Employee No. 9

By Kim Hye-Jin

When the company where he's worked for thirty years threatens layoffs, a mid-level IT manager faces financial ruin. Tasked with selling internet services in the countryside, he confronts the harsh realities of corporate life and must choose between staying in a broken system or dismantling it.

Employee No. 9, a middle-aged middle manager, is in trouble. His son is off to college, his wife has taken double shifts at a local grocery store, and now the company where he's worked for more than three decades pressures him to retire. When he refuses, a series of demotions and humiliations follow. A lifelong deskman now reduced to selling internet service door-to-door in the remote countryside, he fails to meet his quota and is tasked with constructing a high-voltage electric tower in a protected wildlife area. As struggles ensue, he has no choice but to ask himself where his loyalties ultimately lie.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1632064278
• ISBN13: 9781632064271
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Restless Books
• Length: 192 Pages