Don't worry, there was no mass murder. The company held a pretended mass funeral with the aim of getting employees to appreciate life more. South Korea has one of the highest proportion of stressed employees and the highest number of suicides in the world. The mass funeral of the Staffs agency's workers was described by BBC reporter Stephen Evans.
Coffins instead of desks
Employees gathered at the agency's offices in Seoul, dressed in white funeral robes. First of all, they wrote farewell letters to their loved ones, and some of them cried as they were writing. Then they moved on to the ready wooden coffins and lay down in them. Laying in the coffins, they held their own photos in a black frame on their chest.
Then men dressed in black clothes, representing the angels of death, came and closed the coffins. Employees were given space to think about the meaning of life in the silence and darkness of their coffins. The videos they watched shortly before going to the coffins still resonated in their heads. In these videos, they watched stories of suffering people who managed to face adversity.
"I thought going inside a coffin would be such a shocking experience it would completely reset their minds for a completely fresh start in their attitudes," said Staffs president Park Chun-woong. The BBC coverage, including photos and a video, can be found on this page.
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