I am looking forward to this discussion as I know dramas like DNA lover and The auditors were two prime examples of no link to the reality of the job roles.
Dr Slump poor soundproofing, immediate use of medication for depression and no conversation re the ‼️⛔️ re prescription meds and alcohol. This was an issue knowing how hard it is for Korean dramas to positively depict the appropriate use of psychological support for mental health conditions .
I can however turn a blind eye to DNA lover ridiculous theories because it is fantasy but not having work related material in the home which she then burns not for confidentiality reasons but because she is moving on to the next victim and needs to clear space.

Dear Hyrie comes under my ‘this is fantasy’ banner so it is fine to have ridiculous displays of mental health because it just happens to use a real life term.
Can’t accept active patient doctor relationships turned into personal relationships such as shown in Bad memory eraser and Kill me Heal me. This is an abuse of power with vulnerable people and is an ethical issue in all professions that leads to being struck off the register. Therefore it is the equivalent of showing Domestic abuse gaslighting as an appropriate relationship building approaches and even in fiction needs to be called out for what it is.

I get turned off when doctors go against ethics and privacy. For example, as soon as I saw the synopsis of Bad Memory Eraser on Viki, it was gross to me. I can't remember if it's illegal but it's certainly unethical for a psychologist/psychiatrist to get romantically involved with their patients BECAUSE it's implicitly manipulative and a power imbalance.
I couldn't see any way that could be sexy or cute and based on the reception of that drama, it seems I was right.

In Perfect Marriage Revenge, a doctor (I don't remember the specialty) just offered up medical information to the female lead and I was like what the flim flam? There wasn't even a pause.
It was acknowledged in universe but it also wasn't treated with as much gravity as such a violation might deserve (because the doctor was a friend).

Hum... I think it depends if it's really the main theme of the drama or if the job is just a part if the character.

For example, I remember that Ms. Hammurabi was written by an old judge (or someone in judicial system) but I was really surprised when the FL, a judge, gave flyers about a trial in progress. It was hard to take seriously this drama after that.

But in general, there are so many details that don't work, that I no longer pay attention to them. As long as the rest of the drama is good.

I think it's easier to give a pass to professional portrayals that I know nothing about. For example, I know nothing about accountants or auditors so I don't know what leeway is being given for dramatic purposes.
Unless what's happening in it seems glaringly wrong, even to someone like me who knows NOTHING about it, it's easier (sometimes) to go with the flow.
One time there was an American show called Leverage and the creatives behind it said sometimes they mixed reality with fiction *because* the reality was stranger than fiction. Like how easy it was to get into certain rooms and meeting certain people. They were also playing up and expanding on real history or lore.

This reminds of shows like Taxi Driver which is based on real cases and yet is considered fantasy (by the actors) because of vigilante aspect. I know nothing about tech or running a foundation or a taxi business, so it's easier to believe how they can do everything they do.

I usually just laugh at poor workplace portrayals. I watched a c-drama that treated trade conventions as some sort of invitation-only elite-only bastion of deals and networking. That was a huge laugh. (As was the thought that you could put together a booth on 12 hours and no budget)
And of course, using a drip as a panacea for all illnesses. That is pretty ridiculous.
But the dramas themselves are so fantastical anyway that I usually just let it go.
As other people have mentioned, Doctor/patient relationships are icky. But I find Boss/employee relationships significantly More icky, and they happen even more often in dramaland. I yell at the tv a bit, but usually keep watching.
Dramas have So Many unrealistic elements. If I am going to dump a drama for just one element, it has to be something that I would be real-life angry about. I guess something life threatening? If a drama doctor said that vaccines were bad, or a policeman advocated driving at high speeds while drunk, I might be disgusted enough to drop the drama.

I also hate corruption stories in dramas. I really hate it so much. Like dramas where doctors prioritize non critical rich patients over critical non rich patients. It just makes me hate everyone involved and I can't get over it. I don't know how real to life that is which also disgusts and distracts me so those types of shows are things I can't get into.

Similarly the corruption in The Fiery Priest. I don't even know how darkly funny that show is because I dropped it because I hated the corruption so much. The only reason I know some of the characters get better is because it was covered in a recap.

That's also why I can't watch Black Out despite how good it apparently is.

It's a delicate balance for me on what I can tolerate haha.

I know very little about all things computer-related, so I would love to be enlightened by some expert beanies about how realistic it is for a hacker to hack all those CCTV cameras in Kdramas.

