The Overly Competent Junior Employee

“An interesting fellow.”

Lee Donghyuk was a man with an appetite for talent.

The reason was simple. He simply didn’t want the team members around him to hold him back.

‘If you create a perfect team, it runs smoothly on its own.’

This was Lee Donghyuk’s usual philosophy and something he put into practice.

Lee Donghyuk had personally brought in each team member one by one for his team within Seonjin Securities’ VIP Center.

His team, composed of capable members he had personally selected, showed outstanding performance in the industry, demonstrating abilities that rivaled even Taesan, the industry leader, in terms of single team sales.

That’s why Lee Donghyuk didn’t take industry rumors lightly.

‘I hear there’s a capable person at Ian Securities.’

‘There’s someone at LS Investment who reads the U.S. market macro brilliantly, I hear?’

‘There’s a rumor about someone at Taesan’s Daegu branch who’s excellent at client sales.’

Whenever such rumors reached his ears, he would store them away.

He didn’t take them lightly, but the industry’s mouth was loose.

Often, they would hype up unremarkable individuals.

After observing a few times, when he judged someone to be truly exceptional, he would make a move personally.

The fledgling from Yuseong Investment Securities he met today was such a case.

‘Yuseong Investment Securities did an interesting project. A mock investment competition, they say…’

‘One of the participants in the mock competition is a teller, and they say he recently noticed a fat finger error?’

‘That guy, I hear he chose to transition to PB.’

At first, he approached it just for fun. Given the industry’s tendency for loose lips, there were many such events.

‘Remember that guy from before? The mock competition winner. He’s fighting with Jo Hyun-seok now.’

Even when he was fighting with a representative bear in the market, Lee Donghyuk thought he was an interesting guy.

Something only the young and bold could do.

‘I hear that guy went to Leaders. It’s only been a year since he transitioned to PB… He must have some ability.’

But what he had been hearing for fun gradually turned into interest, and interest turned into concern.

When he heard a few days ago that Yuseong Investment Securities was preparing a project that overlapped with his own, he laughed it off, but when he heard the name of the PB appearing in that project, his interest was piqued once again.

Watching the video with interest, Lee Donghyuk felt that he was certainly a PB with an outstanding view.

Of course, there were many people who said such things, and it wasn’t special, but he wanted to meet in person and hear why he had such an outlook.

‘Hi-On’s strength is a weakness for the secondary battery sector.’

The view Dokyung presented when they met in person was a satisfactorily answer.

He was someone who had the courage to offer a solid commentary even when everyone else was intoxicated.

It seemed that with a few more years of experience in the industry, he could become an even more outstanding individual.

He thought it would be even better if those few years were spent by his side.

‘Dokyung-ssi, have you ever thought about changing companies?’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think that would be possible.’

So he had presented the documents he had prepared, hoping he could show them to his counterpart today.

The Yuseong fledgling, who had pondered for a long time over his proposal, didn’t ask anything further.

“Couldn’t he at least ask a question or two?”

Lee Donghyuk chuckled. He had seen various reactions when making job change proposals. From asking if he could change the first digit of the salary to what kind of work they would do if they came.

He had exchanged many demands and questions, and he thought he was now trained enough to turn around the mind of someone who was considering.

But Dokyung, whom he met today, didn’t ask any questions.

“He could at least look at the documents.”

After thinking hard on his own, he came out with a refusal.

‘I’m truly grateful for the offer, but I still have a lot to learn and do here. And there are clients who trust me.’

‘Well. It’s not unheard of for clients to move securities firms when a PB moves. First, the documents…’

‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid if I look at the documents, my resolve might waver. I’ll just remember that I met and greeted Senior-nim here today.’

Then he really got up without looking back, bowed, and left.

“I can’t tell if he’s making excuses or not.”

As far as he knew, Yuseong’s treatment wasn’t that good. Even if he presented Seonjin’s basic conditions, it would be better than Yuseong.

Still, from the scouting side, he had prepared conditions with a bit more care, but he was rejected with a single phrase about wavering, without even looking at them.

“I prepared those conditions to make him waver.”

Of course, the fledgling he met today would know that changing jobs would mean better treatment.

“Did we come across as too easy?”

Lee Donghyuk, stopped at an intersection, muttered to himself and then searched through the phone book fixed to his mount for a familiar number.

“Center Director, this is Lee Donghyuk.”

As the call connected and the traffic light turned green, Lee Donghyuk began to press the accelerator.

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‘Dokyung-ssi, have you ever thought about changing companies?’

The next day, Dokyung found it hard to concentrate on his work.

His mind was in turmoil due to the words he heard at the appointment he went to after receiving an unexpected phone call.

Given the industry’s characteristic of frequent job changes, he had thought such an opportunity would come to him someday, but it came faster than he expected.

‘Maybe I should have at least looked at the conditions.’

Dokyung thought it might have been impolite to refuse like that on the spot yesterday.

He wondered if he should have at least pretended to consider after looking at the conditions.

‘If I look at the conditions, I might waver…’

Dokyung was also an employee. If offered better conditions, he could move at any time.

Whether in this field or another, ultimately, the treatment from the company was the measure of one’s success.

‘But with this mission, and the clients…’

However, the reason Dokyung rejected Lee Donghyuk’s offer was because of the mission.

The mission sent by the message was to increase Yuseong Investment Securities’ YouTube channel subscribers to over 100,000.

This meant that the message seemed to think Dokyung still had work to do here.

Moreover, recently Dokyung had attracted many high-net-worth individuals and was in the process of understanding their investment tendencies.

He was grateful to Lee Donghyuk, who viewed him favorably despite being just at the starting stage and offered him a very good opportunity, but he couldn’t accept it.

That’s why he refused without looking at the documents he handed over.

