You think your office life sucks? Try a Korean’s

  In my last post I put up a poll regarding time management and work place relations between managers and employees.  It may surprise you that in fact, for Korean office life, the answer is C: Do the task in the 6 hours, that your boss says it will take, hand in the results, regardless of knowing full well that you can finish it in two hours.

  I’m sure that there are some companies and people that would disagree and say that this doesn’t happen to them, to which I would retort “Are you Korean?”  and by that I mean, Korean Korean (educated, raised etc etc) here?  Because that does make a difference.

  The office life mentality here can be equated to a “Father knows best” mentality in North America.  As a lower level employee, you are to assume that your boss has, and always will have the answers, and you are not to question them.  They provide you with guidance and you don’t question them.  If they say something should be done in manner X then you do it, regardless if there is a more innovative approach.  You are to come up with creative ideas, but not too creative to outshine your boss – who will just take credit for your idea anyway.  (Prime example being a Korean friend of mine who has to do projects for his boss’s masters degree; it’s part of his assigned duty.  If he doesn’t then he’ll catch hell.  He gets no credit for any of the work that he does to complete his boss’s masters and it is in addition to his regular duties).  

  As someone who isn’t directly involved in it, I see this system to be a kind of (and this is harsh and to the extreme) but kind of brainwashing, where they attempt to mould you into what was deemed the most desirable employee, but in reality it is being copied from an outdated, rusted piece of pre-war era machinery.  Don’t get me wrong, I do know and understand that you need to pay your dues in order to become a ‘team player’ that can ’set goals’ and achieve them, all the while improving the work place for fellow employees (that’s right folks!  5 freaking years at a bank!  I know that shit and am already wanting to turn off my computer from my own thought process about it).  They want to pattern your behaviour after their own, and will often say how it was a much tougher transition for them than it is for you.

  This patterned moulding also involves consistent mixed messages.  Such phrases as: “Go home and enjoy your weekend.  You’ve worked hard enough in the last few days.” Or “Stop working so late at night.” Or an employee will be told that they need to attend a dinner, where there will be a mind boggling amount of soju drunk, and they are not allowed to leave until their boss calls it a night.  The employee will then be questioned the following week/day with “What did you do on the weekend?  Did you finish your latest assignment?  NO?  Why not?” Or “How can you not be done your project?  What were you doing last night?  Why didn’t you send confirmation of a completed task?”  One is then forced to go “underground” if you will, in an attempt to complete unfathomable amounts of tasks in unrealistic time frames.  

  All of this negative “stripping” down of an employee leads to questions of confidence and self-worth; it’s a form of verbal abuse that leads one to need and rely on their boss to constantly reconfirm what their tasks are, and, how and when they are to be completed.  At the same time, the employer consistently tells their subordinates how they are here to mentor them and that the said individual is capable of becoming something decent so long as they work harder and put more devotion into the job and upper management.   

  This patriarchal, Confucianist work mentality is the reason why you will/do/have feel/felt so frustrated with your Korean coworkers and question how on earth it takes them so long to get things done.  

  What’s your experience?

 

Well, this is timely, isn’t it?

 

Here’s another prospective with a handy top 10 list regarding being the international employee in a Korean office.