Highlights: “Misaeng,” Episodes 9 and 10

Episode 9, or how to work with the a**@#%$ you hate

Our favorite sales team finally gets a new addition! Unfortunately, the guy turns out to be a total troublemaker who has fun publicly humiliating our courageous Geu Rae for getting in without any talents (and no university degree). The man, Mr. Park, also likes to lounge around, make Geu Rae massage his feet, play pool and go to saunas during working hours. And he’s a total suck-up towards the big boss, even though he’s pissed off at having been sent to the team.

Geu Rae decides to follow another of his go (badeuk) lessons, which states that the trick is to always keep your cool, for at one point your adversary will make a mistake.

Geu Rae is not the only one who has to deal with Most Horrible No Good Colleague. Ahn Young Yi is now relegated to cleaning trash cans (though lovesick Baek Ki does this one for her), cleaning desks, getting coffee, etc. And of course, nobody wants her to be doing any real work (those men have a serious inadequacy complex, don’t you think?).

As for Han Suk Yool, we finally get to see him struggling as well. His direct manager tricks him into buying expensive coffee for everyone by giving him a credit card that’s already reached its limit (which he knew) and not having any cash. He also orders Suk Yool to stay at the office until past midnight for an important call from Canada, then to set up a meeting at 5:30 am at a hotel for some execs. Basically, as Suk Yool realizes, the man is making him do all of his own work, then taking credit for it.

As Suk Yool correctly states, the newbies are having a real rough time. You’ve got the big pushover, the tormented maid, the overstressed guy, and himself, the ghost worker whose work gets stolen by others.

The only two (OK, let’s call it two and a half) silver linings in the cloud are the facts that:

1. Geu Rae finally opens up to someone (unfortunately it’s not Young Yi — if he keeps this up, Baek Ki is going to steal her away!) at the office about his past as a badeuk player and how he got into the company: Kim Dong Sik.

2. Because Jang Baek Ki’s boss is away on a business trip, he suddenly is asked to do real work. It was fun to watch him struggle with actually taking the responsibility for it, since he’s already looking for another job, but he finally does take it (after asking for permission) and revises a budget. Finally, Baek Ki has his turn to shine! The only problem is that the budget gets denied by the finance department, and Baek Ki slowly comes to the realization that it’s because he doesn’t know his basics, as his boss had told him before. But now, he’s willing to accept it, and to work on improving himself.

2.5. Manager Oh (boy, do I love that man — I really hope my next boss is like him!) stands up to Mr. Park, telling him his team can’t work with him. Cue lightning bolts shooting from their eyes.

Episode 10, or the dealings under the table

The straw that broke the camel’s back is that Mr. Park publicly sexually harassed a female worker by making her pour him coffee (coffee always tastes better when a woman serves it), then commenting on her appearance while pretending to be talking about a car ad (her figure’s really nice, I’d love to ride her some time). I totally would’ve slipped him something in his coffee… like tons of salt instead of sugar.

And that is how Manager Oh finally decided to stand up against Mr. Pr*k Park. So now, Mr. Park has to work on his own cases, and he’d better stop mistreating others. Mr. Park then jumps onto his pet project, a used car deal in Jordan. But when Manager Oh gets the report, he finds something strange: The company’s profits suddenly seem to surge around the time of the deal talks, and for no good reason. The only thing the other team members can think of is that Mr. Park is getting his share too.

So they decide to investigate him. Secretly. Except they’re no kings of discretion, and Mr. Park immediately feels the change in atmosphere. Manager Oh warns his boss about what’s going on while sending Dong Sik and Geu Rae to the intermediary company which wants to do the Jordan used car deal. But when our two team members get there, Mr. Park is already there. Suspicious much? The latter definitely loses his cool when he hears that the Audit Team is on its way, and no matter how many threats he sends, it’s not going to change anything. The Audit team arrives and, when it looks like everything’s in order, Jang Geu Rae acts. In the end, he’s the one who solves the puzzle: The embezzlement was done by Mr. Park and his whole family who has members in both the company being audited and this so-called Jordan company.

Manager Oh explains that Mr. Park must have felt like all that money was owed to him for bringing in the biggest deal the company had seen at the time, yet not getting any kind of (monetary) recognition for it. So he started taking small bribes, and the more he did, the greedier he got, until he created that paper company with his family. And then, with time, he became careless, and that’s how he got caught.

The only problem is: how will this be handled within the company, since so many highly-placed people let this scheme go on for so long (whether knowingly or unknowingly)? Will evil triumph after all?

As for our other newbies…

Ooooh, what do I spot here? Does Young Yi’s direct manager feel a little bit of guilt at how he’s treated her in front of everyone? Because now his whole team is treating her like a maid. So for once he send her on a business trip to a fertilizer warehouse to get the shipment ready (instead of getting the manager’s shoes at the store and buying cigarettes for the other). And when it turns out the truck drivers are on a strike, Young Yi decides to drive the truck herself. She does so until well past midnight when her direct manager calls to ask where she is severely scolded for all her efforts and dismissed.

Jang Baek Ki is finally being diligent and willing to start from the ground up having given up his plan to leave the company. Whereas Suk Yool plays hooky to avoid doing his boss’s work on top of his own and ends up forced to go back and forth on Young Yi’s truck.

That’s all folks, for this week! The previews for next week’s episodes make things look rather somber for our favorite Sales Team 3. What do you think is going to happen to them?

[tv]You can check out the latest episodes of “Misaeng” on SoompiTV![/tv]