It was because he thought he would waver if he saw the offer, even though he couldn’t move anyway.

“…you?”

“Pardon?”

Dokyung, lost in thought, turned his head towards the voice and saw Han Dahyun standing there with a worried expression.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

At Han Dahyun’s words, Dokyung looked around and realized only he and Han Dahyun were left in the office.

“Did something happen today? You’ve been off since morning, barely greeting anyone, and now you’re just staring blankly at your monitor.”

Thinking he must have shown it quite clearly despite trying not to let it show, Dokyung shook his head.

“No. It’s nothing.”

Han Dahyun nodded at Dokyung’s words. She thought it would be impolite to press someone who clearly didn’t want to talk.

“I need to organize my thoughts a bit. I’m not planning to eat lunch today.”

“Is that so? If you change your mind, should I bring you a sandwich or…”

“No, it’s fine. I really don’t feel like eating. Thank you for your conc…”

Ding ding-

Just then, an alert sound came from the PC at Dokyung’s desk, and he reflexively checked the monitor.

He had set up alerts for specific situations in the stock trading system, and the alert sound meant something had happened.

[Hi-On -2.9%]

The alert was set to go off when the stock price suddenly took a downward turn.

“Why suddenly…”

Dokyung began moving his mouse around, not understanding what was happening.

“What’s going on?”

Seeing Dokyung’s urgent expression and actions, Han Dahyun approached with concern and asked.

“Hi-On’s stock price was up over 3% until 10 minutes ago, but it’s suddenly taking a hit.”

“Is there a reason?”

“No. I can’t think of anything, so I’m looking for the reason now.”

At Dokyung’s words, Han Dahyun furrowed her brow and took out her phone, seemingly searching for something.

Then, as if she had found something, she focused intently on her phone screen before looking at Dokyung.

“Dokyung-ssi, I think this is it.”

Dokyung, who had been searching for the reason, quickly took the phone Han Dahyun handed over and checked the screen.

“What is this?”

“It’s going around in group chats. It’s an embargoed document the government will release tomorrow.”

Embargo referred to materials under a publication ban until a specific time.

In other words, it seemed the government had distributed materials asking for them to be reported in line with tomorrow’s announcement, even if they sent out press releases today.

“New Renewable Energy Support Roadmap”

“It’s a document to be announced tomorrow. It looks like the government announced business support details.”

At Han Dahyun’s explanation, Dokyung continued reading through the phone screen.

“The government has highlighted nuclear power in the renewable energy business.”

“Yes. They’ve been giving signals about that continuously.”

“But the problem is, solar power has been left out.”

“Not left out, but… significantly reduced.”

At Han Dahyun’s words, Dokyung checked the trading system with a serious expression.

“The entire solar sector is falling.”

It was expected that related businesses would face difficulties as solar power support was largely reduced in the government’s renewable energy support project.

“The solar industry has expensive component costs, right?”

Dokyung nodded at Han Dahyun’s question.

Solar power had expensive components and generator installation costs.

That’s why government support projects were important.

“They must think that if support projects decrease, the rate of solar installations will drop.”

“Yes. That’s inevitable. But…”

Dokyung pondered for a moment before speaking.

“Hi-On is different. They don’t supply much domestically in the first place.”

Hi-On had a higher export ratio than domestic supply.

“The domestic supply ratio of Hi-On’s products isn’t even 20%…”

“The market has done this more than once or twice.”

Dokyung nodded at Han Dahyun’s words.

As a gloomy atmosphere enveloped the solar sector, money was flowing out of the industry.

“I expected this to happen to secondary batteries, but I’ve taken a hit instead.”

Dokyung’s prediction was that secondary batteries would face the same situation the solar power generation sector was facing now.

However, in the current situation, the noise directed at the solar sector was more prominent.

“The market usually reacts strongly to noise at first, then finds its way back to its original position.”

Dokyung smiled and nodded at Han Dahyun’s words.

The market initially reacts with surprise, but when it sees the essence, it returns to its original place.

“That’s right. My job now is to clear up everyone’s misunderstandings. Thank you.”

Dokyung replied and sat down to start writing a post for the group chat where his clients were.

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“See? I agreed with the idea that this Sunbae would lead the center from next year, but it wasn’t right from the start.”

Meanwhile, at Seonjin Securities’ VIP Center.

Lee Donghyuk was in conversation with the Center Director.

“I don’t know what you saw to be interested in that guy.”

“Rumors have been circulating frequently. You know, right? People who are frequently rumored about end up being one of two types.”

People who are frequently rumored about due to causing trouble, and those rumored about for their abilities.

The former eventually caused a big incident and left the industry, while the latter eventually rose to the top positions in the industry.

This was the pattern Lee Donghyuk had observed of frequently rumored individuals in this industry so far.

“You think that guy will rise to the top? Well. Ability is ultimately… Look, solar plummeted today.”

“Yes, well… No one could have predicted the government would make such an announcement.”

“So what are you going to do? Give up?”

At the Center Director’s words, Lee Donghyuk thought for a moment and then nodded.

“Yes. If he had at least listened to the offer and considered it, I might try to persuade him more, but since that’s not the case, I should give up cleanly.”

“So you’re just going to cover up taking this hit too?”

The other side had first come out with a negative evaluation of secondary batteries. The Center Director thought they shouldn’t let it slide.

“No. Until now, I’ve refrained from responding in case there was a chance, but it’s time to return the favor.”

“Hahaha, that guy’s going to have a tough time, isn’t he? Especially with the mood being not so good, if you step in…”

“I’ve decided to appear on the YouTube channel once more tomorrow.”

At Lee Donghyuk’s words, the Center Director nodded with satisfaction, and Lee Donghyuk looked at the Center Director with a stern expression.