I started noticing small things.
Not who spoke the loudest in meetings.
Not who sat closest to supervisors.
But who stayed in place when days changed.
I paid attention without writing anything down.
Who arrived earlier than everyone else and left last.
Who complained openly, yet worked carefully when alone.
Who never mentioned the Kim family name, even when others used it to gain leverage.
People like that were rarely highlighted.
In operations, there was a senior staff member who always sat in the corner. His hair was turning white. He spoke rarely, but no one interrupted him when he did. I saw him correct others' mistakes quietly, never taking credit.
In my previous life, people like him never climbed high.
But they also never ran.
I stored his face in my memory.
There was also a woman in crane scheduling. Her hands were fast, her eyes sharp. She wasn't friendly, but she wasn't cruel. When a trainee was confused, she explained once never twice.
I remembered her type.
In my previous life, people like her stayed until the very end, carrying companies that were already dead on their backs.
I didn't want that to happen again.
On the other hand, there were people I began to avoid.
Not because they were wrong.
But because they knew too much.
People who always heard news before it became official.
People who asked, "Who ordered this?" instead of "What's wrong?"
I didn't distance myself openly.
I simply reduced how often I was around them.
One afternoon in the cafeteria, a technical staff member sat across from me by chance.
"New kid?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You pick things up fast," he said. "The fast ones usually disappear fast too."
"Why?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Because the ones who survive here aren't the smartest. They're the most consistent."
I nodded.
In my previous life, I had learned that too late.
That evening, I opened old documents not the new ones, but archived files no one touched anymore. I compared names, positions, transfers.
Patterns began to emerge.
Not a list of enemies.
Not a list of allies.
Just a map.
And I didn't use that map to move quickly
but to avoid getting lost.