Misaeng: Episode 5

by dramallama

It’s another great installment looking into the incomplete lives of our favorite office workers and our newbies, who get their first taste of workplace politics. This time it’s an episode with a focus on the women, all about what women sacrifice to balance their work and personal lives and what they can’t sacrifice to preserve their integrity. Our ace intern learns some valuable lessons from a wise veteran, who despite the years of experience, has yet to figure everything out.

 
EPISODE 5 RECAP

It’s just another normal day for Sales Team 3, complete with Chief Oh yelling at Geu-rae for his incompetent work. He throws files at him to redo, and Geu-rae rushes to his desk. In a voiceover, he tells us, “It’s a relief that nothing has changed, at least for me.”

We see what he means as we get updates from our other newbie employees. Seok-yul struggles to adjust, having been planted in the office from the factory. Baek-ki has little to do, being valued less than his boss’s Bluetooth headset. Even ace Young-yi is demoted to handle the food and other trivial item deliveries on her team while also being treated coldly by her superiors for no apparent reason.

The next morning, Geu-rae and Young-yi are met with Chief Oh, who smiles widely as he greets Young-yi. Deputy Director Sun Ji-young joins the group by the elevator, and Chief Oh notes that she’s arrived later than usual. She explains that she had to drop off her kid at day care and proceeds to greet the newbies. Chief Oh introduces her with compliments, saying she’s popular among all employees and has a higher position than him, even though they entered the company at the same time.

Chief Oh rattles off duties for Geu-rae and scolds him for not knowing all the details of their ongoing contracts. He then asks if Geu-rae relayed the acquisition plan to the resource team, to which Geu-rae smiles and tells him that he did so yesterday. Chief Oh freezes and mumbles to himself that he’s most suspicious when Geu-rae answers with that smile of his.

The Resource Department Manager Ma signs a stack of contracts and voices his complaints about the one from Sales Team 3. It only has the bill of lading (BL) draft and not the full original receipt for the transaction, leading the manager to presume that Chief Oh embezzled funds. He orders the resource team Chief Jung to call Chief Oh immediately and he nervously does as told. He conducts a one-sided conversation with Chief Oh, putting words in his mouth about how the mistake is the newbie’s fault.

Deducing that Chief Jung is in the intimidating presence of Manager Ma, Chief Oh calls back and demands that he come to him. When he arrives, Chief Oh yells at him for irresponsibly handling the situation by pushing the blame on someone else. That triggers Chief Jung to cross his boundaries as he yells, “Even though I may embarrass myself, at least I say things when necessary, unlike someone who didn’t say anything, which led to a funeral.”

That’s his tipping point, and Chief Oh grabs his collar. The rest of the office huddles around while Geu-rae and Dong-shik try to separate the two men. Chief Jung taunts him, and Chief Oh eventually just throws him back into the desk, causing him to whimper.

Chief Oh is scolded by his superior for his immaturity, but he ignores the disciplinary lecture and walks back to his desk. Dong-shik takes Geu-rae to the stairwell, where they wonder what happened to the original BL that Dong-shik completed months ago. He shakes his head at Chief Jung’s inappropriate allusion to the past, prompting a confused and curious look from Geu-rae.

Chief Oh steams at his desk, opening a drawer with his at-the-ready resignation letter. He stares at it as he remembers what happened. In a flashback, we see Chief Oh reporting to the executive director about the death of a female employee. The executive director responds with selfish concerns, asking if the employee left a will or said anything to taint his or the company’s reputation. Chief Oh stares back at him, eyes wide with shock.

Manager Ma continues to complain about Chief Oh’s incompetence, and Chief Jung insists that he has nothing to do with the missing original BL. It’s clear that Manager Ma holds some grudge against Chief Oh, as he threatens the sales manager with an excessive official complaint if Chief Oh doesn’t properly apologize for his actions, which of course, he’s not going to do.

The interns gather for their newbie seminar, and Seok-yul grabs their attention with the inside scoop on Chief Oh’s past. But before he can get started, Deputy Director Sun Ji-young walks into the room to start her seminar. She’s multi-tasking with her presentation and contacting her husband about their daughter’s pick-up responsibilities, but she does so expertly.

