The Weight of a Tool Bag | When Pagers Were Beeping, I Was Repairing FAX Machines

*This work is a piece of fiction based on real experiences. The names of people, companies, organizations, and some events appearing in it are creative inventions and have no relation to real entities.

Synopsis

At the beginning of the Heisei era, I graduated from a vocational school for information processing, but I couldn't follow the path I had envisioned and started working as a customer engineer for a FAX maintenance company. Without any system for being taught, I spent my days being called by pagers and heading to sites all over Tokyo, clutching my tool bag. My first repair, companies that wouldn't pay, riding my bicycle through the city center, accidents, the nights in Otemachi, missing parts, new recruits quitting, phone calls late on Saturday nights. While I was supposed to be fixing machines, what I was really facing on-site was human impatience and the fraying of the era. This is a story about a young person who started working without being taught, gradually learning the weight of the job and how to stand on their own.

Saturday Night, the Phone Rings

The phone that rings on a Saturday night sounds a little different.

It's the same bell sound. The receiver is the same. The company phone is no different from how it is during the day.

And yet, at night, the sound becomes a little sharper. It rings as if it's piercing straight through the floor where there are fewer people.

I was on duty for the night shift that day.

At this time, I had already been with the company for about eight years. I knew enough about the field that I couldn't quite call myself a junior, but I wasn't yet a veteran. I was standing in that kind of halfway position.

That is why, on this night, I am remembering the younger version of myself, whom I will write about from now on, from a little distance. Back then, I didn't know anything yet. Not the weight of the tool bag, nor the weight of the people on the other end of the phone.

From 6:00 PM to 8:30 the next morning. If you just look at the numbers, it's just a long shift. But when you actually sit in that chair, the weight of time changes a little. The fourteen and a half hours of the day and the fourteen and a half hours of the night are not the same.

At night, the world becomes a little less kind.

The voices on the other end of the phone become rougher. They lose the patience to wait. The person on the other end is impatient. And I, caught between sleepiness and tension, feel my mind getting a little dull.

Even so, I have to answer.

That night, there were two of us taking calls coming in from all over the country. The other person was Saeki, another CE. I didn't frequently work in a team with Saeki on-site. During the day, we each ran our own assigned areas, and we mostly only saw each other in the morning and evening, or during night shifts like this.

That is precisely why Saeki was a somewhat mysterious colleague to me. Even though we didn't share all the detailed hardships of the field, a strange sense of solidarity would emerge when we took night calls together.

Saeki was a little older than me and was a man who had just quit smoking. He says he quit. But there was always an open pack in his drawer.

"I said I quit, I didn't say I wasn't smoking."

He was the kind of man who would say such nonsensical logic without a care.

The floor was quiet. During the day, the voices of people on the phone, the sound of the copier, the sound of opening and closing parts shelves, the footsteps of the sales staff—all those things would mix together to become the noise of a company.

But at night, that noise peels away.

All that remains is the whiteness of the fluorescent lights, the sound of the wall clock's ticking, and the phone that could ring at any moment.

On the desk, night-shift reception slips are lined up.
Contract number.
Model name.
Installation site.
Symptoms.
Reception time.
Action taken.

The format is neatly organized.
But the actual phone calls don't come in that way.

It won't work.
It stopped even though I didn't do anything.
Come over right now.
I told the person before you.
I can't get any work done like this.

People who call in the middle of the night are usually in trouble.
And people in trouble cannot accurately explain how they are troubled.

Is it a FAX?
Is it a multifunction printer?
Is it a dedicated machine?
Is it our contracted machine?
Is it someone else's?
Is it just a paper jam?
Is it the communication line?
Is it a problem on the other end?
Is the machine itself dead?

From the moment I put the receiver to my ear, I am reaching into an unseen worksite.

That night, it was just past 10:00 PM.
The phone rang.

Saeki was cleaning up the remains of his bento, so I picked it up.

Yes, Toto Communications Service, night reception.

I heard ragged breathing from the other side of the receiver.
It was a man's voice.
I don't know his age.
But I knew he was quite flustered.

I can't send a FAX. Everything is stopped. What's going on?

Anger usually arrives on top of confusion.

While writing the time on the reception slip, I asked for the name of the installation site.
The person on the other end spoke quickly.
I asked him to repeat himself several times.
Each time I asked, his voice grew a little rougher.

It was a regional sales office.
There was a contract.
But the moment I heard the model name, no shape came to mind.

I had a bad feeling.

Several years had passed since I started the night shift, but I still encountered machines I didn't know.
The machines the company handles are broader than you'd think.
If it were just FAX machines, that would be one thing, but there are peripherals, special communication terminals, old business machines, and strange configurations remaining in each region.

There is probably no one who knows everything.
At the very least, I didn't know.

Is anything displayed on the screen right now?

Hearing that, the person on the other end went silent for a moment.

"...It's an E, probably forty-something."

"Forty-something, I see."

"That's why I'm telling you to come over."

Come over.

That is the heaviest phrase in night-shift reception.

I should just go. Logically, that's true. Depending on the contract, I dispatch if necessary. That is my job.

However, night dispatches are not simple.

If it's within Tokyo, we go. If it's in the provinces, we contact the local person on duty. It would be fine if that person could be reached immediately. Sometimes they can't be reached. Sometimes they are asleep. Sometimes they don't answer the phone. Even if they do, sometimes they don't have the parts. Even if they go, sometimes they can't fix it.

At night, the small gaps that someone would catch during the day become pitfalls.

While checking the contract information on my terminal, I asked the caller about the situation. Does paper feed? Can it receive? Is it only sending? How are the line lamps? Did you restart the power? Is it only one destination? Is it all of them?

The more questions I asked, the more the caller's frustration grew.

"I don't know about that. I'm just the user."

Hearing that, I went silent for just a moment.

The user.

That is certainly true. The caller is someone who uses the machine, not someone who fixes it. I am the one who fixes it. That is why I ask. If I don't ask, I won't know.

But the act of asking itself becomes a burden on the caller. Nighttime phone calls always get a little twisted around this point.

I tucked the receiver between my shoulder and ear and flipped through an old list of troubles by model. The corners of the booklet were worn down. It was paper stained by the fingers of many CEs.

The moment I smelled that paper, I strangely remembered the past.

Numbers on a pager. Work clothes soaked in sweat. The smell of oil mixed with paper dust. A notebook filling up with my own handwriting.

The version of me who didn't know anything yet is running through the middle of Tokyo, carrying a tool bag.

Back then, I didn't even understand why the people on the other end of the phone were angry.
They were angry because it broke.
They were angry because their work stopped.
I knew that logic.

But that wasn't all there was to it.

People don't just get angry because a machine stops.
The plans they had beyond that fall apart.
They get yelled at by someone else.
They can't keep their promises.
Their own work loses credibility.
All of those things come flying at me, carried by a paper jam or a communication error on a FAX machine.

It took me a long time to realize that.

The man on the other end of the phone was still saying something.

I signaled to Saeki to contact the person on duty at the site.
Saeki nodded silently and reached for another phone.

Two voices overlap on the night reception floor.

I gripped the receiver again.

"I will check the situation. Please give me a moment."

As I said that, I suddenly wondered.

Why am I still doing this job?

That was something I had asked myself many times since I was young.
Am I suited for this?
Am I not suited for this?
Do I want to continue?
Do I want to quit?

The answer was always vague.
But before I knew it, I was heading to the site.
When the pager beeped, I would make a call; when there was a repair request, I would look at a map, pedal my bicycle, ride the subway, and knock on the door with my tool bag in hand.

It wasn't that I had any resolve from the beginning.
In fact, I had nothing.

It just started, that's all.

My life as a CE began just like that.

Before heading to the site

I wasn't good with machines from the start.

It's a bit strange to write it this way.
For someone who went to an industrial high school, attended a vocational school for information processing, and then joined a communication equipment maintenance company to say they "weren't good with machines" is somewhat contradictory.

But that was truly how it was.

I didn't dislike it.
I had no resistance to touching things.
When I saw something disassembled, I wanted to know how it worked.
However, that is different from being 'skilled'.

People who are skilled are different from the start.
The way they use their hands.
The way they focus their eyes.
Their lack of fear.

I was the type who was afraid.

I attended very ordinary schools in Setagaya during elementary and junior high.
Setagaya from the end of the Showa era to the beginning of the Heisei era felt a bit rougher and had a stronger scent of daily life than it does now.
The tofu seller's trumpet would pass in front of our house, and in the evening, there was the smell of side dishes from the shopping street.
The roads were narrow, cars were driven more recklessly than now, and children were still out playing everywhere.

I went on to a technical high school.

At that time, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to become.
There was the path of going to university.
But life is not kind enough for the atmosphere of the times, family circumstances, and one's own academic ability to all line up perfectly in a single row.

If I went to an industrial high school, I might be able to acquire a trade.
I think it was just about that level of thought.

Arc welding.
Gas welding.
Lathe work.
Drafting.

There were classes that were truly typical of an industrial high school.
The smell of cutting iron.
Oil-stained floors.
Blueprints.
The cuffs of work clothes.

Back then, the sense that there was value in working with one's hands still remained more clearly than it does now.
Of course, it wasn't all just pretty things.
Those who were good were good.
It was immediately obvious who was clumsy.
As a teenager, I was confronted many times with the fact that my hands didn't move the way I wanted them to.

When cutting metal on a lathe, if you make even a slight mistake in the feed, the sound changes.
Welding was more of a sensory job than it looked.
The application of heat, the speed of the hand, the distance.
There was always a thin gap between what was written in the textbook and what happened at my fingertips.

What filled that gap, in the end, was repetition.

Do it many times.
Fail.
Try again.
Understand a little bit.
Fail again.

Thinking about it now, the basics of field work might have already started back then.
But at the time, I didn't understand anything.

When I graduated from high school, I was a bit lost about my path.
Some went to work.
Some went on to university.
Some went to vocational school.

I went on to a vocational school for information processing.

Nowadays, I suppose it would just be called IT.
But information processing back then was quite different from what it is now.

The scent of MS-DOS still remained.
White text on a black screen.
Typing commands.
Changing directories.
Swapping floppy disks.

It was a slightly dry world before Windows became the norm.

Assembler.
COBOL.
C language.

None of them were glamorous.
But I felt like I was touching the logic hidden deep within the machines.

I wasn't particularly brilliant.
Even so, I remember the small sense of accomplishment when a program worked.
Even with just a few lines of code, when it worked as intended, I felt like I had gained a tiny bit of control over the world.

