An account of the situation in which they threatened to sue me when I asked to resign
A service centered on people, culture, and environment rather than technology,
centered on the user (customer) rather than blindly putting technology first,
not the kind of work an agency does, but
building our own service and creating new value.
...
I showed up two days earlier than my scheduled start date.
It was to help out the busy team.
While working, I found that design wasn't doing the role design is supposed to do; it was just making whatever I was told to make and handing it over.
Planning and development were also operating completely separately. As a result, features and design were constantly being changed, revised, or deleted.
Everyone was scrambling just to keep up with the tight schedule, and there wasn't a single person managing things from start to finish.
So after working like that for two days,
I said I disliked simply being treated as an in-house contracted designer.
I said the work process wasn't consistent.
I said most of the developers were students and few of them really knew the field professionally.
I said the salary was small considering I was living away from home.
I said I came thinking the company ran its own service, but the progress on it and the importance placed on it were far too small.
I said it was incomprehensible that there were no books, no necessary equipment, and that I even had to use my own computer.
So when I said I wanted to leave,
the manager said, "I agree with you. You've seen things accurately. You seem like exactly the kind of person our company needs."
But he asked me not to relay to the others that he felt the same way.
The next day I met with Director Lee.
Director Lee emphasized again.
That it wasn't like that, that we would build our own service, and that this was a company different in character from other agencies.
And then said, alright, see you tomorrow.
For the time being, I thought I should at least put out the urgent fires the company was facing.
And as Director Lee said, I thought maybe my own thinking was shortsighted,
and I was also grateful that he saw me as such a useful person.
With that, after a week of work, the smartwork project was wrapped up at the first stage.
We went out for a company dinner.
Assistant Manager Han said honestly that he was embarrassed. But Director Lee defended him, saying it was because he was learning a lot.
Shouldn't the embarrassment be not over the inadequate result itself, but over the fact that, regardless of the original planning intent, things were built only to receive money, only to meet schedules,
not for technical development but only around what they themselves could do and what would score points,
and that's how it ended up like that?
I couldn't understand the atmosphere of an assistant manager being embarrassed by the result and others rushing to defend him.
Even after the urgent fires were put out, nothing had changed.
Two government projects and one in-house service were being pushed forward.
But the important thing was that there was no consideration for the customer or any thought given to UX.
It was solely about getting the 700 million won in funding, which had been confirmed after passing the government project application, into the company's hands without any hitches.
Manager Lee asked for my cooperation on a work matter.
He said it was a fake contract and I just had to sign, so I signed.
He said that if you participate in a government-supported project, you receive subsidy money from the state.
For that I signed the intern application form and the intern employment contract.
But a few days later,
when Director Kim (Development) said, "Don't worry about anything else, just do the design that's requested,"
I was right next to him and didn't say a word.
Also,
Director Jung told me to finish a multi-table design in 30 minutes,
and since the work was being paid for, I couldn't understand working that way and tried to make it more detailed,
but Director Lee, too, told me it was urgent so just do it roughly, don't think too deeply, just do it fast.
On top of that,
I told Team Leader Kim Hana that we needed research for the smartwork project. The team leader said it was unnecessary, but Director Lee, even though he knew, said it was needed for the sake of formality and procedure, so just do it simply and roughly, and so it was decided to do that.
What was shocking was that he said we could just do it the way we did the rural research from before. "You did it well," he said.
That research had been a fake job.
The problem is, it's the very same project that Director Lee, during my interview, had said he was so proud of his employees for.
The very project he said his employees worked on late into the night on their own without being told.
This entire series of acts
was worse than the agencies they so disparaged, and I felt it was an act of squandering taxpayer money as if it were the most natural thing.
They spoke as if it were all completely normal, and I didn't want to repeat the same kind of behavior I had at my previous workplace.
The smartwork meeting was in full swing.
But I wasn't called in. They said they hired me to plan together,
yet they still don't call me in, and the PC issue I mentioned before still wasn't resolved while another employee's PC was replaced.
Around lunchtime, the smartwork project discussion was in full swing.
Fortunately, since they still hadn't called me in, it seemed work assignments hadn't been made yet, so I went to find them before it got any later.
And so I said again that I was quitting.
At that,
"You have no manners, you only think of yourself, that's why you'll never amount to anything, you've lived your whole life like that, haven't you?
You really are an awfully rude kid. And of all times, you have to come at THIS moment. With this timing. What kind of person are you?"
"I'll account for what's visible AND what's invisible."
For a moment, what?,
without even asking once why I was leaving,
after they barely held me back, after I worked a few more days because the company seemed busy and was making my judgment based on that,
and on top of that, with not a single one of the things I had pointed out before improved,
and even though almost two weeks had passed without an official contract being signed, you're going to sue me?
What? That fake intern employment contract — I haven't even read it yet...
For now, since it was so absurd and unexpected, I went back and apologized.
At that
"You won't make it. You might succeed in trade, but that's as far as you go.
You only peck at what's right in front of you. Is your family well-off?
The way you're acting is the way people who can't make ends meet behave.
I'm not going to let you off easy. I'll sue you. Go on and wait for it. I'm a man who does what he says.
Wait for it."
...
The manager tells me to come out at 3.
Even so, I felt I should at least say goodbye to the other employees,
so I came in to work normally and bought Bacchus drinks and passed them around.
