One Hotel Room with the Boss I Hate
“Excuse me,” Suzuki Chisami said politely as she climbed into the passenger seat of my car. It was only a three-day, two-night business trip, so neither of us had brought much luggage.
“Will the travel time be all right?”
“The flight departs at ten, so we’ve got plenty of time, Assistant Team Leader.”
Tokyo had two major airports—Haneda, which handled more domestic flights and was easier to book, and Narita International. We chose Narita because the Human Resources Development Institute was in Chiba Prefecture, making the distance much shorter.
“You’ve prepared all the necessary documents, correct?”
“Yes. I put them in my bag this morning.”
Our conversation inside the car stayed strictly professional. If you could even call it a conversation. Between the two of us, we barely spoke ten sentences total, so a heavy silence hung over the thirty-minute drive to the airport.
We got out of the car, grabbed our bags, and headed inside. Our destination was Akita Prefecture, part of the Kita-Tohoku region in Tohoku. It was one of Japan’s most famous rice-growing areas, which explained why the headquarters of Taira Food was located there. By contrast, Minami-Tohoku—home to the Minamoto Food headquarters—had become infamous for the nuclear accident in Fukushima.
Given the region’s strength in rice production, the sake made from that rice was equally famous. I should buy a few bottles as gifts while I’m here. I’d also heard Akita was known for its beautiful women—so much so that people spoke of “Akita beauties.” I was mildly curious to see if the rumors held up.
But I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Rice-growing regions tended to be rural, and rural areas meant serious population aging. Even if there were young women, most of them would have already left for jobs in cities like Tokyo or Chiba.
Whether Suzuki Chisami had arranged it on purpose or not, our plane seats were far apart. Fine with me. I could travel comfortably without having to worry about her.
The flight itself took roughly an hour. Adding the trip to the Human Resources Development Institute in Kita-Tohoku, the total one-way travel time came to about two hours. Thank god we were flying. From what I’d checked, driving from the institute to the Kita-Tohoku branch took a brutal seven hours. Seven hours alone in a car with Suzuki Chisami and that suffocating silence? No thanks.
During the flight I read through the materials I’d brought. Today we would inspect the Kita-Tohoku branch. Tomorrow we’d tour the Taira Food facilities where most of the training took place. The final day was set aside for wrapping up any remaining items at the branch in the morning before catching an afternoon flight back.
In truth, Suzuki Chisami would handle most of the actual work. My role was simply to observe, learn, and provide support. Nothing too difficult.
After landing at Akita Airport, we picked up the rental car I had reserved online and drove north of Akita City to the Taira Human Resources Development Institute’s Kita-Tohoku branch. Compared to the main institute—with its large building and basketball-court-sized auditorium—the branch was tiny. Then again, it only served Taira Food and its subcontractors in the Tohoku region, so it didn’t need to be massive.
“Aigoo~! You must be exhausted from the journey!”
“Not at all. Thanks to you, we traveled comfortably.”
The man greeting us was Matsuhira Ginichiro, manager of the Kita-Tohoku branch. He was a bald, mid-fifties man with a large nose and a short beard. Despite being significantly higher in rank than an assistant team leader, he practically bowed and scraped in front of Suzuki Chisami. Something smelled fishy. He was probably going to ask for more budget or some other favor.
“I’m Suzuki Chisami, Assistant Team Leader of Education Support Team 2. This is employee Taira Ryuta.”
“…Taira?”
Suzuki Chisami and Matsuhira Ginichiro exchanged business cards first. I then handed him mine and received his in return. Back when I first joined, my mentor Mimata Chieri had drilled business-card etiquette into me: the lower-ranking person offers their card first, the higher-ranking person responds. You always exchange them standing, and you present the card oriented so the other person can read it easily. After practicing with Sinoe Misano during outside visits, I’d become quite proficient at it. I was a proper corporate employee now.
“Let’s start with lunch!”