Of course, I was immediately pulled back to reality by an error right after.
It's pretty much the same as life.

By the time I was graduating from vocational school, many of those around me were aiming to become SEs.
Systems Engineers.
At the time, that term had a certain scent of a new era.
A job involving computers.
A job with a future.
A job where you sit at a desk and create something.

I, too, was vaguely looking in that direction.

But finding a job wasn't easy.

The times were gradually cooling down.
The heat of the bubble economy was already distant, and the brightness that was supposed to be on the other side of the job postings didn't reach me as much as I had expected.
Rather than choosing, just getting in was a hurdle in itself.

I applied to several companies.
I was rejected.
There were also interviews where I felt no connection.
I didn't really know what I should be selling about myself.

After graduating, I didn't find a job right away.

At just over twenty years old, I was anxious.
Even though I was anxious, I couldn't put it into words well.
Those around me were moving forward little by little.
I felt like I was the only one left behind on the platform.

And so, about two months after graduation, I ended up joining a company called Toto Tsushinki Service.

It was a FAX machine maintenance company.

Customer Engineer.
CE for short.

It didn't sound bad.
The word 'engineer' has the power to make a young person feel a bit special.

However, I realized it after joining.
It wasn't a place where you wore a white lab coat and handled machines in a quiet room.

You go to the site.
You touch the machine.
You read the structure.
You listen to the customer.
You look at the situation and make a judgment on the spot.
And then you fix it.

Knowledge from a desk isn't enough.
Manual dexterity alone isn't enough.
Just memorizing things isn't enough.

How do you stand in that place?

The job of a CE was a job that asked exactly that.

At first, I hadn't thought about it that much.
I was just a little relieved that I had landed a job.
And that relief faded quite easily within a few days of joining the company.

The company was old.

That meant the building was old, but more than that, the atmosphere was old.
Paper documents.
Handwritten slips.
Parts shelves.
Ashtrays.
Telephone bells.
Coverage area charts posted on the walls.

In the morning, a repair request paper is placed on the desk.
The day begins from there.

It wasn't yet an era where requests came by email.
Repair requests were sent by FAX from the call center.
Repair requests for FAX machines arrived via FAX.
Thinking about it now, it's a bit funny.

But back then, that was the norm.

My assigned area was the center of Tokyo.
Parts of Chuo Ward, Chiyoda Ward, and Minato Ward.
It looks small on a map.
However, being small doesn't mean it's easy.

The density in the center of Tokyo is absurd.
There are companies inside buildings, departments inside those companies, and FAX machines deep inside those departments.
Banks, securities firms, trading companies, government offices, law firms, production companies, small trading firms, medical institutions, and restaurant offices.

Behind every single FAX machine, there was a different job.

I would come to learn that later.

For about the first half-year after joining, I followed a senior colleague around.
The senior's name was Yano-san.
He was slender and always had sleepy-looking eyes.
He didn't talk much.
But when he stood in front of a machine, his hands were fast.

He wasn't the type to teach you.
He was the type to show you.

"Watch this."

He would say that and remove the cover.
I would peer in.

"This area gets dirty."

He would say that and wipe the sensor with a cotton swab.
I would nod.

"When you put it back, it catches here."

He would say that and have it already reassembled.

Fast.
Too fast.

I would try to take notes, but he would move on to the next step before I could put it into words.

Could you do that one more time?

When I asked that, Mr. Yano looked at me for just a moment.

You just have to learn it on the job.

That was his answer.

It wasn't that he was being cold. He just truly believed that. Mr. Yano must have learned it that way too.

The company had almost no systematic training. There were manuals. There were thick files. But what was needed in the field wasn't fully covered by what was written there.

Which screws were tight. Where you shouldn't pull too hard or the tabs would break. Which models had fragile data retention. Which customers were strict about time. Which buildings would get you scolded if you didn't use the loading dock. Which receptionists were in a bad mood.

Things like that weren't really written on paper.

I bought a small notebook. One that would fit in my chest pocket. I wrote down everything in it: the quirks of each model, things I heard on-site, things I saw in my senior's hands, and things I almost messed up.

My handwriting was messy. Because I touched it with fingers blackened by oil, the edges of the paper soon got dirty too. On rainy days, it got soggy.

Even so, it was my lifeline.

For the first four months or so, I mainly did retrofitting. Just on one model of commercial FAX machine. There was a part in the machines already on the market that was likely to malfunction in the future, so I would replace the parts in advance.

Day after day, I only touched that model.

Thanks to that, my hands gradually learned that model alone. Which covers to remove. In what order to access the circuit boards. Where to put my fingers.

But the world wasn't just one model.

When the fifth month came, I started doing inspections. I would regularly visit contracted clients, clean the machines, check the rollers and sensors, and replace parts as needed.

And, when six months had passed, I started going out to the field alone, little by little.

It wasn't that Mr. Yano suddenly disappeared. If I went back to the office, he was at his desk as usual, and we would pass each other in front of the parts shelves. If I got stuck, I could ask him over the phone.

But he wasn't by my side.

That alone made the world feel quite different. Even if we were in the same company, even if we were driving through the same Tokyo, the moment I opened the door to a job site, I was alone. Mr. Yano's back was no longer in front of me. All I had were the procedures I remembered and my own messy notebook.

Going solo.

The words sound impressive.
But in reality, it felt less like being pushed forward and more like the ground beneath my feet had disappeared.

There was no one to ask.
If I got stuck, there was no one beside me.
The customer was right in front of me.
I had another appointment waiting.
The pager was beeping.

In that environment, I learned that I truly knew nothing.

The first two hours

On the morning of my first day going solo, I went to the office earlier than usual.

Work started at nine, but I was at my desk before eight.
Going early didn't mean less work.
But I wanted to look at the paperwork as far ahead as I could.

On my desk lay a repair request form.

Just one.

Even though it was just one, my heart sank a little.

When I was at the company, I saw repair request forms every day.
My senior would look at them, schedule the work, check the parts, and head to the site.
I was right there beside him.

But when that paper was left for me, the meaning changed.

The installation site was a small printing company in Kyobashi.
The symptom was that the document wouldn't feed properly when sending. It would sometimes double-feed.
I looked at the model name.

I didn't know it.

No, I had seen it before.
I had seen it from a distance.
But I had never opened one up.

It was an old model from nearly ten years ago.

I went to the parts shelf and looked for the paper feed roller and separation pad that seemed likely to be the cause.
I hesitated over which ones I should take.
I should have been able to tell by looking at the diagrams, but I was still shaky on how to read them.

I asked Mr. Yano, who was nearby.

"For this model, where should I look if it's double-feeding documents?"

Mr. Yano stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and glanced at the repair request form.

It's probably the rollers. Since it's old, you should check the pads too. Also, be careful, you might lose the data.

The data, you say?

Things like speed dials and settings. If you're going to turn the power off, print them out first.

That was all.

In truth, I wanted to ask more. Where do I open it? How long does a roller replacement take? Can it be done without turning off the power? Where is the battery?

But even if I asked, I probably wouldn't get all the answers. That was just the atmosphere.

I put the parts I thought I'd need into my bag. I checked my tools. Screwdriver. Needle-nose pliers. Tweezers. Cotton swabs. Contact cleaner. Multimeter. Small flashlight.

The tool bag was heavy.

It wasn't leather, but a black synthetic material, and the corners were a bit worn. When I slung it over my shoulder, the strap dug into my collarbone. It still didn't feel like my own bag. It felt like it was packed only with the weight of borrowed responsibility.

I looked at a map and headed for Kyobashi.

Back then, there were no smartphones. I opened an atlas and memorized the route from the station. If I got lost, I would spread the map out near a public phone. I walked, relying on the building name and address.

The printing company was on the third floor of a long, narrow building. The elevator was old and smelled a bit damp.

When I opened the door, I smelled paper. The smell of ink. The heat of an old copier. In the back of the cramped office, the problematic FAX machine was sitting there.

It hasn't been working since this morning.

The person who greeted me was a man in his fifties. He was wearing a cardigan over his work clothes. He wasn't angry, but he was troubled. That sense of trouble weighed on me even more.

I'll take a look at it.

I said that and crouched down in front of the machine.

First, I checked the symptoms. I had him set a few sheets of paper and perform a transmission operation. Sure enough, the paper feed was poor. Sometimes it would pull in two sheets at once.

It's the paper feed system.

I knew that much. The problem was how to fix it.

I opened the cover.
Paper dust had accumulated inside.
It had that slightly dry smell peculiar to old machines.

I looked at my notebook.
The page for this model was still mostly blank.
There were some scribbles I had made when I saw it once beside my senior colleague.

"Top cover: watch the tabs"
"Right side back screw"
"Caution: power"

That was it.

It was so unreliable it made me want to laugh.
Of course, I couldn't laugh on the spot.

I decided to call the office.

At the time, the company didn't provide mobile phones.
The protocol was to be paged and then call back from a public phone.
However, on-site, you couldn't afford to be that leisurely.

I took a small external telephone I carried with me out of my bag.
I borrowed the FAX line, connected to it, and called the office.

"I'm checking this as part of a communication test."

With that look on my face.

That might be considered unacceptable today.
But back then, the field work ran on such little tricks.

I got through to the office and asked Mr. Yano for the procedure.

"For that model, open the top, remove the right unit, and there's a roller in the back. Two screws. But don't pull the cord. Also, if you can, don't turn off the power."

"Can I do it without turning off the power?"

"You can if you get used to it."

That way of putting it is the most troublesome.

Even if someone who isn't used to it is told they can do it once they get used to it, it just feels out of reach.

I took a deep breath.

Working without turning off the power was scary.
I was afraid of losing data.
I was afraid of causing a short circuit.
Even if it wasn't a place where I'd get electrocuted, there was a possibility of breaking something.

In the end, I decided to turn off the power.
Before that, I printed out the speed dials and settings.
I explained it to the customer.

I'll print out the registration details just in case.

Is that really necessary?

It's an old machine, so it's just a precaution.

As I said it myself, I was clinging to the phrase 'just in case'.

The printout comes out.
A long sheet of paper listed the registered destinations.
Company names, numbers, and speed-dial codes.
Even this single sheet of paper was packed with that company's work.

I turned off the power.

The now-silent FAX machine suddenly looked like a heavy box.

I removed the cover.
I unscrewed the screws.
I reached for the unit on the right side.

