Boss who handed new hires his card for lunch balks at 74,000-won bill

A supervisor who handed his credit card to two new employees and told them to go enjoy lunch together was left stunned after seeing a charge of 37,000 won ($27) per person.

A post titled "I gave my two new hires my card to buy lunch and they spent 74,000 won" began circulating Tuesday on online communities including Theqoo.

The author, identified only as A, said he had offered his card because he wanted the two employees to bond, telling them to go eat something good — only to find out they had gone to a sushi restaurant and ordered a special sushi set, running up a 74,000-won bill between them.

A said the usual lunch budget at the office is 12,000 won per person, with the whole team eating together every day. "They spent a lot more than I expected and I am honestly baffled — but should I just let it go since they are new?" he wrote, asking for others' opinions.

In a follow-up comment, A added that the two new hires are women in their late 20s and that he is a team leader. "I think I would have let it slide if it had been up to 50,000 won," he said.

Many readers expressed disbelief. "I do not think I could do that even if a team leader in their 40s or 50s — someone my dad's age — handed me their card," one commenter wrote. Others called it "bad manners," "behavior beyond common sense" and said they would not know "where to even begin" in correcting it.

Others, however, defended the new hires or questioned the supervisor's expectations. "If you told them to eat something good, spending around 30,000 won each plus drinks seems reasonable," one user wrote. "If you were going to be stingy about it, you should have set a limit," said another. Some simply asked what was wrong with 30,000 won per person.

Meanwhile, the average lunch cost for workers nationwide stood at 9,500 won in the first half of last year, according to an analysis of about 9 million transactions processed through NHN Payco's mobile meal-voucher service — a 58 percent jump from the first half of 2017.

The average lunch spend across 12 major business districts in the Greater Seoul area was 11,583 won, about 2,000 won above the national average.

Among those districts, Samseong-dong in Gangnam-gu topped the list at an average of 15,000 won. Gangnam followed at 14,000 won, then Yeouido and Seocho at 13,000 won, Magok and Pangyo at 12,000 won, Songpa and Jongno at 11,000 won, Gasan and Guro at 10,000 won, and Gangdong and Dongdaemun at 9,000 won.