Betrayal came quietly.
Seo-ah had a report she'd spent three months preparing. An analysis of the domestic small- and mid-cap biotech sector. She had written it after personally visiting companies, tracking clinical data, and digging through overseas papers. A report that would move her career up another step.
The day before the presentation, Park Jun-ho took Seo-ah's report into the CEO's office.
Seo-ah didn't know. She found out the next morning, when she sat down for the presentation. The CEO spoke.
"The biotech sector report Manager Park showed me yesterday was excellent. Manager Park, you'll be giving today's presentation, right?"
Seo-ah's hand stopped. The hand clutching the presentation materials.
Park Jun-ho stood up. He presented Seo-ah's report under his own name. Seo-ah's data, Seo-ah's analysis, Seo-ah's conclusions. Park Jun-ho's name.
Seo-ah sat there and listened. From beginning to end. She listened to the sentences she'd written come out of someone else's mouth. There was no expression on her face.
When the presentation ended, Park Jun-ho received applause. The CEO said, "Just like Manager Park." The team members nodded.
Seo-ah left the conference room. She walked down the hall. She went into the restroom. She looked in the mirror.
The Seo-ah in the mirror wasn't crying. She couldn't cry. Crying was a luxury. Seo-ah braced her hands against the sink and breathed. Once, twice, three times.
She thought of her mother.
Her mother had done the same thing. She'd taken what belonged to the family and left. Her grandfather's savings account, the family's peace, Seo-ah's childhood. She took them and never looked back.
Park Jun-ho was the same. He took what belonged to Seo-ah and pretended it was his.
Seo-ah looked at her own eyes in the mirror. The eyes that had picked up a shard of glass when she was ten. The eyes that had written "Never again" in her household ledger at fifteen. Those eyes were looking back at Seo-ah from the mirror.
Never again.
Seo-ah went looking for Jung Min-hyuk.
He was on the rooftop, smoking. Even after seeing Seo-ah come up, Jung Min-hyuk didn't speak first.
"Manager, you knew, didn't you?"
Jung Min-hyuk exhaled smoke.
"Knew what?"
"That Senior Park Jun-ho took my report."
"I knew."
"Why didn't you stop him?"
Jung Min-hyuk looked at Seo-ah.
"What happens if I stop him? Park Jun-ho apologizes, the CEO mediates, and you become the victim. Then here at this company, you'll forever be 'the high-school graduate who got targeted by her senior.'"
Seo-ah said nothing.
"You have to resolve this yourself. If I fight for you, you won't grow stronger."
"So you just stood by and watched?"
"I wasn't watching. I was waiting. Waiting to see what you'd do."
Seo-ah clenched her fist. Relaxed it. Clenched it again.
"I'm leaving."
Jung Min-hyuk's eyes shifted.
"You mean you're leaving this company?"
"Yes. I can't move any higher here. I need results under my own name. Results no one can take away."
Jung Min-hyuk put out his cigarette.
"Where will you go?"
"I don't know yet. But not here."
Jung Min-hyuk studied Seo-ah for a long time. Then he spoke.
"There's an asset management firm in Yeouido. It's small. But the CEO knows how to judge people. I can introduce you."
Seo-ah lowered her head.
"Thank you."
"I told you not to thank me."
"This time, I think I should."
Jung Min-hyuk smiled. It was his second smile.
Seo-ah submitted her resignation letter.
Park Jun-ho called out to her in the hall.
"Han Seo-ah, you're leaving?"
"Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't think I need to tell you."
Park Jun-ho's face hardened. Seo-ah looked at him. It wasn't guilt. It was anxiety. Anxiety over losing the person who wrote the reports once Seo-ah was gone.
Seo-ah turned away. She walked on.
She didn't look back.
When she got home, she opened her household ledger. She wrote her final paycheck in this month's income column. Next month's income column was blank. Seo-ah stared at the empty space. She wasn't afraid. She was used to blank spaces. Her life had started in one, after all.
She opened to the very last page of the ledger. Beneath the line that read "Never again," she added another.
"What's mine goes under my name."
[Coaching Insight]
The greatest crisis comes right before success. And most of the time, that crisis comes from people.
Betrayal doesn't come from strangers. It comes from someone close. The person who has watched your achievements from the closest distance is the one who can take them away most easily.
At times like this, you have two choices. Fight or leave.
Fighting may be the just thing to do. But what's just and what's strategic are different. Sometimes leaving is the strongest counterattack. Showing them that after you leave, everything falls apart without you.
The way to turn a crisis into an opportunity is simple. Don't remove the cause of the crisis. Move to somewhere the crisis doesn't exist. Then start again there.