This is a review article written after watching the broadcast.
Kimchi master and artisan CEO Park Mi-hee, whose annual sales are 50 billion won, recalled the hard times she went through to reach the present.
On the 23rd, KBS2's Boss in the Mirror featured Park Mi-hee as the new "new boss." That day Park Mi-hee recalled the memories of first coming to Seoul to start working.
He said "I came to Seoul from Jeju when I was 16. So I just worked at a textile factory cooking meals. Because the wage for a technical assistant learning the skills was 6,000 won, and if you cooked meals it was 39,000 won. The wage difference was that big. Next, the employment agency introduced me as a housekeeper for the late Kim Woo-joong, chairman of the Daewoo Group," he revealed the surprising past and caused astonishment.
Park Mi-hee said "At that time, 800,000 won a month was a lot of money. Usually then the first salary for office workers was about 70,000 to 80,000 won. It was 10 times more expensive. I ran the household of a large house all by myself. So later, among the chairmen, there was even a rumor calling me 'Misseu Park of Itaewon.' I didn't just do what I was told; I always took initiative. For example, when I worked at a construction company before, it was when South Korea was opening to China, so they often went to China. I would organize important current affairs from the newspaper so they could read them right away. There was nothing stifling," she boasted of her innate meticulousness and work skills, drawing admiration.
When asked what led her from being a housekeeper to starting a kimchi factory, she explained, "Even when I worked as a housekeeper I made side dishes well, and when I cooked at the textile factory at 16 I received praise that it tasted so good. So I dreamed of starting a kimchi factory." But not long after founding the kimchi factory, the mandatory HACCP policy was introduced, putting her in crisis.
Park Mi-hee said "When we tore down all the facilities we had set up and redid everything as a HACCP system, we went into debt and the factory was auctioned off twice and seized more than ten times. I put all the money I had into the kimchi factory to run it the way I wanted, but it was lost before I could even try. Bank debt would have been okay, but it was private loans and all sorts of debt. The interest I paid alone must have been 8 billion won. Thinking I had to do it with only my money, I used up my credit, and I needed more operating funds. So when I went to the bank, I was already a credit defaulter. What could I do? It had come to that, so I had to get private loans," she recounted the difficult situation.
Kim Sook said "How did you pay that back?" in surprise, and Park Mi-hee said "I just kept moving forward, running toward the front no matter what, trying so hard I could die. With that mindset I overcame one big hurdle after another and built this up," revealing that after hardships she proudly received HACCP certification just two years after founding, surprising everyone.
[Photo] KBS2
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