It's stiff.

If I use too much force, it might break.
If I don't use enough, it won't come off.

Machine repair often involves moments like this.
How much force is safe to apply?
I don't know.
As long as I don't know, everything is scary.

I wiggled it little by little until it came off.
I could see the cords.
I was careful not to pull on them.
I could see the rollers in the back.

I was already sweating just from getting that far.

It should have been winter.
Even so, sweat was seeping down my back.

The paper feed roller looked hardened even to the eye.
The rubber surface was slightly shiny.
With this, it wouldn't be able to grip the paper properly.

The replacement itself shouldn't have been that difficult.

It should have been.

But at a first-time job site, everything becomes twice as hard.
The clip won't come off.
A tiny spring is about to fly away.
My fingers can't fit in.
The customer is standing behind me.
The phone is ringing.
Another employee asks, 'Is it going to take much longer?'

It will be just a little longer.

I answered that many times.

I don't even know myself how much that "a little more" actually is.

I finally replaced the rollers.
I also cleaned the separation pad and replaced the ones that were heavily worn.

The problem was putting it back together.

How did it move when I took it off?
At what angle did it come out?
Which cord went where?
I thought I remembered it in my head.
But when I actually tried to put it back, it was slightly off.

If it's off, it won't go in.

If I force it in, I'll break it.
If I break it, it's no longer a matter of just repairing it.

I looked at my notepad again.
Nothing was written there.
Of course.
Because the me from a moment ago hadn't written anything.

In the end, I put it back together using only my memory and the feel of my hands.

Tighten the screws.
Put the cover back on.
Check the power cord.

And then I turned on the power.

Beep.

A small startup sound.
The next moment, an unpleasant display appeared.

Settings initialized.

For a moment, I felt a chill in the pit of my stomach.

As I thought, the battery was dead.
Because I had cut the power, it couldn't retain the internal data.

I had anticipated this.
That's why I had printed it out.
But just because I anticipated it doesn't mean I like it.

I explain it to the customer.

"It seems the internal backup battery was weak. I will re-enter the information based on the registration details I printed out earlier."

The man looked a bit troubled.

"Will it take long?"

"I'll take a little time."

A little.

It's a convenient word.
It doesn't specify anything.

I called my office.
I checked the location of the battery.
Fortunately, I had the parts.
I needed to remove the circuit board and use a soldering iron.

Soldering on my first day?

I muttered to myself in my heart.

I had experience with welding and soldering back in high school.
But doing it at a school desk is different from handling the circuit board of a machine actually in use in a cramped client office.

I borrowed a corner of a desk and had them lay down some newspaper.
I removed the circuit board.
I was careful about static electricity.
I removed the old battery.
I installed the new one.

My hands were shaking.
Not violently.
It was a tremor only I could feel.

Even so, the tip of a soldering iron is honest.
The slightest tremor dulls your aim.

I managed to replace it.
I put the board back.
I turned the power on.
This time, it held the charge.

From there, the re-entry of the speed-dial numbers began.

Looking at the paper, I entered them one by one.
I checked to make sure I didn't get the numbers wrong.
I entered the company names.
Since it was an old model, text entry was also a hassle.

"Are you done yet?"

Someone said.

I pretended not to hear.

I finally finished entering everything and performed a test transmission.
The document was sent cleanly, one sheet at a time.
No double-feeding.
No paper jams.

It was fixed.

At that moment, something inside my chest loosened.

The client, a man, finally smiled a little too.

"Thank goodness. I'd be in trouble if I couldn't use this today."

With those words, I realized it for the first time.

This machine is not just a box.
For this company, it is the lifeline that keeps today's work going.

I wrote up the work report.
Replacement parts, labor time, symptoms, confirmation details.
I get a signature.

I look at my watch.

Two hours had passed.

If it were me a few years later, I probably would have finished this in fifteen minutes.
But for me that day, it took two hours.

On the way back to the office, my pager beeped.

Numbers appeared on the display.
It was the company's number.

I look for a public phone to call back.

"Next, a delivery has come in. Also, two repairs in the afternoon. Pick up the parts when you get back."

The woman in administration said calmly on the other end of the line.

The company has no sentiment regarding the completion of my first day's repair.
Neither does the site.
Neither does Tokyo.

Only the next task comes.

I hung up the receiver and adjusted my tool bag.
My shoulder hurt.

But, I thought just a little bit.

I finished it.

That much, at least, was certain.

Notebooks and Pagers

A CE's day begins with the morning paperwork.

At least, that was how it was when I joined.

I arrive at the office after eight.
I look at my desk.
I check if there are any repair request slips.
If there are any pending repairs, deliveries, collections, or contract matters left over from the previous day, I line those up too.

From there, I plan out my day.

I prioritize customers with specific time requests.
I secure locations that can only be handled in the morning.
I prioritize repairs.
I visit nearby inspection sites while I'm at it.

It's easy to say in words.
But in reality, it was a small puzzle every single day.

Three jobs in the morning.
If things go well, four.
For large corporations, I might inspect dozens of machines at a single company.
In that case, one job doesn't mean just one task.
I move through the building, greet the person in charge in each department, find where the machines are installed, ask about their usage, open the covers, clean them, test them, and record the results.

Even after finishing one machine, there is always another one waiting.

In the meantime, repair requests come in.
The pager beeps.
I look at the numbers.
I look for a public phone.
I call the office.

“Paper jam in Nihonbashi”
“Transmission error in Ginza”
“Otemachi, urgent”

Urgent.

This word was convenient, and yet troublesome.
To the customer, everything is urgent.
To the company, it means to get there as soon as possible.
But I only have one body.

I open a map and rearrange the order in my head.
Walking, subway, bicycle.
Are there enough parts?
Can I return to the office at noon?
Do I need to return?

Many CEs returned to the office at noon.
It wasn't just to eat lunch.
I return to pick up parts.
I look at diagrams.
I place orders.
I load up items for delivery.
I submit my morning reports.
I reschedule my afternoon plans.

There were many days when a lunch break didn't really exist.

If the site was nearby, I would return to the office to eat.
If it was far, I would settle for a stand-up noodle shop.
If I didn't have time, I would eat a convenience store rice ball while on the move.

I was still young, so I could manage that.
I couldn't do it now.
My body and stomach aren't that obedient anymore.

I make my rounds in the afternoon in the same way.
Repairs.
Inspections.
Deliveries.
Collections.

I return to the office around 17:00.
From there, there is administrative work.
Ordering parts.
Daily reports.
Settlements.
Checking tools.
Organizing parts.
Preparing for the next day.

Paper, paper, paper.

The company was surprisingly analog.
Documents piled up, files increased, and slips were passed around.
It wasn't until several years after I joined that PCs were finally introduced in earnest.
That was also around the time when we switched from pagers to mobile phones.

Until then, we were provided with telephone cards.
I would be paged, and then I would call the office from a public phone.

That was the official policy.

But when I was short on time, finding a public phone was a hassle.
It would be nice if there was one in front of the station.
It would be nice if there was one inside the building.
However, they weren't always conveniently located where I left the job site.

In the end, I often used my own mobile phone.
I had to pay for the charges myself.

If it were today, I could say a lot of things.
The company should pay for it.
It's business communication, so that's only natural.

But back then, that's just how things were.
The phrase 'that's just how things are' was used to dismiss a lot of unreasonable situations.

My notebook grew thicker day by day.

Model names.
Error codes.
Part numbers.
How to remove the cover.
Points to note.
The client's quirks.
The name of the receptionist.
How to enter the building.
Places I could only enter during the day.
Companies I should definitely avoid in the evening.

Some of the notes don't make sense to me now.

'Back right, crying'
'Never approach from above'
'Don't ask Section Chief Murase. Ask Mr. Yano'
'Floor, black'

I must have understood them at the time.
I don't quite understand them now.

But that notebook was proof that I was trying to build my own footing in the field.

If there was no one to teach me, I had no choice but to leave records myself.

If no one would organize it for me, I had no choice but to draw the lines myself.

Of course, this isn't a heartwarming story.
There were things the company should have done in the first place.
If you're going to send a new recruit to the field, minimal training is necessary.
A system that prevents people from breaking down is also necessary.

But the field back then wasn't like that.

Everyone was managing in their own way.

Mr. Yano had his own procedures.
Section Chief Murase had his own way of thinking.
Another senior colleague would say something completely different.

'You can turn the power off on that model'

Some people would say, while others...

"Never drop it."

Some people say.

Which one is correct?
It depends.

For a newcomer, there is no phrase more troublesome than "it depends."

You are a newcomer precisely because you cannot read the situation.

However, the field throws those "situations" at you without mercy.

I learned through failure.
Small failures happened almost every day.
Dropping a screw.
Almost breaking a cover tab.
Mixing up parts.
Overbooking my schedule and running late.
Using the wrong words when explaining things to a customer.

There were big failures, too.
They were still waiting for me a little further down the road at that time.

However, what all those failures had in common was that my body learned from them.

I never forget the places where I broke into a cold sweat.
I never forget the face of the receptionist who scolded me.
I never forget the time I spent crouching on a narrow floor, searching for parts.

People remember what went wrong better than what went right.
At least, that was the case for me.

Even so, as you keep at it, the things you can see gradually increase.

You can tell by the sound.
You can tell by how the paper feeds in.
You can tell by the way it's dirty.
Sometimes, the ambiguity in a customer's explanation actually reveals the cause.

"It broke even though I didn't do anything."

I gradually got used to hearing that phrase, too.

They didn't do anything.

People often say that.
But usually, something has been done to the machine.
They pulled the paper out by force.
They closed the cover too hard.
They used non-genuine paper.
Dust had accumulated.
They unplugged the power repeatedly.

Of course, you must not say that directly.

"I will check the usage conditions."

That is what you say.

In the field, there are times when you cannot make progress unless you protect the other party's face before focusing on being right.

When I was young, I was bad at that.
I thought it was enough to just state the facts.
I thought they would be convinced if I explained the cause.

But facts sometimes hurt people.
A correct explanation can sometimes corner the other person.

Even though my job was to fix machines, dealing with people was more difficult.

It took me a long time to learn that.

A CE riding a bicycle

We CEs were riding bicycles more than you might think.

At least, that was the case in the center of Tokyo where I was assigned.
Chuo Ward, Chiyoda Ward, and the surrounding areas.
They look small on a map.
But in reality, when you carry a tool bag on your shoulder, load up parts, and ride a company bicycle, that smallness easily shows its teeth.

