90 – Safety Audit
“What, are you feeling a little better now?”
It wasn’t until it was time to eat that she crept out and began to work little by little.
Mr. Sangmu was moving something like a large wooden board that was about 150 cm tall, and when he saw me outside and doing the same thing as he was doing, he started to say something.
“…I don’t smell alcohol, but I don’t think I’ve been drinking. Are you feeling okay? At the morning meeting earlier, everyone had a dying expression.”
“It was just because I met someone I knew.”
“…Anybody you know? Uh… Well, ok… Have you even met a friend?”
Once Mr. Sangmu scanned me from the tip of my toes to the top of my head a couple of times, he started to open his mouth again.
“Yeah, well, I’m not at the age to be sensitive to such things, but don’t be too shy. There’s nothing more honest than this.
There is nothing more honest than working while sweating. No one knows about worldly affairs, so even though kids my age are doing well, they don’t know about human affairs.
So, don’t be discouraged, huh? It means to live confidently in the world.
Hey, you’re amazing.
When I was that age, I chased after girls all day, but you make money here. And experience the world. This is enough for you to put in effort, dude- Straighten your shoulders and walk confidently.”
It wasn’t because I was drinking, but because I ran into someone I knew and I was embarrassed, so I stayed in the corner not doing anything.
The managing director seemed to think so.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Sangmu had a sharp vision in this area.
I went to the restaurant and ate some sesame seeds, then went back to the place where I worked earlier and was going to do what I had just done, but I felt someone’s gaze looking my way from afar.
Yellow hard hat.
They were wearing hats of the same color as the hard hat Lee Jin-ah wore during the site visit earlier.
“What are the people wearing yellow hard hats doing…? I’ve been staring at this place since earlier.”
“Isn’t that all taught during safety training?”
“…Sorry. I forgot.”
“No, I don’t have anything to apologize for. The kid is completely dejected – he died. I didn’t mean to scold him – don’t be too discouraged. The people wearing yellow hard hats are safety inspectors.”
“Safety audit?”
“Uh… So, there’s something like that. Since the weather is cold right now, if there’s ice on the roads where cars and people pass by, shouldn’t we break it..?
If a person slips while passing by, how did you leave it like this- Why did you install the ladder here again?
Could you get hurt if you fell sideways while working on a ladder?
I’m working with firearms, and there’s a petrol canister nearby. If this happens again – there will be a fire. What do people say about that?
These are the people who work to make the site we are working in safer.
And now, as far as I know, it’s a special safety crackdown period, so people from Mirae Construction are coming and looking around the site.
I don’t remember how long I came here, but a week…? It seems like it happened two weeks ago.”
“…I see”
If it was from a week or two ago, it must have been when Gina’s grandfather called people over and gave a long speech at Mirae Group.
… I stopped what I was doing for a while and watched those yellow helmeted people. They were taking pictures of apartment scenes here and there with cameras hanging around their necks like people on a tour.
“…Are those people filming a lot of stuff?”
“..Of course I have to take a picture. I went to the ‘Future Department Store construction site’ and did a safety inspection. I can’t report to the head office that there’s nothing wrong!
If you tell a lie like that, you think that an accident will happen. Anything requires proof. Evidence. You know, a department store collapsed in the f*cking old days.
The inside of that one was roughly chewed up, but there were no signs of anything wrong. How did you report it to the company?
The day before opening, it exploded and collapsed. Any bridge in Seoul collapsed like that.”
“I’ve heard that story before”
“Ah, of course, what the… What the heck, it might be a little uncomfortable to think of him hiding in a corner like a ninja and taking pictures of us with a f*cking big camera.
But what can I do? That’s what these people do. Working in the dark, avoiding the bright. There is such a thing
If we don’t leave vivid evidence of how we usually work, we don’t know what kind of things will happen in the field.
Still, those people won’t run into us very often. We haven’t done anything wrong right now..? The hard hat is also wearing well. I’m wearing my leggings right now, and I don’t have anything dangerous nearby.”
I was talking with the managing director. I looked again at where the security guards were standing. In the meantime, he had disappeared where he had gone, but it seemed that he had gone somewhere other than here.
– Pair!
“Okay. Well, let’s stop resting now and work. …You were stuck in the corner saying you were sold out earlier. What we did during that time was carrying a form.”
“Form…?”
“Yes Pom. Like that wooden plank you carried a few earlier. They call it Pom?
So, when building a building, you need a frame to put cement in and harden it, and the material for making that frame is foam.
