Why Han Seok-yool Stays With Us in Misaeng

The first time you watch Misaeng: Incomplete Life, you’re likely to see the office through Jang Geu-rae’s eyes. He’s new to working life and has to get through days when nobody tells him how things work. It’s an easy position to recognize.

After a while, I started looking for someone else. At first he grated on me. He seemed a little too pleased with his own jokes, and every time he spoke the scene changed in a way I wasn’t ready for. Then I found myself waiting for Han Seok-yool to show up.

At first, Han is hard to warm to. He jokes and talks enough to seem immature. Jang is watching every word he says, while Han acts as though he has already found his footing. Jang looks like someone who has just arrived at the company. Han looks as though he belongs there.

Over time, what matters is the way he treats people. He has a habit of noticing how someone else is doing before much of the office does.

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The Person Who Keeps the Room Going

A great deal of feeling passes through an office. Someone gets reprimanded and the atmosphere changes. Someone makes a mistake and the whole team goes quiet.

Often there’s one person who speaks up before the awkwardness sets in, makes a joke before the silence becomes unbearable or goes over to someone who’s begun to shrink into their chair.

Han pays attention to that moment. He’s trying to keep things from getting any worse in the room.

When Jang makes a mistake, Han doesn’t make a point of consoling him. He says something ordinary and treats him the way he did before. In an office, the silence after you’ve been told off can be worse than the reprimand.

An earnest attempt to cheer someone up can make them even more conscious that everyone is watching. An ordinary conversation gives them a way back in. Han offers a kind of comfort that’s easy to accept because it doesn’t call attention to itself.

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What It Takes to Keep Smiling

Partway through the series, Han’s expression changes. Work begins to go wrong and he stops smiling as often. It’s the point when you see how much of the earlier ease took effort.

At first it looks as if he smiles because nothing troubles him. By now it’s clear he pays close attention to who’s struggling, who’s managing to hold on and who’s close to giving way.

Some people sound brighter when things are getting harder. They can see what it would do to the room if they fell apart, too. So they smile first or find something to say. It’s part of the work Han does for the people around him.

That’s one reason he feels real. In an actual workplace, somebody can do this for a team regardless of how good they are at the work or what title they hold. They help people get through the hours after something has gone wrong.

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The First to See How Jang Was Doing

Later in the series, Han is one of the people who understands Jang best. He can see what it’s taking him to get through the day before a senior colleague or a manager sees it.

The two can look like opposites. Jang is quiet, careful and reluctant to give much away. Han talks, acts and keeps reaching out to the people around him.

Both are finding a way to get through the day. Jang does it in silence. Han does it with a smile. Han rarely tells him that things will turn out fine. He keeps the conversation going as he would on any other day.

It’s easy to reach for advice when someone is struggling. Han gives Jang a way back into the ordinary day.

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What Coming Back Looks Like

Han loses his footing for a while. His face changes and the jokes stop coming. Then, in time, he begins to sound like himself again.

His return is recognizable because it’s so ordinary. He can make a joke again after being hurt. There’s a kind of recovery in hearing someone talk the way they used to.

Han stays with me as one of the most believable people in the series. He’d be the person I’d be glad to have at the next desk.

Many of us have felt like Jang at work. Some of us have made it through a day because there was a person like Han in the room. One line of conversation can matter more in those minutes than any measure of how well the work is going.

It can be something small, said in the same tone as always. Han Seok-yool makes it sound easy.