There was a drama called “Don’t tell my parents. I don’t remember the story clearly, but I think it was about the main character, a student at Tokyo University, who was what we would now call a complete chunibyo (middle-aged person) and struggled daily with how to live his life.
However, it was not a serious drama, but a comedy in general. I don’t think it was a well-received drama, nor did it get high ratings, but it was one of the dramas that left a deep impression on me.
The main character suddenly announces that he is quitting the university, and in order to keep him from quitting, the main character’s unusual senior(?) says to him, “The university is a place where people know the world. So, you should try to get a different part-time job every day. Then you can think about it all.
The main character really did what he was told the next day and started doing a different part-time job every day. The main character’s complexion, which was painful at first, improves day by day, and he finally learns about himself and the realities of society, and he escapes from his Chuunibyou-ji and becomes an adult.
Then, after a year has passed, the protagonist discovers a profession (way of life) that suits him (in his memory, he takes a leave of absence from college) and chooses to live.
In my case, I already knew what I wanted to be (a novelist), so I didn’t get the chuunibyo, but I was innocently thinking that I needed to gain overwhelming social experience in order to become one, and at that time, I happened to see this drama and thought, “This is it.
I thought to myself, “Someday, when I enter college, I should definitely try to emulate this.
At that time, there was still a shortage of people in the world due to the remnants of the bubble economy, and I had all the part-time jobs I wanted to choose from. In addition, there was a curious system of “one to three days trial period available. Immediately upon entering university, I bought a part-time job information magazine and applied for one job after another.
First, it was a chain of ramen noodle shops, then a karaoke bar, then a credit card company, and then a telephone answering service.
However, as one would expect from a drama, it was impossible to get in one day and quit the same day, so I forced myself to change within a week or so (I think it was a big inconvenience for the employer. (I regret it very much now).
As a result, I certainly gained a lot of experience, but after about six months, like a broken string, I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore and quit the part-time job altogether.
I knew that a new job was not only because I did not know what the job entailed, but also because it was very difficult to jump into a new relationship with new people, which caused me a great deal of stress.
A job is all about relationships, and there is no job without them, whether you are a lighthouse keeper on an isolated island (where you still have minimal contact with anyone) or a guard.
A job, unless you are self-employed, means that you must take instructions from someone else, perform the necessary tasks, and report back to them. A lighthouse keeper on an isolated island would probably be reprimanded and fired if he missed a wrecked fishing boat.
And, of course, it takes time to get used to the relationships in that workplace. It should be difficult to build it in a week, let alone a day.
That is why leaving a relationship once it has been established is more difficult than building it. That’s why it’s harder to leave a relationship than it is to enter one.
In the six months of part-time work I attempted, there were many places that I felt very comfortable and would have been happy to continue working there.
Looking back, if I had continued, I might have fallen in love with the job like the main character in the drama, quit writing novels, and led a completely different life.
365 different part-time jobs in a year, I think that anyone who can or has been able to experience that is, in a sense, either superhuman or an unmitigated freak. In other words, they must be someone who can work anywhere in the world, and conversely, someone who cannot work anywhere else.
See you soon.
