Kim Daeri, Not Kim: An Office Without Given Names — Epoche B1
Dear Minjun, You asked how the new job is treating me. Well, mostly — but there is one problem nobody warned me about: three weeks in, and my colleagues' names are still a mystery to me. Korean companies use job titles — that much was in every guidebook. What the guidebooks miss is that the title replaces the name. The man opposite me is Kim daeri, assistant manager Kim. The woman who trained me is Park gwajang, manager Park. People say "Kim daeri-nim" fifty times a day, and in three weeks nobody has once used his given name. I finally learned it from a delivery label on his desk, and reading it felt like opening someone else's post. The ladder runs sawon, daeri, gwajang, chajang, bujang — staff, assistant manager, manager, deputy head, department head. Hear one round of introductions and you know the whole shape of the office: who bows first at the lift, and whose sentence ends a meeting. Last Tuesday came the mistake. A visitor asked for our chajang, and I answered, brightly, that "Lee gwajang" was in a meeting. One rank too low. The room went very quiet, and Lee chajang himself laughed longest, which somehow made it worse. So, two questions for you, who work in Pangyo where the internet companies use English nicknames instead. How did you ever learn anyone's real name? And in January, when the promotion list goes up and half the titles change overnight, how does anyone speak safely before reading it? Answer before the 20th — we have a team dinner, and I will be pouring drinks for people I can only name by rank. Seungwoo References Choi, H. & Kim, J. (2018). Cultural Influences on Communication in Korean Workplaces. Journal of Asian Business Studies, 12(3), pp. 250-265.