain. It depends on the remaining plain packaging and next week's supplier negotiations."

"Then can't we just ask the client for more time on delivery?"

Taegyeong asked, "More time for what?"

"Until the foil line is running again."

"Should the client wait without knowing about the defect?"

Narin folded the printed email in her hand. "If we tell them everything's a defect, the customers we still have will leave too."

"I'm not saying tell them everything. But we need to say why we can't confirm supply, and what alternatives exist."

"If we tell them the alternatives, we're sending them straight to the competitor."

"If we hide a choice the client already has, next time they won't believe anything we say either."

Narin heard that and stood up from her chair. She didn't take down the brand samples on the meeting room wall. Instead she turned the foremost foil box over. Its shining logo now faced the table.

"That client didn't know our company was in trouble."

"You don't have to say what they don't need to know," Taegyeong said. "But you can't tell them we're making something we can't make today."

She started writing a new email to the client. The first sentence was, "Delivery is delayed due to equipment inspection." Taegyeong looked at the screen but didn't correct it right away. Narin stopped partway through the second sentence.

"An inspection alone isn't enough."

She deleted the first sentence. "We cannot confirm supply of the foil specification because the safety review has not concluded." She continued. "If you would like an alternative supplier for the same specification, we can provide contact information. Small quantities of plain packaging can be discussed under separate terms."

The accounting officer drew in a breath. "We're giving them that contact ourselves?"

Narin lifted her hands off the keyboard. "It's better than this client asking later why we hid it."

"Then the order is definitely gone."

"It's already gone," Narin said. "What I'm doing today is not leaving even the reason it left as a lie."

Taegyeong watched her press send. The way a CEO holds on to a client remained even at the moment of letting go. Except today it wasn't a promise that the client would come back, but a record of the fact that the client could choose another path.

On the floor, Oh Jiseok stood in front of the shift board. The workers who had put up "recheck" magnets yesterday arrived one by one. One said they could only work mornings, another said they could work if it was plain packaging. Jiseok sent no one toward the foil line.

"Today we're only doing two plain packaging jobs," he said. "Even if more orders come in, we won't use time that isn't on the board."

The floor foreman asked quietly, "Even with the client gone?"

"Because the client is gone."

Jiseok left the "unassigned" magnet on the night slot as it was. Just because that slot was empty didn't mean that time was free.

Taegyeong looked back and forth between the cash sheet and the shift board. Fewer orders meant less reason to add people. But fewer orders didn't mean he could cut the hours of people who had already come to work without any explanation. He had the accounting officer log today's work hours and standby hours separately.

"Is standby time a cost too?" the accounting officer asked.

"It's a cost the company chose today."

Narin frowned when she heard that. "It's a cost that happened because we couldn't get the work."

"It's also a cost that happened because we chose to wait for the safety review."

"Am I supposed to be responsible for all of it?"

Taegyeong didn't answer right away. The detour the CEO had approved, and the exhibition's advance sales, were clearly Narin's responsibility. But if he tied the time the workers had put in today and the competitor's pricing all to one person's morality, no one would ever tell the truth again.

"The CEO bears responsibility for explaining. But the maintenance delay, the floor workaround, the client's choice, and today's costs each need to be recorded separately."

Narin didn't nod. Instead she made a new column on the right side of the cash sheet. "CEO to explain." Underneath it she wrote client, employees, supplier. She left the rest of the columns blank.

"What do we tell the employees?" the accounting officer asked.

Narin answered while looking at that column. "That the foil order fell through. That this week's work might shrink because of it. And that we won't take it back until the safety review is done."

"Do we mention the competitor?"

"That's the client's choice to make. I don't want to make the employees badmouth the competitor."

Taegyeong didn't record that answer. Instead he drafted a separate notice to show the workers. The drop in orders, the processes currently possible, tomorrow's recheck time, and the upcoming update to the wage sheet. He left out any apology from the CEO or the competitor's name. Feelings couldn't substitute for facts, and the client's name wasn't information the floor needed.

Jiseok read the notice and revised one line. Under "work may decrease" he added, "individual available hours are to be chosen again by each person on the board."

"Why add this?" Narin asked.

"Because just because orders dropped doesn't mean someone who was available today automatically becomes unavailable tomorrow."

"Then we can't even cut headcount."