After the meeting, Seok-yul tries to cheer up his fellow colleagues by telling Baek-ki that he’s just being hazed with the little work he’s given and by explaining to Young-yi that the resource team is initially awkward with female employees. Seok-yul knows what’s going on in every department without ever having to be told.

Young-yi is scolded by her resource team senior for not completing a task assigned to her. She explains that she prioritized another task because of its impending due date, but he seems offended that she didn’t put in an all-nighter to finish his task as well. He shakes his head and ashes his cigarette at her feet, complaining that women don’t understand the sacrificial mindset. He condescendingly commands her to apologize, and she does so stoically.

On the verge of tears, Young-yi rushes into the bathroom to wash out her eyes. Deputy Director Sun walks in arguing with her husband on the phone about their responsibilities for their daughter. When she gets off the phone, she notices her tears and apologizes to Young-yi for showcasing her private life. She drops something from her bag, and Young-yi picks it up, noticing that it’s her daughter’s drawing of her parents, all drawn in except for their faces.

Geu-rae works silently at his cubicle but keeps glancing back at Chief Oh, who notices his glances and yells at him. Unable to contain his curiosity, Geu-rae texts Seok-yul to get the story behind Chief Oh’s explosive behavior. Geu-rae pays his friend a visit, who gets right to the point: Someone under Chief Oh died.

Based on Seok-yul’s information, an employee under Chief Oh had resigned because of a mistake, and he turned a blind eye. The employee later died in a work-related accident in the job she had to take to make ends meet. Some people at the office blame him for not taking enough responsibility in the matter, and it’s clear that after his outburst, everyone in the office has their eyes on Chief Oh.

The scandal negatively affects the team, as Chief Oh gets calls from other departments asking him to step back from their collaborative contacts. Fed up with the arguments, Chief Oh just lets them take the credit for their work, which upsets Dong-shik. They meet on the roof, and Geu-rae, conveniently on the roof one level higher, eavesdrops.

Dong-shik complains about why Chief Oh never clarified the situation to anyone. The person who pushed for the unreasonable contract was the executive director, and their former employee was the one to take all the blame. Chief Oh says that he still declined to take the blame for the faulty contract instead of her, which was the decision that led to all this mess. He believes that it’s still his fault.

Deputy Director Sun walks through the office thinking about her argument with her husband when suddenly, a woman on the resource team faints. They transfer her to the emergency medical facility, where they’re notified that she’s been overworked during her pregnancy. This clearly hits close to home for Deputy Director Sun.

The resource team complains that their team member is pregnant again and that they’ll have to pick up her slack again. They blame her for being selfish and getting pregnant, and the sexist male employee adds that it’s women who are always the problem. The misogynist resource team looks to Young-yi as they remark how women make so many excuses and have no loyalty.

Young-yi reports to Deputy Director Sun, and she asks why her team member didn’t let anyone know of her pregnancy. Director Sun seems to understand her decision to keep this secret, as this is her third child. Even in the modern workplace, it’s a struggle to be a working mom. She explains: “Working moms are always the culprit, at the workplace, to elders, not to mention, to your children. It’s impossible without the help of your husband. If you want to keep working, don’t plan on marrying, Young-yi. It’s easier that way.”

As Team 3 prepares for their meeting with the resource team, Dong-shik cautiously asks Chief Oh to let him take care of the meeting, but his warning gets ignored. The meeting goes smoothly until the end, when Manager Ma brings up the BL again and accuses Chief Oh of embezzlement. Deputy Director Sun tries to placate him, but he tells her that women need to know their boundaries and stop butting in on these discussions.

Manager Ma tells him to apologize, but Chief Oh insists that he has nothing to apologize for. He accuses him of being irresponsible and evading blame. Chief Oh asks if all this commotion is because of his issue last year: Manager Ma was accused of sexual harassment and Chief Oh stood as witness. The whole room silently reacts, and the conversation continues with Manager Ma defending himself by claiming that it’s the woman’s fault for wearing a low-cut blouse.

He claims that all he said was: “If you’re going to cover your chest every time you bow, might as well just reveal everything.” He looks around shrugging and asking if that’s harassment, but that’s not all he said. Deputy Director Sun speaks up and reminds him of his full statement: “There won’t be much to see even if you did reveal everything.” Again, he shrugs and demands to know if there’s anything wrong with that statement.