The center of Tokyo looks flat, but it isn't.
There are bridges.
There are hills.
There are large intersections.
The roads are clogged with cars, and the sidewalks are clogged with people.
The wind blows through the canyons of buildings.
On rainy days, manhole covers are slippery, and in summer, heat rises from the asphalt.

I rode through that every day.
I wasn't just riding for repairs. Sometimes I would load a replacement for a small FAX machine onto my bike and carry it. Sometimes I would deliver toner, roll paper, or small consumables. I didn't always have them loaded. If I needed them, I would return to the office. Open the parts shelf. Check the slips. Load a replacement machine. Load the consumables. And then, head to another site.

Between repairs, other tasks would interrupt.

Inspections.
Delivering replacement machines.
Delivering consumables.
Talks about maintenance contracts.
Collecting payments.
Deliveries.
Revisiting.

Looking back now, they really made one CE carry a lot of different things.

Of course, the burden varied depending on the assigned area. Some people had jobs close together, while others had their daily energy drained just by traveling. Some places had dense buildings that were easy to get around. Some places were far from the station. Some places had many hills. Some places required crossing bridges many times.

I think I was on the side that rode a lot.

If it were just repairs, I could manage my mindset.

It's broken.
Go see it.
Find the cause.
Fix it.

The flow is easy to understand.

But the reality of a day was not that clean.

A morning repair drags on. I'm late for the next inspection. The pager beeps from the office. I'm told to deliver consumables. A replacement machine is needed at another client's site. When I return, maintenance contract documents are sitting on my desk. There are also payment collection slips.

Work sites never go exactly according to schedule.

And the weather doesn't care about our convenience either.

I went even in the rain.

I went even in the snow.

Even on days with typhoons, I ended up heading to the site.

Even wearing a raincoat, you get wet. The cold seeps into your shoes. You have to be careful not to get the paperwork wet. You worry about the parts inside your tool bag. On days when you're carrying a replacement machine, you have to be careful about every single bump in the road.

Still, I went.

It wasn't just for the noble reason that someone was waiting for me.

The company told me to go. There was a contract. There was a schedule. I had other things to do next. If I didn't go, it would just be more trouble later.

There were plenty of practical reasons like that, too.

It was much later, but even on the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the thread of work didn't completely snap.

Even when the streets of Tokyo looked different than usual, the phone would ring. Machines would stop. Somewhere, someone was in trouble. Even when the ground beneath my own feet was shaking, I found myself thinking about the work site.

When I remember that day, even now, a heavy feeling remains deep in my chest.

The job of a CE was to stand in front of machines.

But in reality, by the time I reached those machines, I was already carrying a lot on my back.

Tools.
Parts.
Replacement machines.
Consumables.
Paperwork.
Contracts.
Collections.
Weather.
Distance.
Customer convenience.
Company convenience.
And the air of Tokyo on that day.

All of those things gradually mixed into the weight of the tool bag.

The work bicycle was sturdy.
But in exchange, it was heavy.
It wasn't like the light bicycles of today.
It felt like I was riding a lump of iron, loaded down with my tool bag, parts, and even the day's anxiety.

The bicycle loaded with a replacement machine was actually kind of funny.
No, I had no choice but to laugh.

I was rushing to the site.
A machine on the back.
A tool bag on my shoulder.
A notepad in my chest pocket.
And I never knew when the pager would go off.

If the current me were to look at that figure from afar, I would want to stop them a little.
I would want to tell them that they don't need to be in such a hurry.

But back then, I had no choice but to hurry.

The burden varied considerably depending on the assigned area.
Some people had many nearby locations.
Some had buildings clustered together, making it relatively easy to get around.
Conversely, some had a wide range with many hills, where just moving around drained their physical strength.

I was, if anything, the latter.

It's not a title as grand as being a main player.
It was just a position where I had no choice but to be at the forefront.
Places with many repairs.
Places with many time-sensitive appointments.
Places where large companies were lined up.
Difficult clients.
Distant job sites.
Those kinds of things naturally came my way.

There are company circumstances.
There is also personnel allocation.
Someone has to do it.

With those words, most things were settled.

I pedaled my bicycle.

Nihonbashi in the morning.
Otemachi before noon.
Ginza in the afternoon.
From there, Kyobashi.
Then further to Shintomicho.
One more job in Kanda in the evening.

In reality, it never went in such a clean order.
If the pager beeped, the schedule would fall apart.
If parts were missing, I would return to the company.
If I got stuck, I would be late for the next site.
I would apologize to the customer.
And pedal my bicycle fast again.

Hurry.

This word was stuck firmly to the daily life of a CE.

It wasn't that someone was yelling at me to hurry every time.
Of course, there were customers who yelled.
But more than that, there was a voice inside me telling me to hurry.
There is a next one.
I am keeping them waiting.
If I am late, another call will come.
When I get back, I have to order parts.
I also have to write daily reports.

The bicycle was a tool that transmitted that impatience directly to the pedals.

My young body moved well.

In my twenties, even if I pushed myself a bit, I would recover by the next day.
Even if I got soaked in the rain, was drenched in sweat in the summer, or skipped lunch, I could somehow keep running.
In my early thirties, there was even a time when my thighs looked like those of a professional cyclist.

Of course, that is disrespectful to professional cyclists.
They are the real deal, trained to perfection.
Mine just got thick on their own from being chased by work.

Even so, I once looked at my own legs and felt a bit strange.

I am supposed to be fixing machines, so why are my thighs growing?

But that was the reality.

A CE's job was not just about working with one's hands.
You use your head, too.
You talk to customers.
You read documents.
You check lines.
And you use your body.

You climb stairs.
You go back and forth in cramped buildings.
You bend over.
You crouch down.
You carry heavy covers.
You transport parts.
You pedal a bicycle.

All of that adds up.

Toward the end, I also had an electric bicycle.
That was truly a relief.
I was a bit moved the first time I rode it.
It feels like someone is pushing you on your back on a slope.
I wished I could have given it to my younger self.

But for most of my CE life, I used a heavy commercial bicycle.

Some people got around by car.
Honestly, there were times I envied them.
Especially on rainy days.
And on days when I had a lot of gear.
Even on a midsummer afternoon, when my work clothes would stick to my back, I thought it would have been a little different if I had a car.

However, using a car in the city center was difficult in its own way.
There is nowhere to park.
Parking is expensive.
There are many one-way streets.
The roads are congested.
Even just stopping for a moment in front of a building requires caution.

In that regard, the bicycle was superior.

You can park it by the side of a building.
You can enter narrow streets.
You can get through traffic.
It is easier to estimate travel time than with a car.

That is why I used a bicycle.

The weather has a big impact.
On rainy days, you get wet even if you wear a raincoat.
Your hands get cold.
You have to be careful not to get the paperwork wet.
You worry about the contents of your tool bag.
In summer, your notepad gets damp from sweat.
In winter, your ears ache.

Even so, you get used to it.

Humans get used to quite a lot of things.
It is scary because you get used to it.

Carrying a heavy tool bag on my shoulder and riding a bicycle through the city center eventually became normal.
Riding in the rain, entering a customer's office drenched in sweat, and skipping lunch to head to the next job all became normal.

Even things that should not become normal start to become normal.

Now, my knees and lower back are not in very good shape.
Of course, I cannot say that is entirely due to the work I did back then.
There is age.
There is a lack of exercise.
There are fluctuations in weight.
There is life itself.

But I find it hard to believe that the overwork from those days has nothing to do with it.

Perhaps the body of one's youth is borrowed from one's future self.
At the time, you do not think about repayment dates.
You are just doing your best to get through the day.

And then, decades later, your knees and lower back quietly bring you the bill.

Ah, so this is for that time.

Sometimes I think about it like that.

Of course, it's not all regret.
The scenery of Tokyo I rode through on that bicycle still remains somewhere in my body.
Nihonbashi in the morning.
Ginza at noon.
Otemachi in the evening.
Kyobashi after the rain.
Kanda in winter.

The wind blowing through the gaps between buildings.
The impatience while waiting at traffic lights.
The numbers on the pager.
The weight of the tool bag.

Those things don't remain in paper records.
They aren't written in work reports either.

But they remained in my legs.

Work isn't something you remember only with your mind.
It is also carved into your body.

The job of a CE was to stand in front of machines.
But the work had already begun even before I reached those machines.

While pedaling my bicycle, I was always thinking about the next site.

Which model is it?
Are there enough parts?
Is the customer angry?
What time will I finish?
Where is the next one?
Can I make it back to the office?

I wasn't just riding on the streets of Tokyo.
I was riding between impatience and responsibility.

And that impatience sometimes gradually wears down a person's judgment.

I would come to know that later on.

The Company That Won't Pay

That case came to me suddenly.

It was the mid-nineties.
In the world, Tamagotchi had an unusual feverish heat.
Small egg-shaped game consoles were disappearing from store shelves.
Children who had them boasted, children who didn't want them, and adults were sniffing out the scent of a strange business in that heat.

That was the kind of era it was.

One afternoon, I was called by Section Chief Murase.

"Sorry, but could you go handle this?"

What was handed to me was a collection slip.
Cash collection for repair fees.

The location was a shared building in the city center.
The company name was Aoba Trading.

Looking at the name alone, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
It was a company name that could have been anywhere.

"Who was the technician who did the repair?"

I asked while looking at the invoice.

"They're out on another job today."

Section Chief Murase said without making eye contact.

At that point, I had a bit of a bad feeling.
But I thought, if it's just collecting payment, it will be over quickly.
That's what I thought.

I was still naive.

The building was old.
There was a small restaurant on the first floor, and the floors above were offices.
There was no elevator, so I climbed the narrow stairs.
Several old signs were posted on the walls.
Parts of the company names were peeling off, and I couldn't tell what kind of company it was.

Aoba Trading was on the fourth floor.

I stood in front of the door.
I knocked.

"Come in."

A low voice came from inside.

When I opened the door, the room was smaller than I had expected.
There was a desk right by the entrance, and another desk in the back.
Two chairs.
A shelf against the wall.
There was a window, but the blinds were half-closed.

The air was heavy.

The smell of cigarettes.
The smell of old carpet.
A smell that was somewhat damp and inescapable.

Inside were two men in their sixties.
One was sitting at the desk in the back, and the other was sitting in a chair to the side.
Both were wearing suits, but they didn't feel like office workers.

I handed over my business card and explained that I had come to collect the repair fee.

