Recommended Resignation
Even at the tail end of March, the wind still kept one foot firmly planted in winter. When Kang Chi-yeol stepped out of the house early that morning, he paid the cold little mind. Seasons were like that, he told himself. The last bite of spring chill would retreat in a few days. He turned up the collar of his worn coat and boarded the bus, convinced the day’s commute would be no different from any other.
While the bus waited at a red light, he checked his messenger out of habit, skimmed the company group-chat announcements, and mentally reworked the final sentence of the report he had stayed late to organize the night before. The other commuters all looked the same. People swallowing yawns, people nodding off with earphones in, people clutching coffee with faces not yet awake. Even seated among them, Chi-yeol always felt slightly apart. It embarrassed him somehow that a man past forty—not thirty, not twenty—still wore that same tired expression on his way to the office. Yet embarrassment was no reason to get off. He had known for a long time that life contained buses you had to ride all the way to the final stop whether you wanted to or not.
The automatic doors of the company lobby slid open as he entered. Warm air washed over him. The security guard caught his eye first and offered a greeting.
“Manager Kang, early again today.”
“Yes, well… I had a few things left to finish.”
The same answer he always gave. In truth there was always something left to finish. Without being told, Kang Chi-yeol was the sort who pulled tasks forward, laid them out, and sorted them one by one. That habit had never earned him special recognition. A diligent but unremarkable man. Meticulous but never interesting. Capable of most things when asked, yet no one ever thought it remarkable. Inside the company, that was how Kang Chi-yeol had existed for years.
The moment he sat down he switched on his computer. While it booted he opened his tumbler and took a sip of lukewarm water. On the desk lay the documents he had organized yesterday, memo pads aligned like precision-packed delivery boxes, three highlighters, and the current quarter’s performance data.
Before the screen had even brightened, the deputy at the next desk rolled his chair closer and spoke in a low voice.
“Manager, did that client reply about yesterday’s issue?”
“I was going to check this morning. Nothing came through last night.”
“I see. The team leader asked if you could stop by at ten. Just for a moment.”
Chi-yeol gave an indifferent nod. “Understood.”
Even as he answered, his fingertips tightened by a fraction. Ten o’clock. Just for a moment. Ordinary words, yet they carried a peculiar tension. Especially inside a company. Good news usually arrived by email. Unpleasant news almost always began with the phrase “just for a moment.”
He forced his thoughts elsewhere and listed the day’s tasks in his head once more. Client email reply. Table organization for next week’s report. Incorporating sales support team updates. Revising afternoon meeting materials. Lining the items up like that helped subdue his anxiety, at least somewhat. For him it always had.
The more life refused to follow his plans, the stronger his urge to arrange it like an Excel sheet. Certain fears grew smaller once placed inside neat cells.
A little after nine the team leader’s door opened. The man emerged holding a coffee and scanned the office with a searching look. When his gaze landed on Chi-yeol it paused, the hesitation brief but unmistakable. The kind of tiny fracture that stood out more clearly than any shout. In that instant Chi-yeol understood. Today’s ten o’clock “moment” was not going to remain brief.
He unnecessarily lowered his monitor brightness by one level. Even after opening his inbox the words refused to focus. Tasks that had felt urgent only yesterday now lay flat as paper dolls.
The deputy beside him spoke twice before Chi-yeol registered the words and had to ask him to repeat them.
“Manager, are you all right?”
“Yes. I simply didn’t sleep well.”
It was not a lie. Sleep had been shallow lately. Shallower still when the credit-card payment date approached, and again when his mother called to ask whether he would come home that weekend.
Forty-one years old. Still unmarried, living in a monthly-rent studio rather than a proper lease, the sort of man who first noticed the changing seasons through cracks in a window. He could not blame anyone else. He had never failed dramatically, nor succeeded brilliantly, and the ambiguity made everything harder. It felt too vague to call his life ruined, yet too dishonest to claim it was going well.
At precisely ten the messenger chimed.