That’s enough for Deputy Director Sun, and she storms out of the room as Manager Ma continues his irreverent rant about how strong women are the problem — they take offense at everything. He puts Young-yi on the spotl and asks if what he did was sexual harassment. To the shock of the other employees, she bravely replies that if the woman took offense, then it is indeed sexual harassment. With that, Chief Oh takes his leave, yelling that he’s going to write that official apology as requested.

Manager Ma and the rest of the employees clear out, leaving the newbies to wrap up the meeting. They discuss the confusion around this issue, wondering where the BL disappeared to. Seok-yul comes to the realization that Baek-ki was the intern for the resource team two months ago, when the BL was submitted, and asks if he’s seen it. He quickly denies it and walks out.

Baek-ki seems to know something, as he walks away with a scowl, and Geu-rae follows after him to confirm if he’s seen anything. Baek-ki takes offense at Geu-rae’s suspicion and says that he doesn’t know all the files that cross through the resource team.

He walks away, and frowns at the memory of seeing the BL. He’s confronted once again, this time by Young-yi, who asks him the same question. This time, he tells her the long-winded truth with a dose of workplace politics and reality, saying that even if he did see the BL at the time he was an intern, it wouldn’t help her case. She’s on the resource team now, and revealing this truth wouldn’t help her adjustment.

The office is in shock at the sight of Chief Oh’s official apology email, which says, “I’m kind of very sorry” with an animated apple GIF (“apology” in Korean is sagwa, which literally translates to “apple”). Dong-shik and Geu-rae hang their heads in defeat, but Chief Oh nonchalantly claims to have fulfilled the request. HA.

Of course, Manager Ma and the resource team march over to Chief Oh with more complaints. Meanwhile, quick-witted Young-yi uses this opportunity to look through the resource team’s files, but Baek-ki notices. The argument escalates into a physical fight, as Manager Ma grabs Chief Oh and smacks Dong-shik, who was trying to restrain him. Dong-shik falls over, seemingly injured by the fall.

After the resource team leaves, uninjured Dong-shik gets back to regular business, reporting to Chief Oh that he’s off to deliver documents. This must be a regular occurrence, as Chief Oh nods, leaving Geu-rae close to tears and utterly confused. Heh.

As the apology fight wraps up, Young-yi finally finds the BL. She cleans up her search before the resource team gets back and carries out her regular delivery duties, this time coffee. With Young-yi out of earshot, Chief Oh and the sexist employee discuss how they’re going to resolve this issue, which has been blown out of proportion. He should have just admitted that he forgot to include the BL, but he’s too much of a coward to fess up to it now.

Chief Oh looks at his family portrait on his desk and goes out for a smoke. Geu-rae thinks back to a conversation he overheard about his team being the smallest, with the worst corner location — that’s why he was placed in the team as well. He finds Chief Oh on the rooftop to ask him if he’s covering up for Geu-rae’s rookie mistakes. By this point, he knows Chief Oh’s not the person to do such a thing, so he answers his own question and goes back to work.

On his way back to his desk, Geu-rae runs into Dong-shik and asks him how long documents are kept on file. Dong-shik assumes that he wants to dig through the resource team’s files and tells him that it’s impossible to do so. Chief Oh watches this encounter and tells Dong-shik afterwards that Geu-rae can’t be that stupid to plan on looking through another team’s files.

Chief Oh goes to Deputy Director Sun for some document approvals just as she’s pushing back a meeting to pick up her daughter. He sympathizes with her and acknowledges that men often think less of handing off the parenting responsibilities to the mother — in the end that’s why his wife quit her job. He notes that he should have quit his job to raise the kids instead.

As he walks back to his desk, Chief Oh sees Geu-rae suspiciously loitering around the resource team. Geu-rae and Young-yi exchange looks, prompting him to leave. Baek-ki also loiters around and quickly commends Young-yi in the hallway for not speaking up about her findings.

When Geu-rae returns, Chief Oh yells at him for lurking around the resource team and sends him on a business trip… to pick up Deputy Director Sun’s daughter. She’s opposed to the idea of mixing work and personal life, but Chief Oh insists that she take his favor, as he’s trying to keep his newbie out of trouble.