The man in the back said, almost without a pause.

"We're not paying."

His voice wasn't loud.
But it was enough to freeze the air in the room in an instant.

I reviewed the invoice.
I checked the amount.
The company name was also correct.

"This is the bill for the repairs we performed the other day."

"It's not fixed, so I'm not paying."

The man said it bluntly.

I was a bit troubled.
I was not the one who handled the repair.
I didn't know the detailed history of what was fixed or how.
However, I was here to collect payment.

"I apologize. What kind of symptoms are still occurring?"

That was all I could ask.

The man moved his chin annoyedly and pointed to the FAX machine placed in the corner of the room.

"That one. Sometimes it sends, sometimes it doesn't. It's not fixed."

I looked at the machine.
It was an old commercial FAX machine.
I had seen it before.
I had even touched it before.
However, it wasn't a very good model.
It was temperamental, and when communication-related troubles occurred, it took time to narrow down the cause.

"May I take a look at it?"

That was when I said it.

The air behind me changed.

I knew before I turned around.
Someone had entered.

Three young men.
Before I knew it, they were standing in a line behind me.

I heard the sound of the door closing.

A chill ran deep through my chest.

I checked my position.
The door was behind me.
The desk was in front.
There wasn't much room to the left or right.
My tool bag was at my feet.

The word 'escape' crossed my mind for just a moment.
But this was not a situation where I could escape.
I couldn't even create a reason to run.

The man in the back was looking at my face.
Then, he deliberately rolled up his sleeves.

I saw a tattoo on his arm.

I see.

In that instant, everything clicked as to why the person in charge didn't want to go.

In my heart, I called out Section Chief Murase's name just once.
Of course, I didn't say it out loud.
Even if I did, he wouldn't come to help.

It's not fixed, so I'm not paying.

The man repeated.

Then, let me check the symptoms, and if necessary, I will readjust it.

That's what I said.
I'm surprised those words even came out of my mouth.

My hands were a little sweaty.

I opened my tool bag.
I took out a screwdriver.
I started by checking the operation.

I performed a transmission test.
It went through the first time.
It went through the second time too.
It gave an error on the third.

Communication error.

Is it a line issue?
Is it the machine?
Is it the recipient?
Is it the settings?

I changed the test destination and tried several times.
The symptoms were unstable.
This is the kind of thing I hate the most.
It would be easier if it were completely broken.
Things that break and then don't are just as troublesome as people.

The man in the back was watching while smoking a cigarette.
The man to the side was silent.
The three young men behind me were standing like a wall.

I tried not to see anything unnecessary.

I don't see.
I don't hear.
I don't feel too much.

I look at the machine.
I look at the paper.
I listen to the sound.
I look at the display.

That's what I told myself.

The cause appeared to be a combination of a poor connection in the communication control system and dirt on the reading unit.
Rather than a complete breakdown, it was a state where an old machine was throwing a tantrum here and there.

I removed the cover and cleaned the inside.
I checked the connectors.
I pressed down lightly on the circuit board.
I cleaned the contact points.
I wiped the reading unit.

The work itself was not that difficult.

But the location was bad.

In that room, I felt like I wasn't even allowed to drop a single screw.

In the middle of it, the man in the back suddenly shouted.

Not at me.
It was directed at the three young people behind me.

"What are you guys doing? That's not what we agreed on."

The air in the room became even heavier.

One of the young men replied in a small voice.

"That's why, the number..."

"It's not about the number. You said you'd hold them, didn't you?"

Fragments of the conversation reached my ears.
I didn't intend to listen.
But if someone shouts in a small room, you can't help but hear it.

Tamagotchi.
Store.
Buying up stock.
Not enough quantity.
Reselling.

Words like those were mixed in.

I kept my face turned toward the machine and gave a bitter smile to myself.

Times can really stretch in some pretty lousy directions.
Adults getting desperate over children's toys.
And in a room with such bad vibes, too.

No, this is no time to be smiling.

It didn't require a soldering iron, but it needed fine adjustments.
I focused on my fingertips.
I tightened the screws.
I put the connectors back.
I temporarily fastened the cover.
I tested it.

Transmission.

It went through.

Once more.
It went through.

Change the destination.
It went through.

Try it five, six times.
This time, it didn't drop.

"The symptoms have improved for now."

That's what I said.

The man in the back didn't answer right away.
He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and came over to the FAX machine.
He tried sending a transmission himself.

It goes through.

Once more.
It goes through.

The man snorted, looking a bit dissatisfied.

"Well, I'll keep an eye on it for a while."

Here it comes.

That's what I thought.

I won't be collecting payment.

"I'll use it for a few days, and if there are no problems, I'll pay."

Normally, that wouldn't fly.
But this wasn't a normal job site.

I didn't push the issue.
I didn't have the guts to stand my ground right there.
Besides, I didn't think it would lead to a good outcome even if I did.

I wrote the situation in the work report and got his signature.
Collection was put on hold.

As I left the room, I felt a gaze on my back.
I went down the stairs.
I went outside.

The winter air was cold.

Outside the building, I finally let out a breath.

My fingertips were trembling.

Not violently.
It was a small tremor, just like the one I had when I first held a soldering iron.

I looked at my hands.

With these hands, I fix machines.
With these hands, I tighten screws.
With these hands, I hand reports to customers.

Yet, these hands still tremble so easily.

When I returned to the office, Section Chief Murase was at his desk.
I explained what had happened.

"They didn't pay?"

The section chief said it as if he had expected it.

"Yes. They said they would wait and see for a few days."

"Then go back again."

For a moment, I thought I had misheard him.

"Me?"

"You've already been there once, so it should be easier to talk to them, right?"

The creature known as a company sometimes operates on very rough logic.

I tried to say something back.
But the words wouldn't come out.

A few days later, I went to Aoba Trading again.

This time, I wasn't as nervous as before.
No, I was still nervous.
It's just that, knowing what kind of place it was, I knew a little better how to brace myself.

When I entered the room, the man in the back was there.
The three young men were not.
The man on the side wasn't there either.

He said the FAX machine was working without any problems.

"Alright then, I'll pay."

The man took out the cash.
I wrote out a receipt.

That should have been the end of it.

However, the man took another three thousand yen or so out of his drawer and held it out toward me.

“Sorry about that. Get yourself something to eat with this.”

I looked at the money.

I didn't want to take it.
Honestly, I didn't even want to touch it.

But the atmosphere wasn't one where I could refuse.

“No, I couldn't possibly...”

I said that, just in case.

“It's fine. Just take it.”

The man looked a little awkward.
The intimidating air from last time had faded.

In the end, I accepted it.

The words “thank you” passed through my throat.
I didn't even know myself if those were the right words to say.

I went outside and put the three thousand yen into my wallet.

I hadn't had lunch yet.
I went into a nearby standing-room-only soba shop.
I ordered kake soba with a kakiage tempura fritter.

Steam was rising from it.

While holding my chopsticks, I thought about the three thousand yen from earlier.

Sometimes, scary people suddenly become kind.
Sometimes, difficult people act strangely reasonable.
Conversely, sometimes people who look like ordinary office workers can be unbelievably cold.

Society is not neatly divided into black and white.

I was learning that, little by little.

The job of a CE was not just about going to look at machines.
Every time I opened a door, it was a job of stepping into the atmosphere of that place.

The well-organized reception of a large corporation.
The cramped office of a multi-tenant building.
The quiet room of a bank.
The bustling hallway of a TV station.
The smell of oil in an izakaya kitchen.
The lived-in feel of a private home.

And, a suffocating room like Aoba Trading.

The machine is placed there.
That is why we go there.

We head out to fix a machine breakdown.
But it is not just the machine waiting at the site.

There are people.

People who are impatient.
People who are angry.
People who are troubled.
People who are hiding something.
People who are putting on a front.
People who are just a little bit kind.

In front of all of them, I had to open my tool bag.

To my younger self, that was heavy.

It was not the weight of the technology.
It was also the weight of responsibility, but it was not just that either.

It was the weight of carrying the atmosphere of that place on my back.

Someone's work has stopped.
Someone is in trouble.
Someone is angry.
At the center of that is a broken FAX machine.
And I am standing in front of it.

There were days I wanted to run away.
There were days I thought I wasn't cut out for it.

Even so, the next morning, there would be a repair request slip on my desk again.
The pager beeps.
I open the map.
I pick up my tool bag.

That is how the days went on.

It is not that you suddenly understand the meaning of the work one day.
It is not like in a drama where someone gives you profound words.

It is just that the field experience piles up.

The two hours on the first day.
The trembling fingertips at Aoba Trading.
The steam from a bowl of standing-bar soba.
The messy handwriting increasing in my notebook.

Each one of those things sank into me.

I was still nobody.
I could not yet call myself a full-fledged CE.

But at the very least, I was beginning to know.

This job doesn't end just by fixing things.
Before you can fix them, you have to face the people involved.

And that includes facing yourself as well.

A Technician Without a Name Yet

Even after the Aoba Trading case ended, my days remained the same.

There is no such thing as dramatic growth.
Just because you've gotten through one scary job site doesn't mean your skills suddenly improve the next day.

I still encounter models I don't know.
Schedules still fall apart.
Pagers still beep at the worst possible times.

Even so, one thing has changed just a little.

I've started to read the atmosphere before entering a job site.

The expression on the receptionist's face.
The cluttered feel of the office.
The way the phones ring.
The speed of the person in charge's speech.
Where the machine is placed.
How much dust has accumulated on the surrounding desks.

In the past, I would look at the machine first.
Where is it broken?
Where do I open it?
What parts are needed?

Of course, that is important.
It is only natural, as I am a CE.

But the machine exists within a site.
And the site exists within people.

I began to realize that, little by little.

For example, when I was called to fix a paper jam at a certain company, the person in charge was unusually aggressive.
Before I could even explain, they were ranting about how it was the machine's fault, how it had been fixed before, and what was going on.

The younger me would have looked for the cause and explained it calmly.
The paper was loaded incorrectly.
The paper has absorbed moisture.
There is a torn piece of paper left deep inside.

That was the reality.

But that day was a little different.
When I looked at the person's desk, documents were piled up like a mountain.
The phone was ringing non-stop.
From a seat in the back, someone who looked like a supervisor was occasionally glancing over at us.

Ah, this person is being chased by their work, too.

That is what I thought.

I did not immediately point out the cause.

“It must have stopped at a very busy time for you.”

