How to survive Korean work culture 101
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
In the short but seemingly not so short three years I’ve been working in Seoul, I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs as a humble employee trying to stay afloat in the wondrous world that is Korean company culture.
I thought it would be fun to compile a list of insights I’ve learned along the way, so here goes (also please note that these insights are reflective of my personal experiences and may or may not be reflective of the Korean work landscape at large):
Greeting someone in the proper way is everything.
At my first job, each employee would bow to the entire office before leaving. Albeit it was a “startup” (a phrase that seems to be casually thrown around here in reference to any small or medium-sized company) so the office itself was quite small in square footage and had about 30 employees but it was the first time I had witnessed such a thing. Using my 눈치/noonchi (the Korean word for tact and a highly required trait in order to survive in Korean culture and life in general), I would grit my teeth every time and do the same.
At my second job, I continued as I had learned. I didn’t bow to the entire office but I did go up to my supervisor and report that I was going to leave. He looked surprised and said ok in a way that indicated he couldn’t have cared less (and that whether I said bye or not would not be considered a reflection of my character). This company had a wfh every day if you want policy and no one flitted an eye as to when you came in or left the office. I quickly learned that my ostentatious goodbye wasn’t necessary and was relieved.
At my third job, I was reprimanded for the way I said bye when walking past my manager’s desk. “You walk by so fast that I don’t have time to respond,” they said.
If you work in a Korean office long enough, you’ll find that it’s not unusual to hear the sound of a nail clipper at work. Yes, someone out there is clipping their nails. Pray that it’s not anyone around you.
It’s also not unusual to go into the bathroom after lunch and find ten people crammed in there, brushing their teeth. My old office even had a designated 치카 치카/chika chika (Korean onomatopoeia for brushing your teeth) station with three sinks outside the bathroom. I deduced that it was because Korean food is mostly spicy and full of red pepper flakes and all sorts of seasonings that could easily get stuck in your teeth.
You’ll also most likely see the majority of employees walking around the office in slippers. Korea abides by a take off your shoes in the house culture and from what I know, you’re required to wear indoor slippers or shoes at school as well.
Korea ranks second for longest hours worked, among the OECD’s 35 countries. It’s safe to say, overworking is considered the norm and not an exception.
To give you more context, Korean law permits up to 52 work hours, meaning 12 hours of overtime. Until 2018, 68 work hours were legally allowed.
Overtime policy and perception may differ by company but at the first place I worked, I was reprimanded for not completing a project on a Saturday, as subtly suggested by my manager via a phone call that very day. I remember being very confused as to why the manager was furious with me come Monday morning.
At my startup job, I remember being incredibly excited to start working in a new field in a new role and in the beginning, wasn’t deterred by having to occasionally open my laptop on the weekend. The longer I worked there however, I realized how toxic of a culture it was, with colleagues answering Slack messages and completing projects while on vacation and that being taken into account in a positive manner, during annual reviews.
Would you enjoy your 9 to 5 more if you worked in an office like this?
It’s all about who you know, not how well you work.
Work politics is not a novel concept and I know it’s vastly prevalent in American work culture as well. I’ve found however, that playing the game well is not an option, but a necessity, if you have hopes of moving up in a Korean company.
But what does it mean to play the game “well?” From what I’ve observed and experienced, I’ve found that it’s a delicate balance between doing your job moderately well (just a little above standard expectations) and sidling up to whoever is in charge, but in a tactful way (again, noonchi). If one were to have to choose between promoting someone who’s mediocre in skill level but a social butterfly or an employee who excels at their job but doesn’t put in any effort socially, the former will always be the absolute winner.
Keep the lane of mediocrity.
I’ve found that there’s a curious phenomenon where those who excel at their jobs, are assigned more work. If your manager finds that you’re amazing at creating spreadsheets, then voila, you are from then on the spreadsheet whipper upper. If you make a suggestion to change something, then of course, be my guest. You will be the one to have to undertake the labor to change that very thing.
It seems the best way to maintain a decent work life balance is to, as mentioned earlier, do moderately well and maintain that pace. Go above and beyond and you’ll get rewarded with overtime.
All companies operate vertically, no matter how much they emphasize their horizontal “startup like” structure.
Korean society as a whole is a very hierarchal culture. There’s the term 갑/gab (upper hand) and 을/eul (lower hand), which is the general standard for how people interact with each other.
If it’s an ad agency for example, the agency would be eul and the agency’s client would be gab since the client is the one paying the agency to do their bidding, so to speak.
Often times, when the head of a team or the CEO (gab) requests something by a certain date, the request quickly trickles down and those in the office (eul) are summoned like worker bees to quickly fulfill said request by the deadline.
When in Rome, you have to learn how to play by a whole different set of rules. And as I’ve adjusted to these rules, I’ve found myself contemplating what my rules and my personal and work values are—which I hope to keep discovering and shaping in this year.