Korean office
Today I would like with you, dear readers, make an imaginary walk on the office of any Korean firm. I suspect that for many of you (especially for those who live or lived in Korea) this walk is not so imaginary, and in various Korean offices you had to happen more than once. But Russian readers, in Korea (so far!) I have not happened, such a visit may seem curious.
For the vast majority of Russians already the word "Institution" Immediately causes well-defined associations: an endless garable corridor, door rows, nameplates with names and positions, dried by the corridor of concerned personality with folders in hand. The familiar picture. But the Korean institution looks quite different, it does not look like Russian. For example, I, perhaps, never seen anything reminiscent in Korea just described "Cabinet Corridian System". There are no individual cabinets in Korean offices (or, more precisely, almost no).
The office of a large Korean firm looks like a Russian view more than unusual. He is a huge bright room. There is no corridor, nor individual cabinets, all employees sit and work in one huge room. Somehow I had to go to the office of one of the leading Korean newspapers. When I went there, it turned out to be in the room, which sizes most likely resembled hangar, and in which there were at least two hundred employees. In the international department of the KBS radio station, with which I actively cooperate, about fifty journalists and translators sits in one room. In some offices, the employees are drilled apart from each other by low barriers, but these barriers (a meter height of one and a half) are rather symbolic, as they create the illusion of closed space only while you are sitting. It is worth the person to get up, and the whole hall is visible as on the palm.
The system of this is American origin, and it is intended to ensure that all employees are in sight and has always been able to see who and how it works. Indeed, in such an environment, it is almost impossible to hide from a diligent gaze of the authorities and calmly go to the breakdown of crosswords or knitting. Only the authorities, and not even the average, and the high level can be located in individual cabinets. Middle managers at best relies a small separate fence separated from the total hall all the same low barrierrchik. Separate rooms are only for receiving visitors – small rooms with unchanged low and very soft sofas and armchairs.
In the far corner of the office or in a separate room, it is often located "Smoking", What is absolutely necessary: the waves of the current American antnicotine company have not yet come to Korea, and all Korean men are avid smokers. It is not surprising that it is in the smoker and those unexpected ideas and tactical combinations are born, which determine the success of the company (and sometimes, alas, lead to its collapse). Smoking in Korea – purely male business, one kind of smoking woman (if she is not a rural grandmother and not a maiden from a suspicious institution) for a shock near Koreans. However, women are also applied to the smoking room, especially since in some firms it serves as a place of drinking coffee, without which the life of modern Korean is unthinkable. Coffee is a national drink of modern Korea (as, by the way, and Japan).
Usually for the preparation of hot water for coffee, a special device is used, a sort of boiler of the century HTR. It consists of a large, liters for ten, removable transparent plastic tank with clean drinking water, the electric heater, through which water passes from the tank, and two cranes. From one crane you can pour cold water, and from the other – hot. Tanks tanks are performed by replaceable and when water in one tank ends, the next one is ordered in a special firm, which in a few minutes is brought by a motorcyclist-courier. Next to such a device are a can with soluble coffee, a bank with sugar and a bank with artificial dry creams, as well as one-time paper cups, which are very cheap in Korea and from which, mostly, and drink at work (it is considered to be somewhat nonhygienic ).
Modern office buildings are usually heated in winter and air conditioned in summer, but even now there are still offices, in the midst of which in the cold season there are fuel oil stoves or electrical heaters. Of course, the offices are computerized, equipped with means of communication, multiplier technique, but I will not talk about it, all this is obvious and, for Koreans, naturally, they often simply cannot understand why in Russia it is so difficult (and expensive) to remove a photocopy with the simplest paper, and why in Russia most of the official documents are still, as a hundred years ago, print on cars, and not prepare on computers.
