A Seoul office worker quits his job to open a guesthouse in Dongdaemun. No startup fantasy—just raw nerves, a frozen February morning, and the moment he tells his boss he's leaving corporate life behind.
By Jeong Seung-ho, owner of Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse
Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse Dongdaemun (Main Branch) Address: 329-18 Changsin-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul Room types: Small twin, small double, standard twin Amenities: Shared living room and kitchen, rooftop garden Nearby attractions: Naksan Park, Heunginjimun Gate, DDP, Changsin-dong stationery & toy market, Dongmyo flea market
Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse DDP (Branch) Address: 74 Jangchung-dong 2-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul Room types: Double, family rooms (3/4/6 pax) Amenities: Shared living room and kitchen, rooftop garden Nearby attractions: Jangchung Gymnasium, Namsan, Gwanghuimun Gate, Cheonggyecheon Stream
Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse on social Website: http://seouldalbit.com Instagram: @seoul_dalbit
Prologue
February 8, 2017. Still below freezing. The kind of morning that makes you hunch your shoulders.
The insignificant office worker arrived early.
I'd always been a believer in "paid passion" — you get what you pay for. A small act of rebellion in a country that worships diligence and loyalty. But that morning was different. Sure, I wanted to dodge the chaos of peak hours. But mostly? I couldn't sleep. I was up before dawn, restless.
An hour before official start time, the office was dead quiet. Heavy silence. My brain churned through every possible scenario.
How do I bring this up? What will they say? What expression should I wear? While my head spun, colleagues trickled in. About thirty minutes later, the person I'd been waiting for showed up: my team lead.
"Whoa, what's this? You're here early."
Fair question. I was the guy who rushed in five minutes before clock-in like clockwork. So yeah, seeing me already seated must've been weird.
"Uh, yeah. Sorry for the abruptness, but I need to talk to you about something."
I stood up at an awkward beat. Voice shaking. And then — the insignificant office worker pulled an envelope from his jacket.
On it: 辭職書 (Letter of Resignation).
Deciding to quit came early. Figuring out when and how to say it? That was the hard part. (Photo by Nik MacMillan on Unsplash)
Pulling a resignation letter from my jacket. Could I be any more cliché?
Deciding to quit came relatively early. The real struggle was when and how to say it. I'd imagined all sorts of scenarios:
Scenario 1: "Screw this place, I'm OUT!" Storm out like a lunatic, stuff in a box.
Scenario 2: Hang a banner in the office: {庆} "Slave Escape Successful" {祝}
Scenario 3: BCC the entire company: "Yo I'm quitting ^0^" and hit send.
I ran every possible script in my head. But in the end? I went with the most boring, predictable move: the jacket-pocket resignation letter. Cliché or not, it didn't matter. Once I handed it over, all those imaginary scenarios evaporated.
Reality collapsed into one truth:
I am escaping this company.
A snippet of the actual resignation letter the insignificant office worker handed over that fateful day.
That was it. January 2014 to March 2017 — three years and two months of corporate life, done. The place where I'd spent most of my waking hours. The people I saw more than my own family. The job I once thought I'd grow old in.
This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment breakdown. This wasn't me quitting because I had a bad week. No — this escape had been two years in the making. Like Andy Dufresne chipping away at Shawshank's walls with a rock hammer, I'd been planning my exit since spring 2015.
For our parents' generation, landing a stable job and retiring from it decades later was the dream. The expectation. The only path.
But things have changed. For the worse. Young people claw their way through a needle's eye just to land a job. Once they're in? They sacrifice nights, weekends, their entire lives — and still can't afford a home. Hang on till your 40s and you're fighting just to keep your seat. It's bleak. Hell, as people like to say these days.
The worse things get, the more people flood into public-sector jobs, chasing stability. But at the same time, more and more are cutting the rope. Choosing to live on their own terms. Choosing freedom over security.
Books about quitting your job are bestsellers now. TV shows celebrate young people handing in their resignations. Society is shifting — quitting isn't running away anymore. It's reclaiming your life.
In March 2017, I graduated from corporate life. Now I run a guesthouse. My co-founder and I just expanded. We've got more than five employees now (still countable on two hands). I'm grateful for more people than I can count. And my bank account balance? Let's… not talk about that.
Running your own business isn't romantic. It's a mountain of tasks. Dealing with guests, suppliers, month-end revenue anxiety. But the freedom? The fact that I'm building my days with my own hands? That makes it worth it.
This series — Hahoetal: Tales of a Corporate Escapee — will walk you through how I planned, built, and launched my business starting in 2015. And if I have the bandwidth, I'll share what it felt like to straddle two worlds: employee and entrepreneur. What went through my head when I finally pulled the trigger in 2017.
Life's more chaotic now than when I had a desk job. But I'm writing this for two reasons. First: maybe someone out there is wrestling with the same questions I was. Maybe this helps. Second: I want to look back and understand my own choices. What I was thinking. What I did. Why it mattered.
Alright, then.
Hahoetal — Tales of a Corporate Escapee.
Let's begin.
[Series Outline]
2019.01 Prologue 2019.02 Awakening 2019.03 Dreaming 2019.04 Observing 2019.05 Planning 2019.06 Meeting 2019.07 Excitement 2019.08 Breathing Room 2019.09 Calculations 2019.10 Wandering 2019.11 Breaking Ground 2019.12 Taking Shape 2020.01 Grand Opening 2020.02 Epilogue — A Resignation Retrospective
Read the full magazine edition here <<
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