It was nearly noon when we arrived, so we followed Matsuhira Ginichiro to a restaurant. He took us to an upscale sushi place. The rice was excellent—as expected from a grain belt—and since Akita City faces the sea to the west, the fish was fresh and delicious too.
“By any chance, Employee Taira Ryuta… are you from the main family?”
“Yes. My mother is the director of the Human Resources Development Institute.”
“Aha~! I asked because of the surname. So you’re the director’s son!”
Matsuhira Ginichiro clapped his hands in delight at my answer. Maybe he interpreted my visit as the main office paying extra attention to his branch. In reality I was just here to gain experience.
“Please tell your mother that the Kita-Tohoku branch needs a little more budget. We’ve had a surge of applicants from Taira Food and its related companies lately. Naturally that meant a lot more people coming to our branch, and when that happened, here’s what I did…”
Matsuhira Ginichiro was an incredibly talkative man. He spent the next thirty minutes nonstop bragging about everything he had accomplished since taking charge of the branch. So this is what it feels like to have blood leaking from your ears.
Suzuki Chisami sat right there, completely ignored while he spoke only to me. I could see her anger rising by the second. I knew her personality well, but Matsuhira Ginichiro clearly didn’t. He’d pay the price later when she tore his branch apart.
After that painfully long lunch, we began auditing the branch’s education teams and support teams under Matsuhira Ginichiro’s guidance. Suzuki Chisami moved like a woman possessed, spotting every single instance where the branch had failed to follow the revised training materials we’d sent. Matsuhira Ginichiro’s face grew steadily more rotten as he watched.
Only now did he seem to realize how rude he had been during lunch, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t stop Suzuki Chisami from challenging even me—a direct descendant of the chairman.
I didn’t have much to do. I simply followed the checklist we had prepared in advance, marking a check when things were done properly and an X when they weren’t. There were far more Xs than checks, of course.
Watching Suzuki Chisami work so boldly only deepened my suspicions. For her to act this arrogantly, she had to have powerful backing. In the corporate jungle, political connections were every bit as important as actual ability. Japanese companies were even worse than Korean ones in that regard—your future was often decided by whose faction you belonged to.
The fact that Suzuki Chisami had reached assistant team leader while behaving so recklessly meant someone was protecting her. That was probably why she had dared to openly challenge me. Lately, after HR Manager Nadachi Tojo was removed and most of Jiro’s faction was transferred elsewhere, she had grown somewhat quieter. Still, there was no telling when she might go on another rampage.
Oddly enough, watching someone else suffer the same treatment I had received was rather entertaining. Especially the way Matsuhira Ginichiro’s face twisted every time Suzuki Chisami pointed out another failure. That part was genuinely funny.
By the time Suzuki Chisami had finished ripping through every education and support team in the branch, nearly five hours had passed. It was almost seven o’clock.
Matsuhira Ginichiro forced a smile that looked more like a grimace and patted Suzuki Chisami on the shoulder.
“Hehe, you really throw yourself into your work. We have a dinner tonight with the president of Taira Food, whom we’ll be visiting tomorrow, so let’s head over quickly.”
Nagumo Sian, president of Taira Food, was one of the few female presidents among the many Taira Group subsidiaries. She had originally run a small retort-food manufacturing company before Taira Danjo personally scouted her to lead Taira Food. Over the past decade she had raised the company’s market share until it nearly matched Minamoto’s. Because she had been scouted directly by the chairman, she remained loyal only to Taira Danjo and refused to align with Ichiro, Jiro, or Kokoro. As a result, the three main successors were working hard to win her favor and turn her into an ally.
Even Suzuki Chisami couldn’t afford to show irritation in front of someone like Nagumo Sian, so she simply nodded at Matsuhira Ginichiro’s suggestion.
“We can’t keep the president waiting. But isn’t it already quite late?”
“Don’t worry. The reservation is for seven-thirty, so…”
Matsuhira Ginichiro’s expression soured at her suddenly polite tone, but Suzuki Chisami didn’t seem to care in the slightest.