When I said that, the person in charge fell silent for a moment.

“That’s right. There’s something I have to send out by the end of the day.”

From that point on, it became a little easier to communicate.

It’s not just about explaining the machine; it’s about acknowledging the person’s distress first.

I came to think of that as a skill, too, later on.

Of course, it doesn’t always go well.
Some people will get angry.
Some people will make unreasonable demands.
Some people will say things that make no sense without a second thought.

Even so, reading the atmosphere at the site was just as important as choosing the right size screwdriver.

At the company, I was still a junior employee.

To those above me, I must have seemed unreliable.
In fact, I was unreliable.

However, the scope of work entrusted to me gradually increased.
The number of machines I inspected increased.
Repairs increased as well.
I was also entrusted with deliveries.
I even started to be present for contract discussions.

In addition to users with maintenance contracts, spot service requests also increased.
Customers without contracts are difficult.

There is no history.
I don’t know the condition of the machine.
I can’t see how it has been used.
Moreover, they usually contact us only after it has broken down.

“It hasn’t had any problems until now.”

That is what they say.

Perhaps the problems just hadn’t surfaced, while the machine had been deteriorating inside all along.
But there is no point in saying that.

On-site, rather than blaming past mismanagement, I have no choice but to think about what to do now.

That was true not only for machines but also for people.

There were all kinds of people within the company as well.

People like Mr. Yano, who spoke little but showed you with his hands.
People like Section Chief Murase, who you could never quite tell if he understood the intricacies of the field or not.
People like the women in administration, who managed the phones and piles of slips, running the day far more calmly than we in the field ever could.

In the construction crew, there was a veteran named Mr. Inoue.
He was in charge of telephone lines and wiring work, and he was unsociable.
At first, I was a little scared of him.

But his handling of tools was magnificent.
Just by looking at the wiring in an old building, he could spot where the trouble was.
The way he routed wires, tightened terminals, and placed his tools.
There was no wasted movement.

One time, when I was looking for parts in front of the tool shelf, Mr. Inoue said from the side,

"Your tool bag looks heavy."

"I get anxious if I don't keep all sorts of things in there."

When I answered that, Mr. Inoue snorted.

"If you put all your anxieties in there, the bag will break."

Those words stuck with me strangely.

You put what you need in a tool bag.
You put what you think you might need in it.
You put things in it that you might use just in case.

Before you know it, it gets heavier and heavier.

Work was the same way.

I don't want to fail.
I don't want to be scolded.
I don't want to say I can't fix it.
I don't want to keep the customer waiting.
I don't want to report to my boss.

When you try to carry all those anxieties, you become unable to move.

Even so, the young me carried them all.

Because I knew I was still lacking.
I was trying to fill in what I lacked with tools, notes, and sheer willpower.

Thinking about it now, it was precarious.

But there is a time when that is the only way you can move forward.

In my twenties, I was probably right in the middle of that.

An engineer with no name yet.
Carrying the company's reputation on my back, but with no reputation of my own.
Watching the backs of my seniors, dirtying my notebook, breaking into a cold sweat on the job, and little by little, creating something that looked like my own way of doing things.

It was by no means glamorous.

I felt lost many times.
I felt impatient many times.
Many times, I thought I wasn't cut out for it.

Even so, I kept going.

As I continued, I began to see the job site little by little.
I began to see the people little by little.

And, though it was slow, I began to see myself as well.

Did I like this job?

If asked that, even now, I cannot answer easily.
You cannot keep going just because you like it.
You cannot keep going just because you dislike it, either.

However, I did not dislike the moment it was fixed.

A single sheet of paper feeds through properly.
The error sound stops.
The customer's face relaxes a little.
Work that had stopped begins to move again.

Only in that moment did I feel a little saved.

I think, perhaps, I kept going by picking up those small moments of salvation.

In the few months after Aoba Trading, I began to watch the job site in silence a little more than before.
If I had to put it into words, that is all it was.

But for me, it was a small change.

The job site is scary.
People are troublesome.
Machines are not straightforward.
Often, the company does not help you.

Even so, I open the door.

Beyond it, there is a broken FAX machine.
There is someone's stopped work.

And there is me, still unreliable.

I place my tool bag on the floor.
I open the cover.
I remove the screws.

In that repetition, little by little, I became a CE.

It was still just the beginning.

Beyond this point lies the night in Otemachi.
There are floors where fluorescent lights go out one by one.
There are days when the circuit breaker trips.
There are afternoons spent searching for a lost gear.
There are days when those who were never taught welcome the next newcomer.

And then, there is the phone that rings on a Saturday night.

What I have written up to this point is the story of when I was still nobody.

Back when pagers were beeping.
Back when FAX machines were at the center of our work.
Back when I was running through the gaps between Tokyo's buildings, clutching my tool bag.

I took a job fixing machines.

But what was it that I was truly trying to fix?

To get closer to that answer, I still had to overcome several more nights and several more failures.

The night in Otemachi and the fading fluorescent lights

Even after the Aoba Trading incident was over, I continued to run around Tokyo as usual.

Nothing changed dramatically.
Just because I got through one scary job site, it didn't mean my skills suddenly improved the next day.

Repair request slips were placed on my desk as always.
The pager would beep without caring about my convenience.
The tool bag continued to dig into my shoulder.

However, the things I looked at changed just a little.

Before entering a site, I observe the atmosphere.
I observe the expression of the receptionist.
I observe the cluttered feel of the office.
I observe the speed of the person in charge's speech.
I observe the place where the machine is located.

A FAX machine is not just placed there.
It is always placed within someone's work.

I began to be slightly more conscious of that.

In the years that followed, those job sites gradually piled up inside me.
Among them, there is a night I still cannot forget.

The night in Otemachi.

Otemachi.

For anyone working in Tokyo, it is a place where you feel a strange weight to the name at least once.
Banks, trading companies, newspaper publishers, headquarters of major corporations.
The flow of people is thick both above and below ground.
Security guards stand at building entrances, beautiful women are at the reception desks, and elevator doors close with an eerie silence.

I was never very fond of that city.

It wasn't that anyone had done anything to me.
It was just that I felt my work clothes and tool bag were slightly out of place in that overly polished atmosphere.

The request that day was to repair a large FAX machine installed at a major corporation in Otemachi.

A large machine.

Just those words made my shoulders feel a little heavier.
It's different from home-use or small commercial models.
There are many parts.
The repair procedure is long.
It's heavy.
It takes up space.

Moreover, it's usually placed in a bad spot.

Just because it's a major corporate office doesn't mean there's plenty of room around the machine.
In fact, it's the opposite.
Large FAX machines are placed in convenient locations.
A convenient location is also a place where people pass by often, documents gather, shelves multiply, and before you know it, a geological layer of items has formed.

That machine was exactly like that.

A corner of the office floor.
Surrounded by piles of documents.
Cardboard boxes.
Old files.
Supplies that didn't seem to belong to anyone.
Envelopes sticking out from the edge of a desk.

Rather than being placed there, the machine was buried within a geological layer of objects.

I greeted the person in charge.
He was a man in his forties.
He wore a crisp shirt and thin-rimmed glasses.
His voice was calm, but there was a sense of urgency deep in his eyes.

"I need you to do something about it by the end of the day."

That was the first thing he said.

Here we go.

By the end of the day.

It's a phrase I often hear on-site.
A deadline born from the other party's schedule, regardless of my working time, parts availability, or the severity of the breakdown.

Of course, the other party has their own circumstances.
Tomorrow won't work.
There are documents that must be sent today.
I'm being told by my superiors.
Another department is waiting.

I understand that.

But machines don't get fixed based on human convenience.

I checked the symptoms.
The power turns on.
An error occurs during transmission.
Reception is also unstable.
There are also paper jams.
Looking at the internal history, several errors were overlapping.

I had a bad feeling about this.

It was not a single-point failure, which is common with old, large machines.
It wasn't just a matter of fixing one thing; multiple instances of deterioration were intertwined.

I explained the situation to the person in charge.

"The work will be a bit extensive. I'll need to back up the data and check the circuit board area and the transport system. Even if things go smoothly, you should expect it to take several hours."

"Several hours?"

"Yes. I think it will take at least three or four hours."

The person in charge looked at their watch.
It was just past 5:00 PM.

Normally, this is the time when you would schedule the work for the next day.

However, the person in charge said,

"Please do it today."

With those words, my escape route was almost entirely cut off.

I called the office.
I explained the situation to Section Chief Murase.

"Do you have the parts?"

"I have them on hand, for the most part. But it will take time."

"If the client is telling you to do it, then you have no choice but to do it."

No choice but to do it.

It's a convenient phrase.
With these words, many on-site issues are simply thrown back onto the people on-site.

I hung up the receiver and began the work.

I started by clearing away the surrounding items.

It was more of an excavation than a repair.
I moved cardboard boxes, shifted piles of documents little by little to the side, and made space on the floor.
The person in charge helped me, but there were many documents I couldn't touch without permission.
I had to check them one by one.

Time was slipping away.

Quietly, surely.

I finally had enough space to get behind the machine.
I removed the cover and checked the inside.
There was a lot of paper dust.
The rollers were dirty too.
There were even old scraps of paper in the transport path.

But that wasn't all.

This particular unit was prone to losing its registered data.
A backup would be necessary.
I would use the phone line to connect to the company terminal and extract the configuration data.
Then, I would restore it after the repair.

That part was standard procedure.
The problem was that it was slow.

Backing up this model was just incredibly slow.
Thirty minutes to extract.
Thirty minutes to restore.

That alone would eat up an hour.

I listened to the modem connection sound and looked at my watch.
Only the hands seemed to be moving with strange energy.

There were still many people on the floor.
Voices on the phone.
The sound of keyboards.
The operating noise of the copier.
The sound of someone calling out to someone else.

The evening at a large corporation is not over yet.

The backup finishes.
I remove the circuit board.
I replace the battery.
I clean the interior.
I replace the parts in the transport system.

I knew the procedure.
But knowing what to do and finishing safely within the time limit are two different things.

The inside of a large machine is harder to reach into than you might think.
While supporting the heavy cover, I disconnect the connector in the back.
I manage the screws so I don't drop them.
I memorize the routing of the wiring.

I opened my notebook.
On the page for this model, there were several notes I had written before.

"Rear cover is heavy"
"Don't forget the bottom-right connector"
"Backup is slow. Don't panic"

Don't panic.

Seeing those words written by my past self, I gave a small, bitter smile.

