★ Written by a PhD in philosophy with 27 years of workplace experience, responding to workplace predicaments through philosophy: Author Park Yoon-jin holds a doctorate in philosophy and has 27 years of workplace experience, having worked in the capital markets. He encountered philosophy during a difficult period of his life, found comfort and solutions in it, and consequently became a philosopher.

★ Using “Manager Kim” as a mirror, writing about the shared predicament of office workers: This book is a message of comfort from a workplace philosopher to another version of himself living in a parallel world—Manager Kim—and to office workers who share the same state of mind.

“In an anxious era, will I disappear too once I am no longer useful?”—33 philosophical answers that will change your life, from Plato to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

We spend more of our waking hours at the company than at home. We go to work every day, yet fear having to go to work tomorrow; we long for promotion, yet suddenly doubt whether we are doing well enough. Even when suffering burnout, people must go straight back to work—so why do they need philosophy?

Park Yoon-jin, a PhD in philosophy with 27 years of workplace experience, happened to see his former self in Manager Kim from a television drama. But unlike Manager Kim, the author encountered philosophy during a difficult time in his life, gained much comfort and many solutions from it, and consequently became a philosopher. He says: “Philosophy cannot put food on the table, but it can stop the inertia of thought and help people think in ways different from before.” He also says: “The reason your life feels unsteady is that it lacks philosophy.”

A company operates on the language of efficiency and function, but people live on the language of emotion and meaning. To bridge the gap between workplace life and the “self,” we need philosophy that allows us to see problems from a new perspective and to expand meaning. Philosophy Saves Manager Kim is a message of comfort from a workplace philosopher to another version of himself living in a parallel world—Manager Kim—and to office workers who share the same state of mind.

Park Yoon-jin

He once worked in the capital markets, learning greed and anxiety between the upper limit of success and the lower limit of failure. At a time when he took it for granted that human desire would triumph over dignity, he asked himself: How did I become this kind of person? That question led him to philosophy.

Philosophy first made him ask who he was, and later made him think about what it means to live as a human being. On the subway, while waiting for the elevator, during lunch breaks, he repeatedly read the words of philosophers. What he learned from those words was not philosophy as theory, but a practical philosophy that teaches how to get through each present day.

Recent works: Philosophy Saves Manager Kim, M&A Investment and Corporate Restructuring Guide, Even If I Become a Bug, I Still Have to Go to Work, and others.

Preface: We Are All “Manager Kim”
Chapter 1: What Is My Price in Life?
The Tragedy of Capitalist Man
Chapter 2: How the Company Defines “Me”
The Organisational Logic Hidden Behind Numbers and Hierarchy
Chapter 3: A Society Dominated by “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry”
How to Recover a Rhythm That Is Yours Alone, Not Someone Else’s Speed
Chapter 4: A Company Like Family? We Were Always Outsiders
The Essence of Relationships That Build a True “We”
Chapter 5: Deciding to Stay Silent About Unreasonable Instructions
The Compliance of Instrumentalised Humans and the Fragmentation of Responsibility
Chapter 6: Manager Song, Only If You Die Can I Live
Competition and Cooperation Needed on the Battlefield Called the Company
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