Corporate culture crushes joy of life

By Rachel Lee, Jun Ji-hye, Baek Byung-yeul

A nine-to-five existence and a two-week annual holiday, regarded as a humdrum life in some countries, remains a pipedream for most Korean workers. Rather than being able to keep regular hours, many office workers here must remain at their desks if their boss stays late, even if they lack anything to do.

In Korea, people simply can't switch off and call it a day. Koreans are among those working the longest hours in industrialized countries.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the average annual working hours of a Korean worker was 2,090 hours in 2011, the second highest after Mexico's 2,250 hours. This compares with an average of 1,776 hours across OECD countries.

South Korea is ranked 32nd among 34 OECD countries in terms of "Work-Life Balance", which measures "how much work and how much play" people enjoyed in 2012. The result shows the difficulties for Korean workers in terms of finding a balance between their work and free time.

‘Too tired‘

"I have to go to bed right after I arrive home because I'm exhausted. I need more free time to sleep, rather than working for almost 24 hours," said Kim, a 28-year-old office worker at one of the nation's top five conglomerates. He didn't want to disclose his full name.

He said his fatigue accumulates day by day.

"I'm pleased with my pay level but I'm not happy with my job because I don't have much of a private life," Kim said.

He says he hates when he has to stay in the office until his superior leaves even after he has finished his daily assignments.

"What is worst, my superior sometimes calls the whole staff and suggests having a get-together. In such a situation, I am always forced to get drunk. I guess playing a tambourine in a karaoke singing room is a fundamental requirement of being a good employee," Kim joked ruefully.

Park Tae-woong, a 32-year-old currently on a doctoral program in engineering in the U.S., worked at a Korean conglomerate from 2008 to 2011.

When asked how his working life was in Korea he said, "It was good when I first joined the company because it was a coveted workplace. I was usually at the office by 9 a.m., enjoyed a one-hour lunch break and left at 6 p.m.," Park said. "I thought it was the right thing to do because the labor laws say the maximum daily working time should be 8 hours."

But he said things became different about two months later.

"When I said goodbye to my colleagues before leaving the office, the head of my department became sarcastic, saying ‘you must be dying to see your wife.'" (At the time he was newly-married.)

He said he belatedly realized that senior staff didn't like him going home that "early," so after that, he left at 10 p.m., which made him skeptical about working for the company.

"That (staying late in office) was not so bad considering that I was able to prepare for the doctorate course and finally my application was successful. Right after receiving an acceptance letter from the university, I submitted my resignation without any lingering feelings for the firm," he said.

The observations of some expatriates who have worked in various Korean companies confirm the views of the burdened employees.

"During my first six months here, a Korean friend remarked to me that achieving a fair or democratic workplace is incompatible with Confucian and other values in Korean society. At first, I didn't want to accept this, but a few examples have led me to conclude he is probably right," said one long-term foreign resident from the United States said on condition of anonymity.

He said that while teaching a business English course to staff of a government company, he quickly realized how little freedom of choice they had in their lives.

"This was due to fulfilling hierarchical roles within the company and indeed their additional filial roles in their private lives. One-to-one English conversation sessions became opportunities of confession and therapy during which a significant number of male workers expressed a sense of being trapped professionally and privately," he said. "Some spoke of despair and this appeared to be evidenced in extreme ritualistic drinking sessions."

Another expatriate from the United Kingdom said, "I worked in an office for a year or so. In the beginning I could not understand why some workers remained late in the office when they had completed all their work. Eventually one worker confided in me that she had to remain at work until her senior colleague went home. She acknowledged that it was extremely frustrating, especially as she had recently returned from living in the United Kingdom away from her family for a number of years."

Choi Ji-na used to work for a trading company but quit her job last year because of difficulties in taking her leave entitlement.

"The amount of holiday that I could take in a year was 15 days. But the maximum number of days I could take consecutively was just five. I was too tired and needed a longer break. Quitting the job was the only way I could do this," the 29-year-old said.

"Even when you get married, the company only gives you a five-day holiday. Actually you can add some of your 15 vacation days if you want to be away longer but nobody does it because senior staff and colleagues don't like it."

Not much different in Japan

Miki Masuda, a freelance journalist and editor based in Tokyo, said there are pros and cons of a restrictive work culture which also prevails in Japan. She says it is far more difficult to fire workers in Japan than in America but the downside is a lack of diversity.

"Workplaces in Japan are not as diverse as in other developed countries, therefore most of the time you are supposed to behave just like other people do," she said.

Regarding the holiday system that some Korean workers complain about, she said the holiday and day-off system in Japan is almost the same as in Korea. "It is quite hard to take a long vacation in Japan too. Workers at Japanese companies always envy people working at foreign companies because they are generally entitled to have more than a week's vacation every year."

Also she found the drinking culture and seniority-first hierarchy in Korea is quite similar to that in Japan.

We don't get it

Jason Lee, 26, has worked as a trading and promotion specialist in London for three months. The average working day for him is about eight hours and the company always respects his weekends no matter what happens.

"I am mostly satisfied (with my current working conditions)," said Lee in an email interview. "There is not huge pressure for employees to work overtime. I can leave when my daily tasks are done."

The specialist also found non-Korean style "staff dinners" very interesting because he is never forced to drink by senior employees. "We have a get-together about once every two months. I do drink a lot but no one forces me to drink."

Will Puxley, a 26-year-old music public relations specialist in Britain, said that although he hangs out with his colleagues, no one in his office pushes each other to drink.

With respect to the minimum length of holidays, Puxley said he has "21 days off annually, which does not include national holidays."

Dalia Calabrese, head of communications for the Capri Group, works from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The 26-year-old Italian sometimes works at home when the workload is too much but she is still happy with her working environment because she regularly receives bonuses. "The company respects my weekends but even if I work weekends sometime, I am satisfied with this job because I earn good wages," Calabrese stated in an email interview.

The company has not arranged a staff dinner since she joined in May but from what she knows Calabrese said the habits are different from those in Italy. "I don't really have time to hang out with colleagues here much but I never heard of superiors pushing people to drink. Korean drinking culture is very funny. Where I work, my junior staffers always leave before me. Well, they sometimes work overtime but they don't have to wait till I leave first. Why would they?"

When Calabrese worked as a freelancer, it was more flexible in terms of time management so she could plan holidays more freely. "As a freelancer, it was about 30 holiday days a year. Now I get about 6 days for Christmas and my summer break is two weeks."