The meeting room’s glass walls were half-covered by lowered blinds. Inside, the team leader was not alone; the HR deputy director already sat waiting. On the table rested one document envelope and two cups of water.
In that moment an unnatural calm settled over Chi-yeol. Only then did he fully understand the saying that true shock can render a person quiet.
“Have a seat, Manager Kang.” The team leader’s voice was softer than usual. That softness itself was the cruelest omen.
“You know how difficult the company’s situation has become lately, yes?”
Chi-yeol wondered whether any conversation that opened with those words had ever ended well.
The deputy director slid the envelope forward a fraction. The team leader made a sound that might have been a sigh or a cough and continued.
“We held on as long as we could. This restructuring, however, could not be avoided.”
Restructuring. The word turned the air inside the room heavy as lead.
Chi-yeol sat with both hands on his knees, face utterly expressionless. In his mind entirely different questions raced.
Why me? Was I that easy to cut? Plenty of people joined after I did. This month’s card payment. The deposit. Mom’s hospital appointment.
“Manager Kang, you have contributed to this company for a long time and worked with genuine diligence. We are well aware of that.”
Worked with genuine diligence. The courteous phrasing felt like being handed a wedding favor. For a split second Chi-yeol nearly laughed. Nothing sounded quite as shabby as praise for diligence. The word was most often deployed right before showing someone the door—a convenient label for a person neither outstanding enough to keep nor obviously inadequate enough to criticize outright. Diligent. An extraordinarily convenient word.
The HR deputy director removed the documents and began explaining the terms. Recommended resignation. Severance payment. Handover procedures. Final day of employment. Guidance on unemployment benefits. Each sentence was courteous; the paperwork itself was impeccably neat. Even while cutting off a person’s livelihood, the world could remain this polite.
Chi-yeol stared at the printed characters. His own name looked back at him—Kang Chi-yeol, hanja rendered with meticulous strokes. Suddenly the name felt as if it belonged to a stranger.
“How much time… do I have to consider this?”
The deputy director glanced at the team leader with a faintly awkward expression.
“It would be best to let us know today. We have a schedule to maintain for wrapping up your duties.”
Today. Chi-yeol nodded slowly. There was nothing else he could do. Would anger change the outcome? Would slamming the desk make anyone grab his arm? Would tears persuade them to keep him? Such scenes belonged only to dramas. In reality, companies performed layoffs with eerie silence.
The soft clink of a cup coaster meeting the table. The faint mechanical whisper of the air conditioner. The rustle of papers being turned. Even at the moment a life was being ushered out, noise was not permitted.
When he opened the meeting-room door the office continued exactly as before. Someone stood at the printer. Someone else repeated into a phone, “Yes, I’ll confirm and get back to you.” The ordinary scene felt bizarre. Until moments ago he had been part of it. Everyone knew a person could be excised at any time, yet the keyboard clatter never faltered.
The world maintained its indifference with remarkable consistency.
Back at his desk, the deputy glanced at his face, clearly wanting to ask something. In the end no question came. The atmosphere had already told him everything. No matter how hard one tried to hide it, the expression of someone leaving that particular meeting room always looked a little broken.
Chi-yeol sat motionless for a long time with his monitor on. The cursor blinked above a blank document like impatient eyelids urging him to do something, anything.
Then his phone rang. His mother.
“Have you eaten?”
“Uh, Mom.”
Strangely, those three words sank deeper than anything spoken in the meeting room. For a moment his throat tightened. He could not let it show. His mother could detect the slightest shift in his voice and begin worrying immediately.
“Not yet. I’m still at the office.”
“Are you going to be late today?”
“Probably a little. There are things I need to organize.”
“Organizing again? Do you like that company that much? All you ever do is organize, organize, organize.”
Any other day he would have laughed it off. Today the words struck his chest like a needle. All you ever do is organize. She was right. He cleaned up after other people’s messes, filled empty slots, stepped in to fix problems, watched others claim the big successes while sharing the blame. Twelve years had passed exactly that way.
Instead of answering, Kang Chi-yeol gave a single dry cough.