Visibility over productivity
One of the most frustrating things about working in Korea is the culture of staying late in the office. You are expected to remain at least an hour after the end of official working hours.
Appropriate number of hours will depend on your industry, the size of the company but most importantly the boss you report to.
My boss would stay late — up to 8 or 9 pm every day — as if he didn’t want to go home. He would watch baseball games from 6:30 when the work officially ended. I knew he wanted me to stay late and have dinner, and work with him afterward. It seems he wanted to stay at work as long as possible, where he was the king of the jungle and he wasn’t getting the same respect at home. In Korea, when you have a meal with your boss or elders, the youngest has to perform a pre-meal ritual of placing chopsticks and a spoon under a napkin for your elders and pouring tea. They even have to order for seniors so having a meal with subordinates can make you feel like a medieval King.
One time, I couldn’t take it any longer and I asked to leave at 7pm. He frowned and mumbled that perhaps he wasn’t giving me enough work to do.
That’s right folks. You are expected to come 30 minutes early and stay 2–3 hours past the official working hours. Koreans will usually wait quietly for the first colleague to be brave enough to take action. Once the first guy gets all the stigma, other lemmings will follow. And yes, don’t expect a positive appraisal if you are one of those people who leave early. You don’t have to accomplish much during these hours. It’s usually an email and then dinner with alcohol and then get back to the office for another email and you can head home leaving your boss completely satisfied. It’s usually accompanying your boss to dinner that makes him happy.
I didn’t have a family back then so I actually enjoyed the alcohol and dinner so it wasn’t such a bad experience for me, but many of my colleagues just wanted to go home. Interestingly, they were very persevering and very used to this.
Fortunately, this trend is changing. Top corporations in Korea introduced mandatory PC shut-down policy after working hours a few years ago and it is slowly becoming the norm in Korea. Finally, the concept of work-life balance is setting its roots in Korea.
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