"Because headcount isn't a number."

That remark made the accounting officer uncomfortable. He'd been calculating how many hours of labor cost would be left on the cash sheet. Jiseok didn't deny that calculation. He just thought that if you stripped the name off the person whose hours were being cut, the cost might drop, but the decision itself wouldn't remain anywhere.

Before the afternoon shift ended, Narin read the notice in front of the floor. Her voice was smooth at first. Words like "operational adjustment" and "temporary scope" came out at length. One worker raised a hand.

"So are we coming in tomorrow or not?"

Narin looked down at the paper. There was no room for brand language in that question.

"We'll check again on the board tomorrow morning. I won't promise anything today that I can't promise right now."

"What about wages?"

"I'll record confirmed work hours based on today. I won't hide the parts that shrink, and I'll speak again after tomorrow's cash sheet update."

The workers didn't nod. Still, someone put up "recheck" on the board, and someone else put up "not available." Watching those magnets, Narin saw for the first time that her own notice wasn't a document that held people, but one that let them slip away.

Taegyeong told the accounting officer to get a client confirmation before entering today's small order deposit into the wage sheet. A low unit price wasn't a reason to dismiss it outright as a bad deal. But if they used an order that could still be canceled as if it were confirmed cash, it would end up being no different from the exhibition's advance sales.

"What if the confirmation is late?" the accounting officer asked.

"Then that money doesn't exist yet."

Narin lowered her head at that. This time she didn't push back. On the day they lost a client, erasing even money that hadn't arrived yet felt too slow, but it was the furthest she could explain things that day.

Around lunchtime, an answer came back from the plain packaging client. They wanted to keep the minimum order quantity but lower the unit price further. The accounting officer said to reject it right away. At that price, after packaging materials and shipping, there was almost nothing left.

"Taking it is a loss," he said.

"And not taking it?" Narin asked.

"Today's and tomorrow's work shrink even more."

Taegyeong looked over the profit and loss sheet. A low unit price wasn't the answer that would save the company. But if it was a volume that fit within the day shift hours the workers had already agreed to, it could still be a small cash flow for wages and safety parts.

"We can accept it if we change the terms," he said. "Plain packaging only, only the hours already on today's board, no additional night shift, and specification changes ship only after client confirmation."

Narin asked, "Would the client accept terms like that?"

"If they don't, we don't get it."

She picked up her phone. This time Taegyeong didn't write out the sentences for her. Narin called the client directly and said they would accept the lower unit price in exchange for a reduced production scope. The call wasn't long. After a while the client agreed to confirm only the small quantity.

The accounting officer shook his head. "It's hard to even call this revenue."

Narin said, "Then let's call today not a revenue day, but a day for confirming what we can actually do."

That sentence bothered Taegyeong too. Because it could turn into the kind of line the company used to deceive itself. He added right away.

"And we log the costs alongside it. The unit price loss, the standby time, the safety parts."

Narin laughed briefly. "You always attach an invoice right after a nice sentence."

"Without that invoice, next time no one knows who pays for it."

At three in the afternoon, a photo of a delivery the competitor's rep had sent to the client showed up in the group chat. Boxes in almost the same color as the foil pouches Narin Packaging used to make were stacked on a pallet. The client left a check mark on the photo.

Narin didn't close the screen. "It's over."

"That order," Taegyeong said.

"That order is over."

She didn't deny it any further. Instead, next to the client's name in the CEO explanation column, she wrote "notice completed." The accounting officer completely erased the projected revenue column for the foil line. Where the number used to be, only the number of days left until the next payday remained.

Jiseok didn't take down the magnets of the workers who had finished today's work from the shift board. He moved them to the "completed" column. Beside them, tomorrow's "recheck" magnets remained. It was a sign that even though one order had left, he wasn't going to let someone's whole day disappear along with it automatically.

Watching the board, Taegyeong said to Narin, "Don't sell the foil line to the next client."

"I know."

"Knowing it and putting it in writing on a notice are two different things."

Narin looked up. "Then I'll revise tomorrow's notice myself."

She had lost a client, and the cash had grown thinner. But she hadn't chosen the path of hiding the defect from the client while simply extending the delivery date. The box the competitor had taken away was gone, but the authority to reopen the foil line still wasn't in anyone's hands.