Of course I'm going to panic.

It was past 7:00 PM.

The people on the floor were gradually thinning out.
I heard the words "Excuse me for leaving early" from a distance several times.
Desk lamps were being turned off.
Chairs were being tucked under desks.

As it approached eight in the evening, the air changed.

The office suddenly felt larger as people left.
The space that was filled with people and things during the day regained its true size at night.
But it wasn't a sense of openness.
Rather, it was a vastness that felt like being left behind.

I brought my face close to the inside of the machine.
The metallic sound of my tools echoed strangely.

The fluorescent lights went out, section by section.

Click.

The lights in a nearby island of desks went out.

A little while later, another section went dark.

Outside the window was the night in Otemachi.
Lights remained on in the building next door as well.
Somewhere, someone else was working overtime just like me.

I continued my work, relying only on the small light at my own station.

Eight-thirty.
The person in charge was still there.
But they clearly wanted to go home.

"How is it looking?"

"It will take a little longer."

I answered.

A little longer.

That phrase again.

On the job, "a little longer" is close to a prayer.

Near nine o'clock, the person in charge said,

"I'm sorry, but I'd like to wrap things up here for today."

I stopped my hands.

I hadn't finished putting everything back together yet.
It was in a slightly precarious state to just close it up halfway.

"I'm in the middle of the work, so if possible, just a little longer."

"It's also due to the building's circumstances."

The building's circumstances.
This, too, is a powerful phrase.

I assessed the situation.
It was safer to leave it in a temporarily restored state and resume the next morning rather than forcing it and causing more trouble.

"Then, please let me resume at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

When I said that, the person in charge thought for a moment before speaking.

"Can't you come at eight?"

For a moment, I couldn't say anything.

I had said nine o'clock.
That's before business hours.
I have preparations to make on my end, too.

But the person in charge's eyes were serious.
This person is also being pressured.
They surely want to use this FAX machine first thing tomorrow morning.

I contacted my company.
Section Chief Murase said, sounding a bit annoyed on the other end of the line.

"If you can go, then go."

If you can go.

This, too, was a phrase tossed onto the front lines.

The next morning, I arrived in Otemachi before eight o'clock.

The city was different from last night.
A wave of people heading to work.
A man holding a newspaper.
A woman hurrying with a coffee in one hand.
People were being spewed out one after another from the subway exits.

It felt as if the silence that had remained last night was being pushed down beneath the floor.

The person in charge had already arrived.
They had a sleepy look on their face.
Perhaps that person hadn't been able to rest much either.

I resumed the work.

I put back the circuit board I had removed yesterday and checked the connectors.
I assembled the transport system.
I restored the data.
Test transmission.
Reception confirmation.
Paper jam check.

A little before nine.
The machine started working.

A single test document was slowly sucked in.
It was transmitted to the other side.
A confirmation receipt paper came out.

The person in charge let out a long sigh.

"You saved me."

With those words, the fatigue from last night eased just a little.

There was no applause.
There was no praise.
It wasn't as if anyone was going to tell me I was amazing.

It was just that something that had been stopped was now moving.

The reward for a CE's work, apart from a salary, sometimes comes in that form.
Someone's breath becomes a little lighter.
That is all.

I wrote up the work report and got it signed.
I packed up my tools.
I checked the cover screws one last time.

When I left the building, Otemachi in the morning was moving as if nothing had happened.

The city didn't know that last night, in a floor where the fluorescent lights were turning off one by one, only the sound of tools had echoed.

I thought that was fine.

Most work ends without anyone knowing.

In fact, the work that ends without being known might be the work that went the best.

On the subway back to the office, I fought off sleepiness while holding onto a strap.

I felt a bit out of place in my work clothes among the morning commuters. The people around me had faces that said their day was just beginning. I had just finished a job that had been going on since yesterday evening.

Even though it was the same morning, the time we were living in was different.

I had that kind of feeling.

When I returned to the office, Section Chief Murase glanced at the report and said,

"Finished?"

"I'm finished."

"Then, go to this one this afternoon."

Another repair request was placed on my desk.

The night in Otemachi, the fading fluorescent lights, and the morning shift worker's sigh all become nothing more than a few lines of a report on a company desk. Of course, that is fine. If we brought the fatigue of the field into the office every time, the work would never get done.

Even so, at that moment, I thought just a little bit.

Wouldn't it be nice if at least one person knew the weight of that night?

I suppose I was young.

It would be a lie to say I didn't want to be recognized. It wasn't as simple as wanting to be praised, either. I just wanted someone to keep, even in a corner of their memory, the fact that I had truly persevered in that place.

However, most field work leaves nothing behind.

Once it's fixed, it's as if nothing ever happened. The time that had stopped is forgotten the moment it is repaired.

That is a little lonely. But at the same time, I also thought that is exactly what maintenance work is.

Returning a day where nothing happened to someone.

For that purpose, we tighten screws on the floor at night.

I picked up the afternoon repair request and opened the map again.

I was sleepy. My shoulders hurt, too. Still, the next site was waiting.

The day I tripped the breaker

I remember the sites where I messed up more than the ones that went well.

I think anyone who has done field work can understand this a little.

Repairs that ended successfully have their outlines blurred as time passes. Which company was it? What were the symptoms? Which parts did I replace?

These things fade, pushed aside by the volume of daily tasks.

However, the job sites that made me break into a cold sweat never fade away.
My body remembers them.

I believe it was during my second year.

I was at a small company, removing a FAX machine's circuit board to work on it.
The location was an old company-owned building in Tokyo.
It was a long, narrow building, and about ten people were packed into the office on the second floor.

It wasn't spacious.
The distance between desks, people, and objects was small.
Just walking down the aisle, my bag would almost hit someone's chair.

The FAX machine in question was placed on a shelf by the window.
In front of the shelf was a document box, and next to it was something like an old dedicated word processor.

Thinking back now, it wasn't a good working environment.

But that's what a job site is like.
You won't find an ideal workbench at a client's place.
There isn't much space, either.
The lighting isn't always sufficient.
I'm grateful just to be able to borrow a desk.

That day, I needed to replace a component on the circuit board.
It was a job that required using a soldering iron.

I took the machine apart and removed the circuit board.
I checked the components.
I knew which part needed replacing.

The problem was the soldering iron.

The soldering iron provided by the company was quite worn out.
The base of the cord looked a bit suspicious.
The handle was blackened.
The tip wasn't clean, either.

If it were now, I would stop using it at that point.
I would use a spare, go back to exchange it, or at the very least, check for continuity.

But back then, I didn't have the presence of mind to do that.

I was doing my best just to finish the job.
As long as I was on-site, I had to get it done.
That's what I believed.

I plugged in the soldering iron.

That was the moment.

Snap.

There was a small sound, and all the power in the office went out.

For a moment, I didn't understand what had happened.

The fluorescent lights went out.
The copier stopped.
Someone said, "Huh?"
The computer screens went black.
The lights on the telephones also turned off.

I felt as if my heart had made an unpleasant sound.

I knew the cause immediately.
It was the soldering iron.
It shorted out.

I pulled the plug out right away.

I'm sorry. That was caused by my tool. Could you please check the circuit breaker?

My voice was a little high-pitched.

The people in the office were in an uproar.
Fortunately, however, I wasn't yelled at.
A man who seemed to be the president came out from the back and went to check the breaker.

After a while, the power came back on.

The fluorescent lights turned on.
The copier restarted.
The phone lights came back on.

I bowed my head repeatedly.

I am very sorry. It was a faulty tool. I will suspend work for a moment to check it.

It was a relief that it ended there.

In this day and age, it might have been a much bigger deal.
The server could have gone down.
Data could have been lost.
Operations could have stopped.
Damages could have been incurred.

It wouldn't have been strange if that had happened.

Back then, it wasn't an era where everything was connected to a network like it is now.
There is a part of me that was saved by that.

However, my stomach felt heavy.

I was in no state to work.
I couldn't use the soldering iron.
I decided to return to the company and prepare a different tool.

On the way back to the company, I kept thinking about the same thing.

Why didn't I check?
Why didn't I stop when I thought something was suspicious?
Why didn't I doubt the tool?

In the field, skill is important.
Knowledge is also important.
Experience is also important.

But before that, the tools must be in proper working order.
And I, as the one handling them, must be observing the condition of the tools.

I learned that obvious lesson that day, after I had turned off all the lights in the office.

When I returned to the company, Inoue-san from the construction team was there.

When I explained the situation, Inoue-san silently picked up a soldering iron.
He looked at the base of the cord, took it apart, and checked the inside.

"You used this one a lot, didn't you?"

He muttered.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

That was true, too.

Inoue-san found a spare part, fixed the cord, and tidied up the tip.
He was efficient.
It was as if he were breathing life back into an old tool.

Usually, Inoue-san was unsociable.
He was the kind of person who would only give a slight nod even when you greeted him.

But that day, he said just one thing at the end.

"Listen, before you trust your tools, doubt them."

I nodded.

I didn't write those words down in my notebook.

Because even without writing them down, they remained with me.

It was a dry company.
There was an atmosphere where people would laugh at others' failures.
It wasn't a place where the word 'cooperation' was always naturally present.

Even so, there were moments like this sometimes.

Someone would fix a tool without saying a word.
They would teach you with their hands, not with a lecture.

That kind of small human kindness really sinks in.

One of the reasons I was able to continue this job was probably because of things like that.

It wasn't a grand kindness.
It wasn't passionate encouragement, either.

There was just someone who silently fixed my broken soldering iron.

That alone saved me a little bit that day.

The Mystery of the Vanished Gear

When it comes to failures, there are those with clear causes and those that remain a mystery until the end.

The day I tripped the breaker, the cause was clear.
A faulty soldering iron.
And myself, for failing to spot it.

However, there is one other failure that still doesn't sit right with me.

It was a repair at a regional bank in Nihonbashi.

I was in my third year on the job.
I wasn't a rookie.
But I didn't have enough experience to handle anything.
It's right when you start getting used to things that you're at your most vulnerable.

People let their guard down a little when they get used to things.
The field never overlooks that lapse in judgment.

It was a place like a bank's administrative center.
Not the teller windows, but the back office floor.
For an outsider to enter, I had to sign in at the reception, call the person in charge on the extension, and wear an entry pass.

A bank's work environment has a unique tension.
Voices are kept low.
There is little idle chatter.
The desks look tidy, but in reality, they are packed with documents.

