“Ryo, I need you to stay calm and listen.”
The phone call was about his parents’ deaths.
He had only just started his second year in university, but Ryo withdrew from school and returned home to take over the family business. Since he didn’t know his left from right when it came to the business, Shige, who’d been director in the company, became president while Ryo became vice president. He knew all the employees too. They used to play with him when he was a child.
Despite his lofty title, his salary was the lowest—but he didn’t mind. He learned the work little by little without annoying those around him.
Eleven months passed and it was now March.
“Ryo, how about I help you with that?”
It was late, but Ryo was still working away at his computer. Shige offered his assistance, unable to just sit by and watch him.
“I’m fine. Thank you though. It’s for the youth division, so...”
The youth division of the chamber of commerce, consisting only of young business owners, presented a challenge for Ryo in many ways. The chamber of commerce itself was an entity that existed in some form or another across the country. Many small- and medium-sized businesses belonged to their local organization. Of course, membership wasn’t mandatory, and in the case of Ryo’s company, it wasn’t even necessary since there weren’t many advantages to membership to begin with.
But the previous head of the company, his father, belonged to their local chamber of commerce because he’d been asked to join so the business remained a member even under Shige’s leadership. It wasn’t the work within their company itself that Ryo struggled with but the time he spent on professional relationships outside of it.
“Shige, this work really makes me realize how much more efficient our company is.”
For the chamber’s youth division, Ryo had to create myriad documents, presentation materials, event flyers, and more. It made him appreciate the relative lack of paperwork in their company in comparison.
“All because of the previous president. He never liked wasting time on creating physical reports and such. To him, writing reports didn’t bring in revenue or increase sales. His belief was that the more time people spend drafting documents, the less productive they are. He didn’t think it was normal for a company’s employees to spend a majority of their eight-hour workday on just paperwork, so it was important for him to reclaim as much time as possible from the document drudgery and use it toward meaningful tasks. Like meeting clients or improving your own talents or designing new ideas and whatnot... That’s how he wanted people to use their time. Which is why we rely on actual conversations whenever we have reports to make or things to discuss. If a manager wants to know what’s happening in the field, then they should head there and ask the people in charge directly. This is our company’s fundamental model, you know.”
Naturally, a company culture like this wouldn’t work at a massive corporation or at a company designed around remote work, an environment that made it entirely possible for employees to never exchange a single word in conversation. Ryo’s company was in manufacturing, so telework wasn’t an option. Moreover, it only had ninety-seven employees, including management.
“Because the people on the ground know best what’s happening there, which is why they hold so much authority, right?”
“Yes, although it gets complicated if something happens, since their bosses share the responsibility too... Of course, that includes us on the management side.”
Shige chuckled ruefully before continuing.
“That’s why management needs to be ready for anything. We don’t have a separate HR department because management is in charge of personnel, so assigning jobs to others means taking responsibility along with them for their failures.”
He said that with a smile.
“Now, Ryo, it’s time for me to tell you the words of my predecessor, since you’re working so darn hard.”
“Don’t work so hard you tire yourself out,” they both said at the same time.
Then they grinned at each other.
The motto wasn’t designed to scare employees or encourage them to be lazy, nor was it to baby them. It was just the truth from a management perspective. Failures, mistakes, revisions...all of these things happened regardless of how carefully someone did their work, but many of them had two things in common: fatigue and urgency.
For example: revisions. Revisions meant a waste of the time, energy, and data someone spent on the work until now. Furthermore, reverting to the correct original state meant spending more time and energy on the task. So it helped a company tremendously by reducing waste in all those areas. Of course, it was all case by case, since it was important for employees to learn and grow from their mistakes.
As the company’s owner, Ryo’s father had always been vocal to his employees about not overworking themselves. Once Ryo started learning the ropes of the business himself, he understood how amazing his father had been as a leader. Now, he respected him even more after knowing how smoothly his father had kept the company going without tiring out the employees.
“Haaa...”
After he sighed, Ryo spoke to Shige.
“Thank you for the reminder. Dad would get mad at me for exhausting myself working.”
“Yes, he would, Ryo,” Shige said, beaming approvingly at him.
Working hard was important, but pushing yourself when you were tired wasn’t hard work.
“I’ll go home and sleep.”
With that, Ryo left for the night.
His exhaustion might have made him a bit wobbly on his feet. Even so, the light at the crosswalk was green. He had made sure to double-check before stepping on to the street. He knew he’d done everything right until then.
But...he wasn’t sure if he’d looked both ways first. Because if he had, then maybe he would have noticed the truck barreling toward him, its driver asleep at the wheel.
When it hit him, Ryo flew through the air and slammed down hard on the pavement. A flash of pain and then it was gone. His consciousness faded, bit by bit.
Well, this sucks...
The first thing Ryo felt wasn’t fear of death or even relief—only regret...just a bit. He didn’t know why. And mingled with it was a sliver of grief, because tomorrow would have been his twentieth birthday.