I can put up with a lot of workplace inaccuracy because I know it’s’ just entertainment. However, the one thing that drives me crazy is when I see characters spend more time not working than working, whether they are chit-chatting, napping, gossiping, etc. In my real life experience they would be reprimanded and eventually lose their jobs. I often wish I could have a drama land job for this reason.

Hello everyone,
Personnally, I'm bothered by all the male CEO - poor/young female employee romances. Kdramas put a lot of efforts to romanticise and normalise something that in reality too many women suffer as sexual harassment, sexual coercion and worse.
Nothing is said or shown about the power imbalance between the 2 and how unethical it is for a CEO to be romantically interested in one of his female employee.

In an ideal world, yes they could love each other, once she does not work for him any longer and her living does not depend on keeping a job at his company. Otherwise, it is abuse of power.

On the flip side, some Kdramas has super accurate portrayals.
My Ajusshi manages to portray the world of engineering in an excruciating accurate manner. The way they measure crack propagation, the use of finite element analysis on the building structure. Boring but accurate details that added to the slice of life realism.
It was refreshing change of pace from hollywoods laughably bad portrayal of scientists and engineers.

I guess this fits the subject. What drives me nuttiest is legal dramas where judicial officers (judges, prosecutors) are personally connected to the case/defendant and nobody seems to know/care. I guess the word "recuse" isn't in the K-drama lexicon. I've gotten so used to it that even a scene like Song Joong-ki's interrogation by his prosecutor girlfriend in Reborn Rich doesn't faze me anymore. Much.

Bars:
I have seen few dramas have these lovely bars with beautiful decor or having a nice vintage vibe. But it’s usually just the main characters who frequent the bar and get chatty with the bartender. You almost never see other customers or the bar get crowded. This feels so unreal given how all the bars I go to get super crowded at some point and you can barely hear the other person talking.

I find it hilarious that professors are portrayed as minor celebrities, with their students hanging on their every word. Many of these characters - mostly in Arts and Humanities disciplines - also have fancy sports cars somehow. Granted, many of these profs are Gumihos or something of the like, so that takes a bit of the wind out of the sails of "unrealistic" 😂

I get annoyed when dramas portray musicians who play from sheet music as unfeeling robots. Such characters are unfavorably compared to pure geniuses who "play what they feel, not what's on the page." The FL of "Naeil's Cantabile" would not be admitted to a prestigious conservatory in real life.

There are "levels" for me.
Some portrayals are just straight up ridiculous even if I don't know anything about the topic. So that makes the show feel more like some dumb fantasy drama.
Others are more on the frustrating side. And then there are the ones that are straight up gross.

The therapist turned lover trope will always make me go "eww".
The high school teacher turned lover is next in line. Just, ew.
I see that and my brain immediately goes "someone please call the cops".

Then, the typical "detectives" who jump to conclusions over nothing are more frustrating than gross or magical.
Oh, and I know the FL from What Comes After Love isn't really an interpreter, but she was killing me. The whole time I was like "please, stop omitting parts and paraphrasing so much".

And sometimes, the show just makes its own set of magical knowledge. There's like a while world building around it, because there's no way that you would understand what's going on otherwise.
Everything is extremely convenient for the plot. Like Dear Haeri or Tell Me What You Saw.

However, in some occasions dramas can make a satisfactory portrayal of competent workers and even teach us something new.

Maybe it's because dramas like You Are My Spring, Run On, Flowers in Sand or Flower Boy Next Door make the careers of the main characters a big part of the story, but they seemed very thoughtful on how they portrayed their jobs.

I appreciate translators, ssireum wrestlers, and editors more now. And YAMS was probably the first (and last) time a psychiatrist in kdramaland didn't make me cringe or feel sick.

I think what irks me about dramas is when the drama takes a certain profession up as its main source of content but does a grossly horrible job at making it accurate. Like, if you’re making a medical drama and promoting it as such, you better be accurate in all of the medical procedures (at least, the admin stuff if the surgical stuff can’t be done accurately) and not throw in some stupid HIPAA-equivalent violations. If a drama is surrounding the topic of mental health, don’t romanticize nor downplay it— so on and so forth

Korean workplace dramas actually just leave me with a lot of questions.

Do people really gossip that much instead of minding their own business?
Does Korea have any labor laws about work hours or bosses?
How do they eat out for almost every meal? Are meals cheaper in Korea? Also how do they afford all those coffees, especially for their coworkers?
How does someone get hit by a truck in broad daylight in a crosswalk?

