A Thank-You Gift for a Mentor Who Helped Me

When you belong to a company, there are both meetings and partings.

I might be the type who tends to put more effort into partings than meetings.
This is because, at the time of parting, there are memories built up with that person.

I find myself wanting to repay them in some small way by giving a gift filled with my gratitude and feelings for everything they have done.

This time, it is a story about a gift I gave to a senior colleague who helped me at my previous company before I changed jobs.

It was my first year after joining the company.
Unfortunately, I was assigned to a department known as the "Army" that no one wanted to go to, and it was Senior T who supported me when I was mentally unstable.

I have written about some of the episodes from that time in the article below, so please read it if you are interested.

I am the type of person who wants to understand each task as I proceed, but when I tried to do that in my first year as a working professional, it took a huge amount of time for a single task, and I was often scolded by my direct supervisor.

“Huh? You haven't finished what I asked for yesterday yet?”
“It’s resulting in an error and I don’t know the cause.”
“You can’t proceed because of an error?”
“I might be able to ignore the error but if I leave it and it has an impact later, it will result in rework so I was investigating it.”
“Hmm.”

I think the senior wanted me to ignore the error and just achieve the goal for the time being.
Senior T was observing from behind as I struggled to get along with my direct supervisor.

It was about a month after I was assigned I think.
Senior T called out to me.

“Ba-koshi, how’s it going? You doing okay? lol”

I was not doing okay at all, lol.
Perhaps because I was mentally exhausted, even though he had gone out of his way to talk to me, I inwardly thought, I wish you had talked to me sooner. I was quite worn out.

“I’m thinking of trying a new initiative starting today.”

I was already near my capacity, so just hearing about a new initiative made me dizzy.

“I want to organize your task situation, Ba-koshi. Starting today, could you send me how much time each task took before you leave for the day?”
“Thank you. I can’t quite picture it, but what is the meaning behind this?”

Then Senior T explained it to me.

“They’re a bit different, but there are many similar tasks. For example, if there is a task called creating a test specification, let’s say it took 3 hours this time. If the knowledge from this time is accumulated, you can predict that
it will take 3 hours when creating another test specification next time. Of course, since the content is different, it won’t be 100% the same time, but you can make a certain degree of prediction.”

I realized that he hadn't been reluctant to talk to me for a month, but had waited until he had devised an appropriate follow-up method before reaching out. Listening to someone's worries is important, but it doesn't necessarily mean the current problem will be solved. However, considering what kind of follow-up is appropriate is


an action taken with the other person's position in mind, and it is highly likely that the current problem will be solved. I was very grateful.

From that day on, I continued to send a list of my work hours to Senior T.
Senior T did not point out anything about the work hours I sent being too long, but he constantly asked me what was difficult and where I struggled.

And, when a month had passed, a sense of how long each task takes began to sprout within me.
That also began to appear as numbers in the list of work hours I was sending to Senior T.
They started to decrease little by little.

I think my own complexion must have improved as well.
That was evident to Senior T as well,

“You seem fine now. You don't need to send them to me anymore, but please keep recording them on your own computer from now on.”

That was all he said, and the follow-up ended.
His departure was just too cool.
By the way, Senior T looks like Hiroshi Tamaki and is super handsome.

From there, my perspective on work broadened, which led to a decrease in the number of warnings from my direct supervisor.
By the way, my direct supervisor looks like Nikaido from Kis-My-Ft2 and is handsome.

There are too many handsome people around me, haha.

I had been working hard hoping to repay Senior T for his help someday, but I was transferred to a different team, so I no longer worked on the same floor as him, and our contact decreased.

At that time, news about Senior T was announced.
To my surprise, he was transferred to the Hokkaido branch, which he had been hoping for for some time.

While I was happy, I also felt sad.
He wasn't quitting the company, but I wouldn't be able to see him whenever I wanted anymore.

So, I decided to express my gratitude with a gift.
Calculating backward from the budget collected from the attendees of the farewell party,I decided to make it with Senior T's favorite liquor.

That is Tantakatan.

It is a "casual liquor to enjoy the aroma" using carefully selected red shiso.
Senior T is from Hokkaido and has an amazing love for Hokkaido.
Since Tantakatan is a Hokkaido liquor, I'm sure he loves it.

However, I felt that just giving this liquor as a gift wouldn't convey my feelings, so I decided tomake the entire label myself.

Here is what I made ↓

I used Photoshop to create it, referring to the real Tantakatan label.
There was a lot of text, so it was tough, haha.

I blurred the front label, but I included Senior T's name.
The text on the back label is an introduction to Senior T.

This is a photo after actually applying the labels.

Time passed, and it was the day of the farewell party.
The closing remarks ended, and the moment to finally give the gift arrived.
It was decided that the gift would be presented by a senior official following the closing remarks, not by me.

“This is a gift for Mr. T!”
“Oh? There's a gift?
　Oh. It's Tantakatan. Thank you very much!”

He didn't notice.

Someone nearby immediately followed up.

"T-san! Take a good look! Baakoshi-kun is making labels!"
"Huh? Oh? Oooooooooh? Is this different from regular Tantakatan? Oh, wow!"

They finally noticed, haha.

It took a while for them to notice, but they were very happy with it.
When I saw their big smile as we headed to the station after the farewell party, I felt glad I had done it.

As a side note, five years later, although we were on different teams, we ended up working on the same project.
On the day of the system release, T-senpai had come on a business trip from Hokkaido as the lead for the other team.
When they saw me working as the release coordinator managing about 70 people,

"I was happy to see how much you've grown, Baakoshi."

I remember how truly happy I was when they praised me in person like that.