Week 6: Misaeng: Incomplete Life and Korean Workplace Culture
A contract worker at a trading company, and what the show gets right about hierarchy, seniority, and hours
29 March 2027
Misaeng (미생) — Incomplete Life — follows a former professional Go player turned contract worker at a trading company, and stays remarkably close to the texture of office life: the meetings, the hierarchy, the hours. It’s often cited by Korean viewers as one of the more accurate workplace dramas made, which makes it a useful test case for this week’s real question — how do you tell a genuinely common social pattern apart from a stereotype the genre just repeats?
Questions#
- What does Misaeng reveal about Korean corporate culture specifically, rather than about corporate culture in general?
- How do hierarchy, seniority, teamwork, and long working hours interact in the show’s office?
- How has Korean workplace culture changed since the show was made?
- How should we tell a social pattern apart from a stereotype, when a drama presents both with the same confidence?
What to take from this week#
- hierarchy as a structuring feature of the workplace, not just a management style
- seniority and what it entitles someone to, formally and informally
- corporate culture as a specific set of Korean institutions, not “how everyone works”
- work-life balance, and how the show frames its absence
- employment structures, including the contract-versus-permanent distinction the plot turns on
- workplace relationships as a hierarchy people also have to live inside
Teaching team
- May Rhee — convenor