NOVEL NEXT Chapter 246
Chapter 246. Foundation Seoul Branch IT Support Team (2)
The team leader of the IT Support Team at the Foundation Seoul Branch, Kim Do-su, let out a sigh. The support team wasn’t a department with many decisions to make, but there was something he needed to teach the new employee.
“Today, I’ll tell you about the ritual.”
“Ritual?”
The team leader nodded.
“First, the most important ritual in our team. You’ll experience it more than ten times a day. Memorize it without missing a single word.”
“Okay.”
“When another department calls for help, listen carefully to what the person on the other end says, and without hesitation, recite the next sentence without skipping a single word.”
“Okay.”
The magical sentence.
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
The new employee frowned, but there wasn’t a hint of irony in the team leader’s eyes.
“Well, wouldn’t they have already tried that?”
“No… no. It doesn’t matter if they’re a director, a guy building killer robots, or a computer science Ph.D. These people never try turning their computers off and on.”
“Is that so?”
“Actually, it’s a good thing. If they call the IT Support Team and perform the ritual of turning it off and on, 80% of the problems are solved.”
“Why?”
“You must not anger the machine gods.”
“I see.”
“No, I’m not joking. You can’t just turn the computer off and on. The ritual must be precise. The machines need to feel respected.”
“Okay…”
Why don’t they believe me when I’m serious?
The team leader pondered further.
“People who work with machines professionally all know this. Have you heard of the Gremlin Effect?”
“When machines break down for no reason.”
The team leader nodded.
“To fix a machine that’s broken for no reason, you need to perform a ritual. Whether it’s calling the IT team or offering chicken blood.”
“Chicken blood?”
Why don’t they believe me? The team leader scratched his head. People don’t believe until they try it. The Gremlin Effect, or its opposite, the Machine Spirit Effect.
“I heard this from a Raytheon engineer.”
“Okay.”
“The Phalanx CIWS on a warship kept malfunctioning. The naval engineers jokingly killed a chicken in front of the CIWS, put its bones in a lunchbox, and attached it to the CIWS.”
“What happened?”
“The CIWS worked fine after that. But later, officers removed the lunchbox, saying not to play around with weapons.”
“It stopped working, huh?”
“The Phalanx CIWS completely stopped working, so the naval engineers took it apart and called a Raytheon engineer.”
The new employee listened with a serious expression.
“The Raytheon engineer, upon hearing what happened, killed two chickens and attached the lunchbox to the CIWS.”
“Ah.”
When machines break down or work is up to the machine’s will. People who work with machines professionally have their own rules and rituals. There’s no other way.
There’s no alternative, no alternative.
What if the machine doesn’t work even after doing everything right? Disassemble and reassemble it from scratch? If that’s possible, great, but usually, it’s not.
I sat down and turned on my computer.
What do I need to do today? While I was idling around, Administrator Lee entered my office with coffee and a tablet.
“Ah, thanks for the coffee.”
Administrator Lee tilted her head.
“This is mine.”
“I see.”
So, the coffee wasn’t for me. Maybe I was being too self-centered… I awkwardly played with my hair.
“Anyway, a few new employees have joined during the busy days. There’s also someone who got promoted. You’ll meet them, right?”
“Of course.”
We’re hiring one by one now, but after the university graduation season in a few weeks, we’ll hire a large group around next spring.
We need people to work at the Poi Station Underground Bunker, people to work at the coastal fortress on the East Sea, and we’ll build a Director’s facility.
There’s a lot to do.
“Hello, Director!”
The new IT Support Team employee who came to my office bowed with a flip phone-style greeting. He was wearing a black suit and black tie.
I looked at the personnel file.
Lee Yoon-seo. New IT Support Team member. High school graduate, received vocational training in computers and machinery. Scouted.
Is there something special about him?
“Hello.”
“I’ll work hard!”
“Have a seat.”
The new employee sat down, and I flipped through the personnel file. Since the Foundation’s existence isn’t public, he couldn’t have joined through public recruitment.
“How did you join the Foundation?”
The new employee thought for a moment. He seemed nervous, his gestures exaggerated. Am I that scary? Thinking about it, maybe I am…
“Ah. Some people in suits came to my graduation. They said they liked something about me. They offered a lot of money, so I came.”
“Didn’t you know what it was?”
“When I got the business card, they said it was a private security company. Mostly active overseas, a group not known to the public.”
Must be one of the Foundation’s shell companies.
I nodded.
“Is there anything difficult about the job?”
The new employee tilted his head.
“Uh, not really. But the job seems more dangerous than I thought… Yesterday, my team leader fought a dinosaur.”
Ah, that dinosaur.
“Usually, if you follow the field researchers’ instructions perfectly, it’s less dangerous. It’s best to work in the safest conditions possible.”
“Even with dinosaurs?”
“Even with dinosaurs.”
The new employee nodded. I thought he’d leave at this point, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked at me with sparkling eyes.
“Director, can I ask you something?”
Me? I almost laughed. This guy’s really something. The HR team who scouted him did a good job. He clearly doesn’t understand who I am.
“Go ahead.”
“If I ask the team leader, he just acts annoyed. Always saying he’s going to die, didn’t get death benefits, stuff like that. Ah, not that the team leader’s a bad person.”
I quietly sighed.
“Is Dr. Kim human? I was curious why someone who looks like a high school girl is the highest in the facility. Is she just really pretty…?”
I crossed my legs.
“Let’s just say she’s pretty. The reason I’m the owner of this facility is that I’m the strongest person here.”
“One more question.”
“You should leave now.”
Miss Lee Yoon-seo seemed to ignore that. She didn’t leave my office.
“Where do monsters come from?”
“I don’t know… They’ve always been there. Think of them as naturally occurring, that’s all.”
“What if people see them?”
“We prevent photos from reaching the media and erase witnesses’ memories. It usually doesn’t work perfectly, so it becomes urban legends.”
The new employee was impressed. As if he’d learned something amazing. It is amazing, though.
“One last question!”
I pressed my temples. This girl is making me more uncomfortable than Acacia’s carrier strike group. Maybe she’s impressive in her own way.
“After this question, I’m dragging you out.”
“Uh, earlier, the team leader said we need to perform rituals to appease the machine spirits. Have you heard of that?”
“Well… Let’s put it this way. There are process-oriented people and result-oriented people. Our work is so unpredictable that process orientation doesn’t mean much.”
“I see.”
“Whether the IT Support Team leader holds a rain dance for computers or offers goat blood, I don’t care. As long as they get results.”
The new employee nodded. I grabbed Miss Lee Yoon-seo’s collar, lifted her up, and took her out of my office.
[Today’s Work Log.]
[Author: Team Leader Kim Do-su]
[Task 1. One of the Large-Scale Containment Room’s control panels malfunctioned, causing the door not to close. I entered the containment room to repair the control panel.]
[I thought I was going to die. The field researcher told me to just go in and fix it, and I thought he was crazy. But he was really sleeping in there.]
[It was the Raptor Containment Room. It looked like an ostrich or dinosaur, a bit bigger than a car. I kicked it while it was sleeping, and it didn’t wake up.]
[Honestly, I thought I was going to die.]
[Task 2. A document with Director-level security was accidentally accessed. I’m not sure if it was really an accident. I went to the site and destroyed the computer.]
[Later, I found out the person who opened the document was hospitalized in the Foundation Infirmary for memory erasure treatment.]
[Can’t we just not use it? I’ve almost died so many times from the lethal cognitive disasters tied to Director-level security.]
[Today’s Work Log. Reply.]
[Author: Dr. Chae]
[You kicked the raptor…?]