I have changed jobs only once in the past.
The company I joined as a new graduate was a fairly well-known, first-party listed company at the time, but I quit after less than a year.
The company was in the apparel industry.
I had never been praised by others for my sense of fashion, but I made a big mistake by suddenly joining a company that seemed to be crawling with fashionable people.
The people who joined the same company as me all loved fashion, and they all seemed to love it more than they loved to eat.
Some of them even went to night classes at a vocational school after work, saying they had to study fashion more than just in the company.
In such a situation, I was a big fool who joined the company just because it was a famous company.
Work was really busy. I could hardly take a day off. However, since they were all fashion lovers, they didn’t even seem to care about that, and they worked happily. Anyway, the joy of being involved in fashion came first, and I guess they didn’t care about the working environment.
I was just trying to work for a living, and gradually I began to have difficulties talking with my classmates, with whom I had been getting along well at first. I had always had a mismatch with my job, and due to a combination of various failures, I finally submitted my resignation in less than a year.
If I had continued to work, I think I would have become (or might have become) completely depressed. Specific examples of how to detect depression in its early stages can be found here and there, but afterwards I thought that it was more like being unable to do the work you used to be able to do, or making a series of careless mistakes. And in my case, it was the latter.
If it had been the former, I would have become sick little by little, and I might not have been able to make the decision to quit so easily.
It is said that companies are cold to those who leave, but they are somewhat kind to new graduates whom they have hired after carefully examining them through job-hunting activities for about six months. They also take good care of them.
When I left the company, not only my boss but also a senior HR person met with me many times and told me to feel free to talk about my dissatisfaction and complaints. And finally, they even gave me a tempting promissory note saying that they would let me go to the department I wanted to work in a few years. So I should never quit….
Of course, I believe that the person in charge of the company had a profit-loss motive in mind, as they did not want me to quit after the new hire.
However, I still insisted that I would quit, and he was desperate to get me to drink and change my mind, so he took me to a fancy restaurant and a club in Ginza.
In the end, I did not drink myself to death (because I was a strong drinker), and I ended up quitting the company. The people in my section held a small farewell party for me, who was leaving after only one year.
On the day of the party, my immediate section chief had quickly put on an expensive new white coat (that didn’t fit), but after the after-party, when we said goodbye at the station, he took it off and gently draped it over my back. He took it off and draped it gently over my back as we parted at the station after the after-party.
It was a parting gift. I know you had a lot of hardships, but I’m sure you also had happy memories. Please cherish them.
As soon as I heard that, even I, who had always complained and complained about the company whenever I opened my mouth, and who was really a useless employee when I think about it now, couldn’t stop crying.
After all, no matter how far you go, in the end it is the company you chose to work for. Remembering how happy I was when I joined the company, it was natural that it was hard for me to leave.
It was somewhat similar to a relationship in which I started going out with someone because I liked them, but had to break up with them due to a mismatch in personality.
I still have that coat in my closet at home. And every time I look at it, I remember the good times I had with my boss at work.
And even though I worked there for less than a year, the envy and bitterness are gone now, and I am proud to have worked there. As proof, I continue to buy clothes made by that company.
Nowadays, even new graduates can quit a company if they don’t like it, and look for a new one. There is now a strong tendency for people to think that a company is just a means of career advancement.
However, I have come to realize that I cannot quit a company that I chose after careful consideration and spent even a short period of time with, only to find myself saying, “That company was a black company. I don’t think it is a very praiseworthy thing to say to those around you after you have left a company, “That company was a black company, and it was the right decision to leave.
As was the case with this company I once worked for, it may not have remained a black company forever, or it may have happened to be in a period of declining performance, or conversely, it may have been a busy time during a period of expansion.
Above all, there are people like the boss who gave me his coat when we parted, who have families and need to stay and continue working.
Aside from those with unique abilities, most people are workers.
And that means belonging to an organization. An organization is not only full of people who work there because they like and love their jobs, but there are also many people who continue to work there, or are forced to work there even if they don’t want to. And it is these people who support the company.
The small memories I have with them in the company may not be directly useful for my career in life, but I feel that they have helped me to live my life, or rather, to keep working.
Anyway, my childish preconceived notion that salarymen lead a lousy life and that life is boring is gone.
This is my only small memory of changing jobs. I’m sorry, but I don’t think it will be of any use to those who are just starting their job search.
The apparel industry is going through a difficult time right now, but I hope that they will manage to hang in there.
See you soon.