When police violence is depicted as just and good, and civil rights infringement is depicted as the only sensible thing to do, ... I don't like that.
I have seen in several drama how the demands that you have something reasonable to go by before you bug a citizen, enter their home, or arrest them and hold them back, are shown as unreasonably preventing the police from doing good work.
Also, I see that specific crimes are chosen that no one can not condemn, like (I have just watched ... or skimmed ... first episode of Officer Black Belt, and the rapists there went for schoolgirls, and lots of them.
Of course, these things exist, but it just seems like more an excuse to praise police violence than to treat the subject in any serious way. "But it is for entertainment" ... Yes - first there's the kidnapping and almost-rapes, and then there's the police violence - all in one package.
As an important bonus, the innocent victims are all *extremely* innocent, and that means the most common kind of rapist - the type who rapes someone they know, or someone who initially liked them and maybe flirted with them or even considered maybe going further - that guy can pat his own shoulder and say: "But those girls asked for it. I am one of the good guy. The bad guys are like that one on my TV right now".
And after that, police violence.
In Nam-soon last year we saw the ML "hero" police officer stamping on the already broken leg of a man he had just arrested, and who was lying on the ground. The script didn't seem to think that made the ML a bad man in any way. He even promised to teach his future children how to avoid abuse of (super)power.
I don't know if the writers were extremely sarcastic or what ... they didn't show a clear shift of mood or the kinds of things we are used to receive as pointers that something is seriously wrong.
I don't know if all of this is unrealistic - the violence, and the rapes - but I know that focusing on them in these scenarios are what they call copaganda on Does The Dog Die.
Taking domestic abuse seriously like it was in Castaway Diva was sorely needed, especially with the added demonstration of why even the police has to follow rules and shouldn't just be allowed to e.g. share information with each other without a good reason.
Some policemen are nice (I still chose to believe) but the profession of course attracts people who like to have power and an excuse for beating up people. Officer Black Belt showcases some of the problematic depictions of police work.

The one that comes to mind immediately is Atelier In (Love Next Door)... Where are the interns, where are the moodboards, the renders and plans, the subcontractors going in and out, the material samples, the models, just the general bustle, in a supposedly award-winning architecture studio? The studio has almost no staff, and no clients! No matter how fancy/ stark the principal's office may be, the general workspace is always a beehive of activity.
I don't see anything here to tell me it's a working practice, and though the building is gorgeous, it just looks dead....unlike any architect's office I've worked with or visited!

iT took me years to watch the Jisung drama about DID. I have never watched It is ok to not be ok. That's ok, It's Love was problematic.

It was a no brainer to not watch Memory Eraser.

So unethical activities like boundary violations presented as romance really do not sit well with me. Sensationalizing and romanticizing mental health disorders is a disservice to those who suffer with these issues. More realistic although still pretty dramatic presentations like Just between Lovers sit better with me.

I am disappointed with what I have read about Dear Hyeri. It sounds like a totally unrealistic depiction of DID. I might have watched it had it been framed as a fantasy. I might consider framing it as a fantasy for myself and then watching it.

I am having a more difficult time "accepting" blatant errors and outright misinformation of laws, business structure and medical information (diagnosis, prognosis, etc.) It is writer malpractice to not get basic, easily researched principles correct.

There were number of shows I liked because of the workplace descriptions: My Mister, Another Miss Oh, On the verge of insanity etc.
A big put off for me medical and genetics aspects of dramas which almost never done well. It is really laughable that you wander in any hospital hallways/stairways and find very confidential information of your patient of interest, performing surgeries on your family members etc. You can pose as a guardian of anyone and get the information.
Genetic testing is really a whole another dimension :).

There are two pet peeves I want to mention in particular:
1. The way detectives seem to have no other responsibilities except dedicating all their time and effort on helping the lead solve their case. How realistic is this? Re: Miss Night and Day, Black Out...etc
2. Dramas and movies highlighting certain careers over others: architect, writer, doctor, lawyer...etc. Especially the architect one lol. What it is with romantic movies and architects? Architects are the least romantic people in the world. They would be terrible partners because they're always critical and exacting (as they have to be in their profession or else people might die) I wish screenwriters didn't romanticize and glorify such a small set of careers. There are a lot of other satisfying and meaningful careers with better hours, quality of life, and salary!

I am more forgiving on industries I know little about. But I also draw the line if its illogical and needs a great suspension of disbelief. Example on the most recent drama, The Auditors. Some of what they do is downright criminal so I know the writer was just doing it for entertainment.

