[Day 9] How to avoid rushing into re-employment. How effective is 'getting certified' during a gap period?

Hey, welcome in.

This is a bourbon house that will go out of business in 100 days.
The master is Wasejo-chan, a woman in her late 20s living in Tokyo.

Today is the 9th night since opening the shop.
I hope you'll see for yourself whether this shop really goes under in 100 days.

* * *

With my temp contract coming to an end, I spend my days wondering, 'What should I do next?'

But there's no point in rushing.
I've changed my perspective a bit, and now I go to work as if I'm on a field trip.

It's rare to get a peek inside an unfamiliar industry, especially a B2B company, so I'm taking this chance to ask various questions and look through documents in the shared folders.
Surprisingly, many people will actually answer if you ask.

Still, it takes quite a bit of courage to ask questions in a company with zero small talk.
Even my greetings when arriving and leaving are ignored... What is this atmosphere?🤷‍♀️

It seems like not greeting people is the default here, but is this kind of company common??
It's my first time experiencing this...

*The circumstances behind my temp contract being terminated are here👇

* * *

This was about the day I had lunch with K-san, a senior temp worker, as we had planned.
Thinking this would probably be the last time I could talk to K-san at length, we went into a stylish cafe outside the office.

The story about telling K-san I was let go during our last lunch is here👇

The story about how K-san started supporting me after that👇

The reality of the unreasonable tasks I was expected to perform👇

K-san probably felt sorry for me.
She was incredibly kind and thought through my future moves with me.

K-san: 'I used to work in HR when I was a full-time employee, but there are few job openings in the summer. Because of summer vacation, hiring slows down. So I don't think you should move right away. Job openings increase around September. It's also an option to take it easy for a bit, get a certification, and then start job hunting again.'

──Certification. Ah, that was an option.
Even if there's a bit of a gap, saying 'I was aiming to get a certification' might not leave a bad impression.

Thanks to K-san's calm advice, my anxiety subsided a little.
This is the second time I've been let go in the first month of a temp contract, so I thought I was staying calm, but... I guess I was shaken up somewhere deep down.

It seems K-san had looked into various things, and she continued to suggest different ways for me to move forward.
As I listened to her, my mind gradually became clearer.

It'll be okay. I'll manage somehow.
I'm starting to feel like that's true.

K is such a genuinely good person.
Or rather, people like this 'helper character' occasionally appear in my life.
Could it be that I'm the type of person people want to be kind to?

* * *

After we finished lunch and left the restaurant, K said with a troubled look on their face.

"…Sorry, would you mind if we went back separately?"

I understood from those words and the bits and pieces of our conversation so far.
K is probably afraid of the full-time employees.

If they were seen with me, someone who got fired, they probably think they don't know what might be said to them—that's what they're thinking.
I know all too well how vulnerable the position of a temp worker is.
You can never be too careful.

I said "of course" and returned to the office a little while after K.

K will remain at this workplace.
I will leave this place.

Honestly, being let go after the first month was tough, but... seeing K's hunched back, I thought I wouldn't want to keep working while being that scared.

* * *

Aiming for a certification while waiting for September, when job openings increase.
—That's definitely a viable option.

If I'm going to get one, it'll be Bookkeeping Level 2.
I just got Level 3 this April, so the memory is still fresh.

However, it seems the difficulty of the bookkeeping exam has been increasing year by year recently.
When I actually took the Level 3 exam, it was much harder than what I had heard.

I think the sense of difficulty is quite different between someone who passed five years ago and a current examinee.
In fact, I felt that way when talking to a friend who took the exam five years ago.

What's strange is that while practical work should be getting easier with the advent of tools and AI, the exams are becoming more difficult instead.

Maybe the level required of humans is rising due to the emergence of AI.
That's really troublesome.

I've heard that back when the Industrial Revolution changed things from manual labor to machine industry, and when trains were invented, people thought, "This will make things easier," but working hours actually increased.
The spread of personal computers didn't make work easier either.

Technological innovation increases work efficiency, but it doesn't make the work itself easier.
With the increased efficiency, it just becomes, "Well, you can work more now, right?"

People often say "AI will steal people's jobs," but I think in reality, new jobs will be created to replace the ones lost.
However, I feel like those new jobs will surely be more complex than before.
So, if you ask, "Can people who lost their jobs just move on to another new job?" I don't think that's the case.

The unemployed stay unemployed forever.
While people who were already working get exhausted by having more new tasks piled onto them, new workers find it hard to enter the market—I feel like that's the kind of situation we're heading toward.

There's a labor shortage.
But there's no desire to train anyone.
Because even if you train them, they'll just switch jobs right away.

Even if you work hard, your salary doesn't go up.
Only the workload increases.
So, you switch to a job with better conditions.

…In the end, I feel like that's just going to keep repeating itself.

Well, maybe it's a different story if you start your own business, but nobody has the energy for that, right?
If they did, they wouldn't be 'cogs in a machine being worked to the bone' or 'surplus labor' in the first place.

The bar for what is expected of humans keeps rising.
But human specs themselves don't change overnight.
The number of people left behind by that is growing.

'If you're conscious of it, you can change'?
'If you have the motivation, you can do it'?

Isn't it arrogant to think that way?
Living things aren't that easy to update. If they were, no animals would ever go extinct.

And as a result, the gap in income and employment is widening rapidly.
Only those with ability monopolize the work, and those who can't keep up with new technology get left behind.
That speed is surely going to accelerate, too.

It seems the population grew during the Industrial Revolution, but developed countries today are basically facing a declining birthrate, right?
It might be easy to say that those who can't keep up will naturally be weeded out, but is that really okay?
Wouldn't that make it impossible to maintain society?

* * *

…Well, let's put aside such crude and gloomy future predictions.

There are still moves I can make.
Just being able to think that felt like a bit of a salvation.

* * *

This note is just a place where a 30-something Waseda graduate who never became anything talks about her 'days of not being dead but not actively living' from the corner of a bar that's about to go under.

Likes, follows, comments, and tips are welcome 🍸