Koffee & Kpop

“Strange thing, work. Once you pick it up and make it yours, it’s hard to put it down. And work isn’t just about the work, is it? You meet people and learn about the world through it.”

I had read “Concerning My Daughter” by Kim Hye-jin a few years ago and upon re-reading my review, I realized that I hadn’t checked out the author’s other works. She writes amazingly real characters that defy stereotypes, struggle, love, and live through the plots, which are just as worthy of note.

“Employee Number Nine” is no exception (translated by Jamie Chang and published by Restless Books). It follows a man who has worked at a telecommunications company for many years but keeps being flagged for retraining until finally, they demote him in order to push him to retire early.

“Only when he placed the papers and brochures on the passenger seat and started the engine did it occur to him that this new ‘work assignment’ wasn’t about giving him work, but making it clear the company would not be assigning him any work.”

He realizes over time that even though he thought highly of his position and it allowed his life to “improve daily in small increments,” ultimately it wasn’t that important.

“The man stammered that he didn’t know where to collect the personal belongings he’d left at the office. He thought of his work uniform and boots, a towel and toothbrush, spare clothes and other odd and ends, then realized there wasn’t a single thing he truly needed back.”

In his new position, he starts building trust with his future customers, by helping out where he could: “load[ing] and unload[ing] boxes at a food factory, carr[ying] parcels for a delivery company, and assembl[ing] folding tables for a factory cafeteria.”

“The man had learned that sales took time and patience; that to sell something, you first had to prove you were someone who could help. What people bought wasn’t merely a product, but trust and a bond built over times. The deal, he realized, was the return on every small kindness he had shown.”

However, this is not something his company recognized as vital to gaining new customers and he is severely scolded for it.

One thing I love about Kim Hye-jin’s work is that she grounds the plot in reality–stating that at the time he was being shuffled from work assignment to work assignment, “a housing market crash and rising interest rates became reality.” While we might not be able to fully emphasize with Employee Number Nine, he recognizes that in light of societal changes, he can’t pity himself because his situation is not unique.

“What he realized that day was simple: everyone already knew his situation. It wasn’t shocking or special. It had become something ordinary–something that could happen anywhere, to anyone.”

Still, he continues to throw himself into his work assignments even when he knows that it is purposeless and even somewhat violent (“The work order came like an ambush one rainy afternoon.”)

“Then he returned to the office and, without fail, he wrote a detailed report of what he had done that day. These tasks were all he did every day, and he wanted to leave a record of how he had spent each one. He took pains to write every detail down, knowing it would be discarded without ever being read.”

Eventually, despite on-going protests by the local villagers, many of them elderly, at the location of one of his work assignments, the job starts consuming him–“work, for him now, was a way to erase and forget.” The local villagers lose their humanity in his eyes, becoming merely “part of the job he had to handle.”

Much like in “Concerning My Daughter,” change doesn’t happen overnight; there is no big epiphany for Employee Number Nine. It happens gradually, over time, with a series of events that include finding an injured dog and visiting the village at night.

If you’ve ever felt like you were being overlooked at a job, or given silly work assignments just to keep you out of the way, then you will relate to this book. Wonderfully written, never too didactic, Kim Hye-jin pulls off an excellent book about an incredible character once again.

Many thanks to Paulina at Restless Books for the review copy.