'There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job' :: 『この世にたやすい仕事はない』

Found my next book to read when J alerted me to the English print, digital and audio versions of Kikuko Tsumura's 'There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job' (津村 記久子『この世にたやすい仕事はない』 first published in Japanese in October 2015). Translated into English by Polly Barton, the print, digital and audio books were recently published and released in March 2021. I borrowed an e-book from our extremely well stocked National Library.

Written in first person narrative, the nameless protagonist is a 36-year-old woman who suffered a burnout in her last job, quit, moved back in with her parents, ran out of unemployment insurance, and is on a path to find another job that is more fulfilling. The author takes a potshot at Japanese work culture and workplace experiences from the female protagonist's point of view. The author's bio-profile revealed that she herself has been subjected to workplace harassment and had to leave the job to put an end to that episode. (Reviews here, here, here and here.)

The book is split into five chapters, i.e five part-time jobs that the protagonist had in the course of a year. The chapters are titled accordingly, ‘The Surveillance Job’, ‘The Bus Advertising Job’, ‘The Cracker Packer Job’, ‘The Postering Job’ and ‘The Easy Job in the Hut in the Big Forest’.  

I enjoyed the writing. The translator did a great job. There’s something rather British about its phrasing. In this English vocie created, the droll wit comes through quite strongly, although it might be unintentional. The protagonist is reluctant to take on heavy responsibilities, but she seems fairly dedicated at her contract/part-time jobs. I really enjoyed the storyline and character development in ‘The Cracker Packer Job’. That told me that the protagonist is feeling more like herself, but she isn’t ready to commit to a job and be emotionally invested in it, or socialize this much with her colleagues and co-workers. 

On the way home from dinner, it struck me that I was no longer feeling a deep sense of attachment to my work. Of course, I knew that it wasn’t anything as vague as ‘a sense of attachment’ that I should be aiming towards — that I should be aspiring instead to go at work with determination, but frankly, I felt I didn’t want to go at it in any way at all.

Then suddenly it came to me: I could just not renew my contract. I’d never intended to stay all that long in this company, and although the pay and other provisions were good, it was clear to me that things could get tough if I stayed on much longer. At some point after Ms Fujiko’s Soy Sauce had gone on sale, there had been a shift in my working situation. When I thought about how many people there were in this world struggling for work, not to mention how I owed my ability to do this job and the previous one at the bus company almost entirely to those who’d walked the path ahead of me, my desire to quit felt like an impudent thing to be feeling — but there it was.

'The Postering Job' blew my mind. It was such a finely crafted story of perhaps an investigator going up against a cult of sorts operating insidiously in a residential neighborhood as a 'community club' that does socials and conversations for residents so that they will be 'Lonely No More'. The protagonist is hired to put up posters of community slogans, say 'drink more water on a hot day'. Her office doesn't put up posters the way 'Lonely No More' club does to recruit members. She then unwittingly gets herself involved into breaking up the club and its activities in the neighborhood, helping the police resolve this one issue in the area.

It was only in The Easy Job in the Hut in the Big Forest’ that readers learnt that the one job that the protagonist had done for fourteen years since she graduated from university is social work. She is a certified social worker for the various medical institutions and care facilities. And it was almost timely that when the calendar year came to a close on New Year's Eve, the still-unnamed protagonist decided that it was time to return to being a social worker. 

It was even more serendipitous that a file of job postings compiled by her employment center representative, Mrs Masakado, showed a vacancy for a social worker at a facility. It matched the name of the workplace of an acquaintance and a former colleague's mother who was retiring from that exact position. The final paragraph of the book ended with this erudition, 

The time had come to embrace the ups and downs again. I had no way of knowing what pitfalls might be lying in wait for me, but what I’d discovered by doing five jobs in such a short span of time was this: the same was true of everything. You never knew what was going to happen, whatever you did. You just had to give it your all, and hope for the best. Hope like anything it would turn out alright.