And I treated everyone to lunch.
Considering the atmosphere and what would happen later, I bought lunch without saying I was leaving yet.
Director Lee gives no word even past quitting time.
When I told Manager Lee, he said to work until the end of this month.
I asked whether that was a notification or whether it could be negotiated.
Or, in order to figure out how to make a living, whether I could ask for permission and step out from time to time.
He said that much was possible.
The next morning, I was about to tell Director Lee what I hadn't been able to say the day before, but he hurriedly went out.
I passed the message through Manager Lee instead.
That I had to go down to Daejeon for a family matter.
Even into the afternoon, Manager Lee couldn't tell anyone.
With no other choice, I passed the message to Director Jung.
I got permission that way and left early.
Then I got a call from Director Lee.
"You're really going to push it now, are you, are you out of your mind?"
I couldn't take it anymore.
It's not as if I left without permission and skipped out unauthorized,
and after making a promise and being out of contact, then unilaterally notifying me belatedly, that's also unacceptable,
It was so absurd.
Even though it was such an important matter, I had even argued with my mother and went to the company.
I asked Manager Lee to show me that fake contract that we had drawn up.
Director Jung,
the moment he saw me, snapped, "What the hell are you trying to do?
Do you have any sense in your head or not?" He said it was so obvious.
That I had created this situation, and that being cursed at and being threatened with a lawsuit and
standing on the edge of a cliff was just the natural consequence.
How do you think the people left behind will feel if you leave?
So shouldn't you be paying the people left behind a million won, ten million won in compensation, isn't that how it should be? he said.
And then, what's this, what are you going to do by looking at the contract? he pressed.
Tears came.
I said I had thought all I had to do was work sincerely.
I had passed along the meeting process, the things to learn and the materials nobody else mentioned,
and just thought all I had to do was work sincerely like that,
but I didn't even just leave, I asked for permission and left, and to be treated like this,
and on top of that, since I had to take out a loan in my own name
and move my family's house by next week, it was an urgent matter, and I had even gotten angry at my mother
and in the end couldn't go today even after all that,
and the company was treating me this way and I was angry,
and worried that I was being driven to the edge of a cliff,
so I asked to see the contract, I told him.
At that he said, that's why are you twisting things up like this?
In a situation like that, isn't it only natural that you get cursed out like that? he said.
Let's stop here, he said. There won't be any lawsuit or anything, let's end it here.
I said I wanted to help as much as I could for the sake of the people staying behind.
If I were really leaving because I hated these people,
would I have bothered to send separate emails, share materials, and even propose meetings, I said,
and said through tears that I wanted to help as much as I could.
Director Jung thought it over and said, then let's meet on Sunday.
On Saturday I got a call from the team leader.
He said the start time, which I had thought was 1 p.m., had been changed to 9 a.m.
July 17
The moment I came into work, the iMac that Heesu had been using was sitting at my desk.
Heesu had clearly been setting up that computer until late to use it himself...
Don't tell me... is the plan to make me use this and then later include it in the damages claim?
Up until now they didn't even give me a computer to work on, so I worked with my own, and now that I say I'm leaving,
and after I asked yesterday to see the contract, NOW you bring a computer to my desk?...
They said they'd give me a copy of the contract but never did..
They made a fake contract just to get the money and made me sign it,
and now they're using it to threaten me with a lawsuit...
Tsk.. there's so much to worry about from every angle...
The computer is a used Apple.
Not only is my own computer better, but I have to transfer the files I had been working on one by one,
or do work separately using my own computer.
On top of that,
when I said the new computer doesn't have any programs and asked what to do,
they said I have to get them through pirated channels.
And so I worked until 3 a.m. tonight.
This work, too, was a last-minute scramble to receive funding.
That very day install the program and write it up, then submit the next day.
User-defined UX wasn't even worth ignoring.
While giving me work like this, Director Lee secretly called me aside and said:
"If you keep behaving like this, I really won't have any choice but to start counting -
do the work properly and leave; since you're doing it anyway, shouldn't you leave that kind of impression on others as well?"
I never imagined the power of personal connections and political pressure could be this great.
How can government tax money be used like this..
Their unfazed attitude that this is just how it's always done, and that this too is a kind of skill,
and the fact that those very people are now threatening to sue me..
And me, having no choice but to come in to work and walk on eggshells in the midst of this unjust situation —
it's so pitiful I want to die..
At thirty I have to find a way to make a living quickly..
I stayed to help with the busy work and look at this mess I'm in..
I don't even have a place to stay in Seoul, I'm crashing at a friend's house...
I haven't even been able to look for a place..
I have to take out a loan for my parents, but because of Director Lee's call I couldn't even go,
and right now my parents in Daejeon need to come up with the money by this week,
and have no money and are pacing back and forth helplessly...
I don't even know what's going to happen after this month ends
and I'm just walking on eggshells like this... ah..is this really how I have to live..
I just want to throw myself out the window..
I'm under so much stress that lately my bronchial tubes are bad and so is my digestion, and even headaches..
My family situation is bad and there's nowhere I can ask for help...
=======================================
I'm sorry..
I'm just transcribing exactly what I had written in my journal.
Because I don't know what to do, I'm flailing around like this just to do something..
Please, please tell me what I should do..
T_T please save me...
