This post is resonating widely because it captures a very common frustration among Korean workers at small companies, where the power imbalance between bosses and employees often goes unchallenged. The detail that the CEO is literally profiting off his own employees' lunch money through a family business made it feel especially outrageous and shareable.
A post on Nate Pann is going viral in Korea after a new employee exposed a shady workplace lunch scheme that has people fuming. The original poster (OP) recently joined a small company — the kind Koreans call a '좋소기업' (a sarcastic term for a low-quality small business) — and quickly noticed something felt off about the daily lunch situation.
Every day, the company orders rice bowls from Hansot, a popular Korean fast-food chain known for affordable, generous portions of dishes like tuna mayo rice. The catch? Employees aren't getting a free lunch — they're being charged full price for it. That alone wouldn't be a scandal, but OP noticed the portions were noticeably smaller than what you'd normally get ordering directly from Hansot. Having been a regular Hansot customer, OP knew exactly what a standard serving looked like.
When OP politely raised the issue — even asking which branch the food was coming from and suggesting the portions might be wrong — the CEO shut them down immediately, telling them to stop complaining and just eat. That's when the real twist came out: the CEO's wife owns and operates the Hansot franchise location that supplies the office lunches. In other words, the boss is funneling employee lunch money directly into his own household, while quietly skimming on portion sizes to pocket a little extra. It's a closed loop of exploitation dressed up as a workplace perk.
OP ended the post asking why anyone would put up with this kind of treatment — and announced they're already looking for a new job.