I didn’t say anything earlier, but when I saw you, you just grabbed anything that caught your eye and brought it back? That won’t work”
“…Then what should I do?”
“Now, can you see the piles of foam dismantled by the people over there?
I’m going to lean against this pipe-like pillar here for a while. …But if you lean on it too much, this pipe might collapse under its weight, right?
So… If you bring about 10 of them, put another 10 in the pipe next to it. Okay. Do you know roughly what you’re doing?”
“…Understood”
“Then I’ll take the foam out of the pile, and you can take it and put it on the pipe.
It’s hard to stand on a pole that’s too far away- Let’s lean on a pipe that’s as close as possible.”
Mr. Sangmu took out the big foam I mentioned earlier from the pile of foam that was completely messed up and brought it to me, and I took it and put it on the pillar next to me.
It was very heavy because it was made of metal and wood.
I think it weighs about 20kg. Mr. Sangmu is shorter than me, but he took out a long foam from a pile of foam and handed it to me, and there was no problem.
On the other hand, I thought I could do it at first – but after carrying about 30 to 40 copies, I felt my arms start to feel sore and the heat rushing up from my head.
From noble mtl dot com
How many minutes has passed? By the time I took out all the biggest foams I could take out, except for the foams on the big trees. The business man said it.
“…Okay, let’s take a break now”
“Yes”
Me and Mr. Sangmu took a break to catch our breath.
“But where have all the others gone?”
“Uh…? Well, picking ties, arranging forms on dies, picking up pins, cleaning, etc., Right? Our workforce doesn’t have people who just lie down and play around – don’t worry too much~”
I didn’t think so… I looked around the construction site for a while while catching my breath.
The crane soaring high into the sky was constantly lifting something, and the carpenters were making cement frames with the foam they were carrying earlier.
People sweeping with brooms. There were people carrying pipes, some people walking around with wires.
I didn’t know much about it because I only looked outside the big fence every day, but I found out that there are countless people doing their jobs inside the fence.
…..
After looking at the site for a while, I could see a familiar figure in the distance from the management office.
Light brown hair neatly tied back. A small body that doesn’t suit this kind of construction site at all.
I was able to easily find Lee Jin-ah, who has a heterogeneous appearance that does not match the scenery of this place at all.
Lee Jin-ah was concentrating on her own work as she held her circular board in her hand and scribbled and checked this and that with her ballpoint pen. She wasn’t even once looking in the direction I was.
Did you say the yellow hard hat is a safety audit…? I don’t know if I didn’t know it, but Lee Jin-ah seemed to be doing a job related to safety.
“…Okay! Well then, since I’ve rested enough- I’ll have to work again. What do the managers say if I fall too far on the floor and take a break?”
…Actually, the site was built enough to be built, so if you’re stuck inside, you can goof around a bit – but since it’s in its infancy right now, there’s really no room to hide.
So… You know? We have to work damn hard right now. I mean this-“
2)
As Mr. Sangmu said, I think I worked really hard that day. It was only after carrying hundreds of foam sheets that looked like large sheets of chocolate that I was able to leave work.
“You worked hard today. Maybe it’s because you’re tall, you didn’t spread and worked hard. Can you come out tomorrow too?”
My arm was a little numb, and I wanted to lie down and rest.
“Yes. See you tomorrow, then.”
That’s what you said… But can you come out tomorrow? It was around 5:30 when I got home.
After taking a shower and changing clothes, it was around 6 o’clock. Perhaps Yoo-jung had also left work, and she heard the door click.
“Welcome, did you finish a little late today?”
“Uh… These days a lot of people come even in the evening… Ugh… I feel like I’m going to die.
Originally, I don’t do the closing work… These days, I open the store and it seems like I do the closing as well.”
“…Hey, Yoojung-ah, I have a question for you. A part-time job at a cafe…? Can I do that too?”
“Part-time job..? But Yoo Seon-ah, you’re in the military. Shouldn’t you be enlisted in the army a few times in the future and come out?”
“..Isn’t it?”
“Wouldn’t that be a little bit like that? If I were the boss, I’d work for a week, take a break, then work again for another day or two weeks and then never show up again…”
“You don’t want to write…”
“Why? It’s so hard to go to work? Last time I only picked up a pin. Today, just like in a drama, you rode the stairs with a lot of bricks on your back?”
“No. That’s not it…”
For a while, I thought about whether I should continue this nogada.
“…Um, Jung Yoo, can I borrow your cell phone?”
“…Why a cell phone?”