Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mateomiguel]

I've recently started working in the crazy world of a real Korean office.

One of my coworkers is an old, washed-up loser who can't do his job worth a damn and constantly makes more work for us all, me especially.

Another one of my coworkers is a nice, young, cute Korean girl who has lived abroad and is independent and talks back to her elders.

They just got into an argument, and the old loser just smacked her upside the head with some papers.

My female boss just called them both into the office and closed the door.

Everyone else in the office is shocked and speaking in hushed Korean.

I was separated from them by a cubicle divider or I might have intervened right away. Instead, another Korean guy took the loser by the arm and made him sit down, and all I did was yell out "What the hell are you doing?"

This is breaking news from inside the concrete Korean jungle. I'll update you with new developments as they break.

[mateomiguel]

well, they came back out and now they're sitting at each other's desk and acting like everything is normal.

I think I need to pull the guy aside and tell him to never, ever hit a woman in my presence again.

[Nambucaveman]

Miguel,

Keep us posted...this could be a soap opera in the making. We could even name it.

I vote for "As the Generations Clash"

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Sounds like another day at the Korean office to me. He hit her with some papers? Like, lightly with a stack of ten or nailed her with a big, wrapped up pile of B4s? Next time just yell at and intimidate him a bit and it will be a big enough loss of face it likely won't happen again.

[RACETRAITOR]

I had a similar situation at my office. We had one older employee whose only talent was that he went to my boss' university. And one younger female employee who was headstrong and a hard worker and full of brilliant ideas. They clashed all the time and I thought my boss was going to take his side. Then one day I heard he was firing the older guy, because he just wasn't doing anything useful. The girl quit shortly after, and she got her mom to go into the office and scream at my boss. That was funny.

[kimchi_pizza]

The girl was wrong regardless (talkin back to her elders...she should know better especially in Korea).

And advice for you: Don't get involved. You already said this guy makes more work for ya. Imagine the work he'll give ya if he's pissed. It's a Korean thang, you wouldn't understand. Ignore it like everyone else.

[Captain Corea]

I thik he makes more work for the OP, NOT because he is his boss or anything but because he is so incompetant.

Let him have it man.

[mateomiguel]

yeah the guy does not have power over me. I'm just constantly compensating for his incompetence.

The guy had a hand full of papers, maybe 5 or 6 loose sheets, and he brought up his hand and hit the girl on the side of the head with them. Not too hard, but enough to be extremely embarrassing for her I'm sure.

You know, she gets embarrassed a lot in this office as the youngest member. I think these fools in here do it on purpose. She got reprimanded once for talking to me too much, as it was not becoming of a Korean woman. I defended her by saying that I talked to her because her English was the best and I needed to know what was going on. That's true too. Now my boss regularly just tells her what she wants to tell me and she translates between us. My boss can speak English, she just doesn't want to I guess?

[mateomiguel]

new developments!

old loser guy and I had a talk. I told him that in western culture, one of the worst things you can do is hit a woman. So I told him to never, ever hit a woman near me again. It doesn't matter where it is, or who it is, don't hit her.

old loser guy countered by saying that I spoke too intimately with the girl in the office and everyone else in the office was uncomfortable with our 'relationship.' In my opinion, of course, I am nothing but professional with this girl and don't think there's a difference between the way I treat her and the way I treat everyone else, and I told him so.

Then I asked him if he was trying to make the two things equivalent, and if I stopped talking to the girl would he stop hitting the girl? Unfortunately that seemed to be too intricate English or too big of a thought for his mind, because he didn't understand.

He asked me who was the better worker, him or the girl. I told him that if he wanted to know who was the better worker, look at how much I have to fix his problems compared to fixing her problems. He didn't seem to understand that either.

The entire discussion was conducted calmly and in broken English, and I think it was pretty useless all in all. But at least he knows not to hit women in front of me anymore.

Inter-national inter-office politics. This is SO much more interesting than working tech support in Oklahoma.

[Dev]

I don't think things are going to change much for women in this country until (like in the West) all the women get together and demand to be treated with respect.

Incedentally, I saw a story on BBC last night about Russian women car drivers banding together to demand respect from male drivers.

[JongnoGuru]

[mateomiguel]

well damnit. This girl has told me "I can't live like this" and told my boss she quit. I'm proud that she won't put up with this but also sad that I'm going to be left to deal with a bunch of old codgers without westernized backup.

[thebum]

[RACETRAITOR]

[JongnoGuru]

Well that was one damn short soap opera.