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Employee No. 9
Not yet published
Expected 20 Oct 26No. 9 is in trouble. His son’s college tuition is coming due, his wife needs surgery after taking double shifts at a grocery store, the apartment building they bought as a nest egg is falling apart, and the company he helped build is trying to force him into early retirement. When he refuses, the mid-level IT man is demoted to sales and given increasingly impossible tasks. As his salary dwindles and the humiliations mount, No. 9 must decide where his loyalties lie. If he fights back, how far will the company go to stop him?
With her urgent and timely novel, award-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin questions how long we can endure a broken system. In a rigged game, is there an alternative to playing out your hand?
With her urgent and timely novel, award-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin questions how long we can endure a broken system. In a rigged game, is there an alternative to playing out your hand?
192 pages, Paperback
Expected publication October 20, 2026
About the author
Kim Hye-jin
14 books166 followersKim Hye-jin was born in Daegu, Korea, in 1983. She debuted in 2012 when her story ‘Chicken Run’ won Dong-A Ilbo’s Spring Literary Award. She won the Joongang Novel Prize for Joongang Station, and the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature for Concerning My Daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 4, 2021
Money can make people monsters.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
In a few years, Juno would have a job of his own. He would stumble across something we would be inexplicably drawn to, and when that think turned into his work, he would learn just how much change it would bring. Continuing to do things he didn't enjoy or want in order to do the work he did want, he would watch as the work changed him.
10년 뒤, 15년 뒤. 준오도 자신의 일을 갖게 될 거였다. 그러니까 자신도 모르게 이끌리는 어떤 일을 발견하게 될 거였다. 그러나 그것이 진짜 일이 되는 순간, 얼마나 많은 것들이 바뀌어버리는지 아이도 알게 될 거였다. 그 일을 지속하기 위해, 바라지도 않고 원하지도 않는 일을 계속하면서 자신이 어떤 사람으로 바뀌어버리는지 깨닫게 될 거였다.
Employee No. 9 is Jamie Chang's translation of 9번의 일 by 김혜진 (Kim Hye-jin).
The novel is told from the close third person perspective of someone who has worked as a repairer/installer/maintainance man for 26 years, a firm he joined when it was small, and while now a large corporation, one he is proud to work for.
He's 10 years from scheduled retirement, and keen to work it. However, the company is changing, with new managers and even security guards without a sense of the company's history or his contribution.
There's no smoking everywhere on the premises now.
The man took a long drag, held it in deep, then put out the cigarette.
Why on earth would they hire a kid who knows nothing about this place?
The man and his coworkers had been smoking there for years. The NO SMOKING sign had gone up ages ago, but no one had ever paid attention to it. The man realized there would be no such leniency over anything from here on. People who might have shown such understanding were gone now.
And the company offers him and other long-serving employees generous severance terms - but which he refuses to take.
The firm put him through performance reviews (where he is judged on irrelevant skills such as sales), retraining programs and post him to various, often pointless and/or unpleasant, roles around the country, where he is forced to live away from home for extended periods. But he refuses to quit - and comes to the realisation that's it's because he wishes to retain agency:
He didn't have it in him to explain why he wanted to stay at this company, despite being tempted to quit dozens of times a day. What was he trying not to lose by going to such extremes, and was it working? He couldn't tell.
But the one thing he could say with certainty was that no one was forcing him into this situation. This was his choice-that much he could say.
A very quick and, in literary terms, simple read but one which particularly resonated for me.
10년 뒤, 15년 뒤. 준오도 자신의 일을 갖게 될 거였다. 그러니까 자신도 모르게 이끌리는 어떤 일을 발견하게 될 거였다. 그러나 그것이 진짜 일이 되는 순간, 얼마나 많은 것들이 바뀌어버리는지 아이도 알게 될 거였다. 그 일을 지속하기 위해, 바라지도 않고 원하지도 않는 일을 계속하면서 자신이 어떤 사람으로 바뀌어버리는지 깨닫게 될 거였다.
Employee No. 9 is Jamie Chang's translation of 9번의 일 by 김혜진 (Kim Hye-jin).
The novel is told from the close third person perspective of someone who has worked as a repairer/installer/maintainance man for 26 years, a firm he joined when it was small, and while now a large corporation, one he is proud to work for.
He's 10 years from scheduled retirement, and keen to work it. However, the company is changing, with new managers and even security guards without a sense of the company's history or his contribution.
There's no smoking everywhere on the premises now.
The man took a long drag, held it in deep, then put out the cigarette.
Why on earth would they hire a kid who knows nothing about this place?
The man and his coworkers had been smoking there for years. The NO SMOKING sign had gone up ages ago, but no one had ever paid attention to it. The man realized there would be no such leniency over anything from here on. People who might have shown such understanding were gone now.
And the company offers him and other long-serving employees generous severance terms - but which he refuses to take.
The firm put him through performance reviews (where he is judged on irrelevant skills such as sales), retraining programs and post him to various, often pointless and/or unpleasant, roles around the country, where he is forced to live away from home for extended periods. But he refuses to quit - and comes to the realisation that's it's because he wishes to retain agency:
He didn't have it in him to explain why he wanted to stay at this company, despite being tempted to quit dozens of times a day. What was he trying not to lose by going to such extremes, and was it working? He couldn't tell.
But the one thing he could say with certainty was that no one was forcing him into this situation. This was his choice-that much he could say.
A very quick and, in literary terms, simple read but one which particularly resonated for me.
Review of advance copy
Employee No. 9 was a tough read. Not because its difficult to relate to our unnamed ('the man') protagonist, or that his situation is unrealistic, but rather because this bleak, hopeless, kafka-esque experience hews far too close to our real world.