Geu-rae runs into Young-yi by the elevators, and she can’t hide her worry for Chief Oh. They go to a café, where she apologizes on behalf of her superior, Chief Jung. “Everyone has a part of their past that they don’t want to remember, so I understand Chief Oh’s anger.” Geu-rae responds, saying that he doesn’t think Chief Oh is angry. “He’s tormenting himself. Most mistakes end up as forgotten regrets, but that’s not always the case. Some just stick with you; you can’t forget nor reverse it. To me, Chief Oh looks lonely.”

Geu-rae arrives at the day care to retrieve So-mi, Deputy Director Sun’s daughter. When the caregiver calls out for So-mi, all the children rush out with expectant faces waiting for their mothers.

Seeing their faces, Geu-rae asks if he can play with them in the playground for a while, and the teacher happily agrees to stay afterwards to chaperone. The children have a blast on the playground playing games with Geu-rae, and they slowly leave one by one and So-mi watches with yearning eyes.

At the office, Young-yi looks at Chief Oh and thinks back to Geu-rae’s words about memories that stick with you. Her thoughts are interrupted by Deputy Director Sun, who drops her large stack of papers while on the phone. Young-yi rushes over to help her and accompanies her to the meeting room.

As they prepare for the meeting, Deputy Director Sun sympathizes with Young-yi’s struggles on the resource team, saying that it’s always been a difficult team for women. But that’s also where all the elite workers go, and she seems to be enduring well. After some hesitation, Young-yi asks for advice about her gnawing predicament. “I know doing something is the right thing to do, but I’m afraid that it’ll be harder to endure after doing so.”

Deputy Director Sun responds by asking if it’ll be easier on her if she doesn’t do the right thing, and Young-yi says that she’ll at least avoid criticisms targeting her as a woman. In response to her legitimate fears, she says, “Your conscience doesn’t have to do with sexism.”

As Young-yi watches Geu-rae walk around piggybacking a sleeping So-mi, we get the rest of Director Sun’s answer in voiceover: “Everyone has a conscience. It’s just a matter of whether you don’t act even if you know or act because you know.” With So-mi fast asleep on Geu-rae’s lap, Young-yi tells him the truth. She apologizes for not telling him earlier and says that she can’t hand over the file herself because she’s still part of the resource team.

She gives him a note with the locker combination and file location, and he thanks her for the information. Geu-rae leaves Young-yi with So-mi, which confuses the teacher when she returns. The teacher asks if they’re dating, and after a vehement denial from Young-yi, she asks for Geu-rae’s number. Hee, he’s got an admirer.

Geu-rae looks through the resource team files with Young-yi’s directions but can’t find the BL file as indicated. Then he gets caught red-handed by Chief Jung, who grabs him by his collar and immediately assumes that Chief Oh sent him to do the dirty work. He insults Chief Oh and calls him right away, but he’s standing right behind them with the BL in hand.

They take it to the roof, where Chief Jung stammers his bluff, questioning whether or not the BL really came from the resource team files. But Chief Oh tells him that they both know who the real culprit is, and someone else also knows that the document was with the resource team. He warns him not to bring up his past or mess with his team members. Handing him the BL file, he orders Chief Jung to turn it in himself and submit an official apology. When Chief Jung whines suddenly in honorifics, Chief Oh turns around ready to poke his eyes out. Heh.

When Chief Oh returns, Geu-rae stands up and lowers his head. He apologizes, but Chief Oh replies with an unexpected offer to get a drink. Geu-rae’s vision of Chief Oh turns the city lights into hearts around him, and he needs a moment to snap into reality and understand what he’s actually saying, and they eventually go out for drinks. Geu-rae tries to break the awkward silence by asking who told him the resource team cabinet passcode, but Chief Oh leaves it ambiguous, saying that someone just did.

That particular someone seems to be Baek-ki, as we cut to him walking through the office. He sees Young-yi arrive to hang Geu-rae’s suit jacket on his chair, and she notices him. They exchange silent glances as another day at the office comes to a close.

Supermom Deputy Director Sun’s day is far from over, as she sings a lullaby for her daughter before she folds laundry, does the dishes, and cleans the shelves. As she gets ready to do her own work, she sees her daughter’s drawing again and wonders why she didn’t draw her face. Her husband arrives, and she shows him the drawing. Before they go to sleep, she wonders what all this is for. “We’re working hard for ourselves, but we seem to be suffering because of it.” Her husband optimistically states that it’ll get better when So-mi grows up.

As she drops off So-mi at day care the next morning while busily chatting on the phone for work, Deputy Director Sun finally realizes why she didn’t have a face on her daughter’s drawing. So-mi only got to see the back of her head as she swiftly left for work every day. She gets off the phone, gets down to So-mi’s level, and gives her a hug. In tears, she asks So-mi to draw a picture of her today.

Chief Oh busily gets ready for work, frantically asking his wife where his socks are. He quickly slips them on, ruffles his three boys’ hair, and heads out the door. But the door won’t open because Geu-rae is sleeping (and drooling) against it. Looks like he didn’t make it home after escorting a drunk Chief Oh home last night. Chief Oh pushes the door open to wake him, and he quickly gets up with crazy hair, to three laughing boys. Welcome to office life, my friend.

 
COMMENTS

This drama keeps growing on me in all the right ways. A large dose of reality from the lens of a lonely yet earnest introvert is a great way illustrate the daily grind of the everyday salary man and woman. Chief Oh is great, simultaneously hating his job yet caring too much about it. It’s so fitting that he has his resignation at hand, ready for that one big bang that’ll seal the deal. I’m loving the gradual melting of Chief Oh’s exterior, especially as Geu-rae begins to pick up on his loneliness, something that he understands so deeply. Behind all that tough exterior, he really does care about his team. The team is slowly growing on each other, and I can’t wait for them to be best buds.

I’m glad we got a solid introduction into the subject of women in the office, and I’m sure this will be an ongoing theme. It’s not an easy issue to tackle with the appropriate balance of reality and sensitivity, but we managed to get some prime examples of sexism in the workplace, like that distasteful Manager Ma, who makes my blood boil. Though Manager Ma was probably on the extreme end of that spectrum, I wouldn’t consider his sentiments all that shocking. Sexual harassment and misogyny are still prevalent in the workplace, and his extreme example isn’t one to overlook. I appreciate that the issue of harassment was dealt with in a mature manner, and the reactions from our two women seem appropriate. Sometimes you’ve got to bite your tongue; other times, you’ve got to speak up.

I thought the convergence of our two women, Young-yi and Deputy Director Sun, was quite neat. Even though they’re in different parts of their careers and lives, they share the same inherent struggles of being a woman in the office. I thought the scene in the women’s bathroom was particularly interesting, as both women show us different struggles at the workplace that have to do with their gender — Young-yi having to bite her tongue in front of her condescending superior who looks down on her because she’s a woman, and Deputy Director Sun, who has to juggle being a mother and a successful full-time employee.

The fact that her daughter didn’t draw faces on the picture of her parents reveals a sad reality about her life: Her daughter doesn’t see her parents enough to know what their faces look like. It’s heartbreaking to think that she didn’t finish drawing the picture because of this fact, but I can almost guarantee that this trend won’t be broken any time soon. As her husband noted, most parents believe that their devotion to work will be worth it and that things will get better as their children grow up. But most of the time, just being there is what makes all the difference. Both parents don’t have that time for sweet little So-mi (who is just so adorable), and that’s just one of the many sacrifices of the salary men and women who share this incompleteness in life. So snaps and kudos to working parents, especially those working moms out there who tend to carry the heavier burden of motherhood.

Baek-ki is still a mystery, yet his motivations seem to be clearer in this episode. While his main driving force is his own ambition, he also seems to have an attraction towards Young-yi, which motivated him to be a source for Chief Oh. He’s extra friendly and helpful around her, but she doesn’t seem to reciprocate any of his energy. Her passiveness makes her more similar to Geu-rae than Baek-ki, which has me wondering about the potential for a love triangle between these three. At this point, I’d rather that not happen, but dramas will be dramas, and I saw a little foreshadowing of that in this episode.

Young-yi is also a mystery, but the show keeps dropping little hints and details about her character. She’s fiercely independent and hardworking, and she also seems to have a difficult past, as she seemed particularly empathetic towards Chief Oh’s situation. Something about her past made her into the person she is today, and the show is doing a good job of keeping me invested. Like Chief Oh, she seems to be tormenting herself over something, and it’s suffocating her. She’s such an interesting character, and I hope she somehow finds a way to put her guard down. And from the looks of it, earnest Geu-rae seems to be doing the trick.

 
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