I've thought long and hard about my dealbreakers when it comes to workplace idiocy in Kdramas, but I'm struggling to come up with a hard-and-fast rule. My frustration cuts across different occupations (although I'd say medical drama wins the prize for overall lamest genre). I guess there's just a tipping point where the boneheaded depiction of the workplace undermines the show's credibility so much that I can't keep watching. For example:

Daily Dose of Sunshine - A young, inexperienced nurse who never trained in psychiatric medicine is transferred to work in the psych ward. She's left unsupervised to interact with patients, one of whom she triggers into a psychotic breakdown where people get hurt. She asks her doctor oppa to explain what bipolar means, and he defines it incorrectly. I couldn't make it through the first episode.
The Auditors - I quit after four episodes and so never found whether they actually got around to doing any auditing.
Detectives in Trouble, a.k.a. Crime Squad - The ML constantly does things that should get him fired or put in jail. The other police officers are totally clueless.
Mrs. Cop - Another police station staffed by total incompetents.
Partners for Justice - A prosecutor who is breathtakingly naive and unqualified.

I find I'm willing to overlook a lot when the show is really special. For example, unlike @oldawyer I didn't mind the questionable legal ethics of the FL in Hyena.

I tend to avoid dramas with professions I know too much about.
Sometimes it works: I loved the portrayal of the author in "Be Melodramatic", where she is sitting at her laptop, typing like crazy and is all like "Yes! It just flows through my fingers! I'm so in the zone!" only to realize seconds later "It's all shit!", because that's real (unfortunately).
Most times it doesn't work and that takes me right out of the story. Sometimes I still wonder what the job discription of the FL in "Start Up" was - everybody else had a pretty defined job, yet she did … what, exactly? All day?
Bad Memory Eraser was so over the top with absolutely everything, there was no research in any of the topics they covered so I couldn't help watch on in horrified amusement to find out what utter bullshit they would come up with next.
"Midnight Romance in Hagwon" over-researched their topic and that bored me to death, because there is only so much dry information I can take.

I know a lot of Beanies don't like SHOOTING STARS for valid reasons but as someone who has worked in PR for going on 7 years before moving careers, I can tell you that a lot of what the PR team at the celeb agency were faced with and how they handled it is spot on.

In fact, while I was watching the drama I was like: Good lord! Writer-nim must've worked at a PR agency at some point!

Where to begin...

I notice a lot of inconsistencies and almost every single drama I've seen this far has a gaping hole I want to patch for the sake of accuracy. The scientist in me picks at the experiment details because the conclusion does not address the hypothesis. Realistically, I want to save my sanity. Hence, I let go.

My rational side has its own filter as a defense mechanism:
1. I am not from that country. What the hell do I know about their culture, customs and laws. I should not judge.

I remember the first K-drama I watched. The scene is set in the office where everyone is supposed to be professional. Yet, a subordinate made a mistake, the boss kicked the subordinate with full force on the shin, or hitting hard on the back of the head, in front of colleagues. I swear I had to pick my jaw from the floor. Disbelief, aghast, appalled doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. I then asked myself "Does this really happen in S. Korea?" There's got to be some truth in it otherwise, it wouldn't have made it into the script, right? The argument then of telling my kids to keep their limbs to themselves (absolutely no hitting) is moot if I choose to let this slide. Then I tell myself, "It's a freaking drama. No need to get worked-up." Yes, arguing with thyself is NOT HEALTHY. It's a headache either way. I take a deep breath and let it all go. On to the next...

2. I speak another language and not everything said in one language translates properly in English. Dramas, are subtitled in English and I believe sometimes the essence and true meaning of the statement is LOST IN TRANSLATION.

One of my pet peeves are the parental genetic tests. Does it really say "99.9% match"? Since half your DNA is from mom and the other half from dad how the hell are you a 99.9% match to one parent? The verbiage for the result is inaccurate and lacking. Genetic testing as such are probability tests. So the report is in the context of probability. Either a parent can be excluded or not be excluded as a biological parent of the child. The probability of paternity/maternity is 99.99999%. But I don't think this equates to being a "match". This gets to me every time a show writes in a genetic testing situation. This is NON-NEGOTIABLE unless someone can definitively tell me that the paternity/maternity result does not say "99.9% match" as the subtitle alludes.

3. It's a good story line.

Agreed! Until it falls off the cracks and is left in Never Never Land, never to be spoken of again. It started off so good that I'm hooked...until the 50th and last episode where that one issue was never truly addressed or resolved and you're left scratching your head, kicking yourself, feeling very unproductive due to the amount of time invested on a placebo. Situations like these make me want to jump off a cliff until that little voice in my head starts scolding me, "It's a freaking drama, no need to get all worked-up."

To sum it up, I am...