After decades, but not enough decades for pension and retirement, working for a unnamed telecom company our protagonist through a variety of impersonal corporate maneuvering is removed from the job and field he's done most of his professional life and shuffled through a variety of positions and offices without choice. Here is assigned to increasingly meaningless and pointless tasks for which he's never been trained, and when he exercises any amount of ingenuity or pro-activeness in order to be successful he is drowned in complaints (some real, some seemingly invented by the corporation), reprimanded, and demoted/moved again. Outside of work, his immediate family has tried to make the right choices their whole life...dedicated to working hard, investing as advised, sending their son to a good school...only to find themselves increasingly isolated from one another and everyone around them as they battle the increasingly insurmountable task of staying afloat in a modern capitalist society. They face failures and unforeseen problems with almost every choice they've made, with nowhere to turn to for support.
This book may be timely. And is explicitly anti-corporate and anti-capitalist. Its a bleak existentialist mirror on trying to survive by doing what we've always been told are the right things in our societies.
After decades, but not enough decades for pension and retirement, working for a unnamed telecom company our protagonist through a variety of impersonal corporate maneuvering is removed from the job and field he's done most of his professional life and shuffled through a variety of positions and offices without choice. Here is assigned to increasingly meaningless and pointless tasks for which he's never been trained, and when he exercises any amount of ingenuity or pro-activeness in order to be successful he is drowned in complaints (some real, some seemingly invented by the corporation), reprimanded, and demoted/moved again. Outside of work, his immediate family has tried to make the right choices their whole life...dedicated to working hard, investing as advised, sending their son to a good school...only to find themselves increasingly isolated from one another and everyone around them as they battle the increasingly insurmountable task of staying afloat in a modern capitalist society. They face failures and unforeseen problems with almost every choice they've made, with nowhere to turn to for support.
This book may be timely. And is explicitly anti-corporate and anti-capitalist. Its a bleak existentialist mirror on trying to survive by doing what we've always been told are the right things in our societies.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Employee No. 9 was a quick read but one that really stuck with me in its portrayal of working life for an employee in a large firm whose higher-ups are determinedly trying to oust him. Despite the company's best efforts, the man keeps hanging on, accepting demotions and pay cuts, impossible tasks and meaningless positions, all in an effort to continue with the work he's loved for years and to support his family. Naturally, there is a lot of social commentary in this work, but at its heart is the story of an individual trying to do his best despite the odds stacked against him. I am giving it 4.5 stars.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy
3.9/5
Thank you for the ARC, LibraryThing and Restless Books, of Kim Hye-jin's "Employee No.9"! This was a short yet scathing commentary on the harms perpetuated by big corporations and capitalism, as portrayed through the very micro-level view, life, and work of the man/Employee No. 9. Kim Hye-jin packed a great deal of character development and explorations of work and purpose into this short novel, ending it at the beginning of the main character's descent into a cycle of destruction and repetition.
Thank you for the ARC, LibraryThing and Restless Books, of Kim Hye-jin's "Employee No.9"! This was a short yet scathing commentary on the harms perpetuated by big corporations and capitalism, as portrayed through the very micro-level view, life, and work of the man/Employee No. 9. Kim Hye-jin packed a great deal of character development and explorations of work and purpose into this short novel, ending it at the beginning of the main character's descent into a cycle of destruction and repetition.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Quiet desperation.
That is the cliche that came to mind when I finished this book.
Kim Hye-jin knows how to write a character, and the translation is also excellently done.
I often wonder if a book like this would hit the same for someone unfamiliar with Korean work culture.
more thoughts later~
That is the cliche that came to mind when I finished this book.
Kim Hye-jin knows how to write a character, and the translation is also excellently done.
I often wonder if a book like this would hit the same for someone unfamiliar with Korean work culture.
more thoughts later~
April 23, 2025
火车上看完了这本书，作为一个打工者，无法不引起共鸣。工作中有诸多困境，来自于业务，来自于人，来自于无奈，来自于故意，深陷困境，何去何从。我也如同书中的9号一样对工作、对公司、对领导、对同事有着乐观的希望，因为在职场的第一个十年感受到了快乐和成长，成就了我的职业底色。但是，当我逐渐感受到恶意，时不时感受到那种刺痛，我才开始反省，是不是待错了地方跟错了人。是的，也许希望和痛苦都是工作的本质，也是社会的本质，感谢作者，如她在关于女儿中温柔地展现生活和活着之痛般，再次向我揭示活着的痛苦和矛盾、生命价值选择的探讨。
November 19, 2023
工作占据了人生三分之一的时间，我们怎么可以不好好探讨这个课题呢？书里有一句话 ，看似简单但却很深奥，大概意思是工作是为了生活，不是活着为了工作。现实社会有多少人投入了多于三分之一的时间给予工作，又有多少人把公司视为一生荣耀。到最后他们都怎样了呢？工作中的我们很容易因外界的认可、荣誉、金钱等，忘记了工作与自己的关系。你最后一次审视自己身为工作者和你工作的关系是什么时候？
May 23, 2022
Khi đã gắn bó với một nơi quá lâu, người ta trở nên không còn muốn thay đổi nữa. Miếng cơm manh áo chỉ là một trong số lý do, sự mất lòng tin vào chính mình, một nỗi sợ hãi mơ hồ hay đơn giản chỉ vì muốn tận mắt chứng kiến quyết định hắn đưa ra sẽ đi tới đâu… khiến hắn chẳng thể nào bỏ việc. Công việc làm biến chất con người dù ít dù nhiều nhưng rốt cuộc sâu xa vẫn là do chúng ta lựa chọn.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews