Mr Mermaid | LK Adaptation

Chapter 14

"Alright. Let's end things here."

"Hold on. In fact, what you're really worried is that I will only stay for a very short time in your company after I get the job and waste your human resources, right? After all, it takes resources to train up a reporter."

Director Yang Hyun Suk was rather resigned. "Well, yes, you're right. I need to consider the consequences."

"Hehehehehe," Bambam suddenly began laughing. His laughter was three parts contempt and seven parts glee — when he was done, he said, "Then, pray tell, every time you all hire a new reporter through recruitment interviews, how many manage to endure past the three month probation period?"

This question stabbed Director Yang Hyun Suk right where it hurts.

The formal workings of a newspaper agency is limited, but the manpower they needed was still way more than the upper limits of the system. Therefore, they needed to recruit a large number of contractual workers every year. Contract workers were like second-class citizens in the business — their benefits were far below that of permanent staff. The basic salary of reporters was already very low to begin with — the wages of a contract worker were even lower than that low. Just about a thousand per month, which was sometimes not even enough to pay the rent. The other part of their income was payment for articles published, but new reporters usually don't have that many manuscripts published per month, so it was impossible to rely on this to supplement their income. Thus, it was common for a newly employed contract reporter to not even earn 3000 per month of net income.

A monthly salary of 3000 was considered the boundary of extreme poverty in City-B.

Humans needed to eat, to dress, to sleep, to take the subway ... these were the most basic of human needs. If their monthly salary was not even enough to meet these basic needs, what else could they be expected to do? Were they supposed to just take this salary of 2000 or so, live in a palm-sized rented room, wear mail-ordered T-shirts worth 19 yuan, and then still smile and talk about dreams of the future with others? Not everyone can be so tenacious, and not everyone who lived in rental places could move up in the world. If they gave up halfway, no one could blame them.

At this thought, Director Yang Hyun Suk sighed.

"Don't be sad," Bambam consoled, "Look, isn't there someone who doesn't care about salary sitting in front of you right now waiting to be hired? Why are you still hesitating? Do you think I won't last any longer than the others? Then you underestimate the power of dreams."

His words made Director Yang Hyun Suk start to waver.

Bambam added more fuel to the fire. "In fact, you don't have to even give me the basic salary," that bit of money is not even enough for me to buy snacks, he thought but did not say, "But I want payment for any articles of mine that get published. That's the direct rewards of my labour."

Director Yang Hyun Suk rolled his eyes. "Let's see if you actually manage to earn some."

"Does this mean that I'm hired? I must admit that you have very good judgement."

Director Yang Hyun Suk waved a hand feebly. "Get out."

After Bambam left, an interviewer sitting next to Director Yang Hyun Suk asked him quietly, "Director Yang Hyun Suk, you're really going to hire him? I think he's quite eccentric."

"So what?" Director Yang Hyun Suk was rather resigned. "It's fine as long as he isn't here to cause trouble. We're too short on base-level reporters." Besides, there was still the great bonus of not having to pay him a salary ...

As Director Yang Hyun Suk had relegated Bambam into the category of 'someone making up the numbers', it was impossible that he would take the effort to cultivate Bambam's skills. He was unwilling to waste resources on Bambam. Hence, Bambam was released into Lisa's group, with Lisa to be his mentor.

Lisa was speechless. She was still a newbie too, okay? How was she supposed to guide another newbie?!

In contrast, Bambam was very pleased, because one of the main focuses of Lisa's group was swimming.

Teacher Taeyang told Lisa about what had happened during the interview. After listening to all of it, Lisa cast a narrowed glance at Bambam. "And you told me you're not here for Jaehyun. You're obviously here for him!"

Bambam was indignant. "How was I supposed to answer when you asked me so directly? Yes, I've come all because I want to stalk Jaehyun, interview Jaehyun, I want to marry Jaehyun?"

"Stuff it. Jaehyun will never marry you."

Just like that, Bambam became Lisa's subordinate. She brought Bambam along on several interview runs and let him try his hand writing two articles. In the end, she came to the conclusion: Even Director Yang Hyun Suk had decided to let Bambam range free, so she should not worry too much about cultivating his talent — Bambam can just do whatever he wants to do.

And so, she had a pretty easy life as his 'master'.

December 5th. The national swimming team held a press conference on the national winter swimming championships that would begin tomorrow. Here, it is necessary for us to briefly introduce the national swimming competitions.

Aside from the quadrennial National Games of China, there are four professional competitions for swimming at the national level which are held every year. In chronological order, they are: the Spring National Swimming Championships, the National Champions Tournament, the National Swimming Championships, and the Winter National Swimming Championships. The National Champions Tournament is generally a draft competition for major events, so it is by nature different from the other three competitions.

Of the three events, the National Swimming Championships was the one with the highest standards, followed by the Spring and Winter National Swimming Championships. Some candidates would train up their secondary specializations during the Spring and Winter Championships. Many of the swimmers had secondary specializations. For example, Jaehyun's main specialization was long-distance freestyle, while his secondary specialization was short-distance freestyle. As for Jungkook, his main specialization used to be the butterfly with freestyle as his secondary specialization, but now that had been flipped around.

Therefore, the Winter Championships did not garner as much attention as the National Championships Lisa had attended previously. For the press conference this time, the agency had only sent the two newbies Lisa and Bambam to conduct interviews.

Pre-match press conferences typically involve star athletes and their coaches, such as Jaehyun and his coach Tiffany, and such as the big sister of the girl's team Nana and her coach, and such as Jungkook and his ... hey, why is Jungkook here?

Lisa stared at him, wide-eyed, unable to comprehend this. Compared to those world champions, Jungkook was practically an invisible small fry, not even enough to be a supporting condiment ... why was he sitting here? And he also seemed to be on such good terms with Jaehyun and Nana — these big-name stars ...

As if sensing her gaze, Jungkook suddenly paused in his conversation with Nana and turned his hea to look over. He caught sight of Lisa among the crowd with just one glance, and he smiled gently at her. In the raucous venue, his smile was like a gardenia blooming among the noisy cries of cicadas — gentle and pure, refreshing to the senses.

Before Lisa could even react to it, two female reporters behind her had already lost control, exclaiming softly, "So handsome!"

It looked like lust and appreciation for good looks was a glorious tradition of mankind.

Bambam whispered to Lisa, "Why did Jungkook smile at me?"

"You're thinking too much. He was smiling at me."

"Hehe, women."

Lisa sweatdropped. "You dare to speak like this to your boss?! I'll crack your skull!"

Bambam hurriedly shut his mouth with a frightened expression.

At this moment, Jungkook bent his head for some unknown reason. Very soon, Lisa felt her handphone vibrate, and when she pulled it out and glanced at it, she saw that Jungkook had sent her a WeChat message.

Jungkook: Don't go when the conference ends. I've something to tell you.

Lisa: Okay.