The FAX machine in question was placed at the edge of the floor.

It was an old model.
Moreover, it was a model I hadn't touched very often.
I had opened it a few times.
But not enough for my hands to move on their own.

The symptom was a malfunction in the transport system.
The paper would stop halfway.
It was also making strange noises.

The gears inside were suspicious.

I started taking the machine apart.

The older the model, the more complex the construction can be.
Where modern machines allow you to replace entire units, older ones have small parts combined together.
The screw lengths vary.
The tabs are stiff.
The plastic has deteriorated.

If you apply force clumsily, it will crack.
I had to proceed with caution.

The workspace was cramped.
I borrowed a small desk to the side and placed the removed screws and parts in order.
As always, I lined up the parts in the order I removed them.

This was a fundamental rule I learned in the field.

Place parts in the order you remove them.
Trace the steps in reverse when putting them back.
Do not mix up the screws.
Place small parts on a piece of paper.

Even so, the field sometimes slips past these basics.

The part replacement went smoothly.
I reached the gear assembly in question.
I replaced the worn-out part.
I checked the shaft as well.
I added a little bit of grease.

All that was left was to put it back together.

Just put it back.

There is a trap in those words, too.

Repairs are often harder to put back together than to take apart.
When taking things apart, there is momentum to move forward.
But when putting them back, you must return them correctly to their original state.
Moreover, your memory of when you took them apart has become a bit hazy.

I put the parts back one by one.

That was when I noticed.

One gear was missing.

It wasn't a small screw.
It was a gear about the length of a finger.
It was a whitish resin part with a fair amount of presence.

If it fell, it would make a sound.
If it rolled, I would see it.

And yet, it was gone.

At first, I thought I had just overlooked it.
I looked on the desk.
I looked on the paper where I had placed the parts.
I looked inside the tool bag.
I looked around the machine.
I looked at the floor.

It wasn't there.

I crawled under the desk.
I got down on my knees.
I searched while crawling on the bank floor.

The fluorescent light was reflecting off the floor.
The bank floor was clean.
Because it was clean, I couldn't believe it was even harder to find.

I could see small specks of dust.
I could see scraps of paper.
Yet, the finger-sized gear was nowhere to be found.

I peered into the machine once more.
The gap in the back frame.
Under the transport path.
Behind the unit I had removed.
I checked every likely place one by one.

While I searched, a different kind of calculation began in my head.
What if I don't find it?
Are there spare parts?
How long will I stop the bank's operations?
Who do I explain this to, and how?

The excuses in my head were starting to move faster than my hands searching for it.

I hated that.

I looked down at the floor once more.

It's not there.

The person in charge is watching from a little distance away.

"Did you find something?"

"I'm just checking on a part."

That's what I answered.

Checking on it.

In reality, I had lost it.

I didn't want to admit it. But it wasn't anywhere.

I broke into a cold sweat.

Without this gear, I can't assemble it. If I can't assemble it, the FAX won't work. I would be leaving the bank's business FAX in a disassembled, non-functional state.

I called the office. I explained the situation.

"I wonder if we have that part in stock."

Section Chief Murase's voice sounded distant.

It was an old model. There was no guarantee the part would be readily available.

My options were limited.

Go back to get the part. If it's not in stock, order it and handle it another day. Remove a part from a replacement machine. If there's a decommissioned machine, transplant it from there.

Fortunately, I found out that the company had a decommissioned unit of the same model.

"Go back and take it off."

That was the only option.

I explained the situation to the person in charge at the site.

"To verify the parts, I will return to the office and bring the parts from a machine of the same model. I am very sorry."

The person in charge clearly looked troubled.

Naturally. From their perspective, the person who came to repair it was saying they had to go back to get parts in the middle of the job. Moreover, the reason was just to verify the parts.

I bowed my head.

I left the bank and headed back to the office. The travel time felt incredibly long.

I searched for the decommissioned unit at the office. In the back of the warehouse, there was a dusty machine of the same model.

There is something lonely about a decommissioned machine. Even though it must have been used every day at some company, it was now pushed to the back of a shelf to be used for parts. The smell of paper dust and the scent of old heat still remained.

Looking at that machine, I felt something like my own future for a brief moment. When the place where you are used changes, the way people and machines are treated changes too. As long as you are needed on-site, you are called, but once your role is finished, you are put away in the back.

This was no time to be thinking about such things.

I disassembled the necessary parts and removed the gear.

To make sure I wouldn't lose it this time, I put it in a small bag and placed it in my chest pocket.

I headed back to Nihonbashi.

I passed through the same reception, wore the same visitor pass, and bowed to the same person in charge.

I resumed the work. I installed the gear. This time it went back in without any issues. I closed the cover. I tested it. The paper fed through cleanly. The strange noise was also gone.

It was fixed.

The person in charge looked relieved. The bank's operations started moving again. I think that was enough for them.

However, my heart did not feel light at all.

It felt more like I had somehow managed to make things fit together rather than actually fixing it.
As a job, it was finished.
I could write that in the report, too.
But in my own mind, it wasn't over.

I felt as if the missing gear was still watching me from somewhere.

In the end, it took nearly three hours.
It was a task that would normally take about thirty minutes.

While writing the work report, I kept thinking about it.

Where did that gear go?

In a crack in the floor?
Deep inside the machine?
Between the documents?
Somewhere in my tool bag?
Did I overlook it?
Or was it a memory lapse where I had placed it somewhere else to begin with?

Later, I turned my entire tool bag inside out, but it didn't turn up.
I searched my office desk, too.
I checked the pockets of my work clothes.

It didn't appear.

The vanished gear.

Even now, that is what I call it.

In field work, things like this happen sometimes.
I was supposed to go fix something broken, but halfway through, it turned into a story about searching for 'something lost.'
And that something never turns up in the end.

Because of this incident, I became even more neurotic about how I placed parts.

I put removed parts into a tray.
I separate screws by location.
I place small gears and springs on white paper.
When I have to leave the site midway, I always take a photo... is what I would like to say, but it wasn't an era where you could easily take photos.
So, I increase my notes.

'Decide where to put it the moment you remove it'

I wrote that in my notebook.

The day I tripped the breaker and the day the gear vanished.

If possible, I would rather not remember either of them.
But both of them changed me a little.

Skill is not just knowledge.
It is not just procedures, either.

How do you recover when you fail?
Including the cold sweat from those moments, what remains in your body becomes your skill.

That was how I learned things.

It was inefficient.
It was also uncool.

But it was the only way I had.

The disease of being in a hurry

The work of a CE was always accompanied by a sense of urgency.

It was a sense of urgency driven by others, and also one I drove myself with.

The customer is waiting.
There is another site to visit.
A call comes in from the office.
I have to go back to get parts.
I have to get this done by the end of the day.

Hurry.

Even if no one said it out loud, that voice was always ringing in my head.

And when people get too used to hurrying, they get their priorities wrong.

I learned that with my own body twice.

The first time was about a year after I started working on my own.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say around my second year.

That day, repairs had been piling up since the morning.
I think it was probably one of the busiest days in my entire repair career.

I had a bad feeling the moment I saw the repair requests lined up on the desk.
My schedule was already packed.
Then the pager beeped.
I made a call.
One more job was added.
I looked at the map and rearranged the order.

Before the day even began, I was already being pushed.

I ran around from the morning.
I went around Nihonbashi, Kyobashi, Ginza, and Hatchobori with my tool bag over my shoulder.
Paper jams.
Transmission errors.
Cannot receive.
Making strange noises.

Every time I finished one, there was another.
I don't remember eating lunch.
Maybe I did, but I don't remember.
I probably just shoved a convenience store rice ball into my mouth somewhere.

And then, near evening, I got stuck on the second-to-last repair.

It was an old model.
The symptoms were inconsistent.
It worked when it wanted to.
It stopped when it wanted to.
This kind of breakdown is the most troublesome.

The customer was waiting.
I was impatient.
In my head, there was still one more job left.

I performed troubleshooting several times.
I replaced parts.
I cleaned it.
I checked the settings, too.
Even so, the symptoms did not disappear completely.

Usually, help wouldn't come that easily.
On-site work was basically something you handled alone.
However, that day, I finally contacted the office.

"Excuse me, could you take a look at this for a moment?"

Saying that felt a bit like losing to me back then.
Thinking about it now, that kind of stubbornness is pointless.
But when I was young, I was afraid to admit that I couldn't fix it.

Fortunately, a senior colleague who was nearby came over.

We reviewed it together.
The senior pointed out a spot I had overlooked.
Something that looked like the cause began to emerge.
I adjusted the parts, and finally, the symptoms subsided.

I was saved.

I was truly saved.

But by that point, it was already evening.

There was one more job left.

The senior might have said, "If it's too much for today, tell the office."
I don't remember the exact words.
However, that option barely existed in my mind.

I have to go.

That was the only thing on my mind.

I thanked my senior and hurriedly got on my bicycle.
I headed toward the intersection.
The main street in Chuo Ward in the evening was crowded with people and cars.
The light changed.
I started to cross with momentum.

That was when it happened.

From the side, a car came turning left.

Before the sound, my vision shifted.
My body floated.

It truly floated.

I had the sensation of being knocked away and flying through the air.
In that moment, time slowed down strangely.

It's a mysterious thing.
I wonder what the human brain is doing at a time like that.

The scenery before my eyes flows slowly.
I can see the sky.
I can see the outlines of buildings.
The sound of cars fades into the distance.
And then, fragments of past memories surfaced in an instant.

The streets of my childhood.
School hallways.
The smell of home.
A classroom at vocational school.
The company on the day I joined.

Is this what they call a life flashing before one's eyes?

There is only that one time in life.
Truly, it was only that one time.

The next moment, I was rolling on the road.

A crowd of people was watching.
It was a main street in Chuo Ward.
It was evening.
There were many eyes on me.

The driver hurriedly got out of the car and ran over.

"Are you okay?"

I remember that voice.
He was quite shocked.
Naturally.
He had hit someone with his car.

But what was in my head was not pain.

It was the next repair.

I looked at the scattered belongings.
Tool bag.
Documents.
Parts.
Slips.
Bicycle.

I stood up immediately.
I felt no pain.
Perhaps the adrenaline was pumping.
I also had youth.
And above all, I was being chased by work.

I picked up the scattered items and put them back into the tool bag.
The driver asked me if I was okay several times.
I answered that I was fine.

There is no way I was fine.

Thinking about it now, I realize that.
I should have called an ambulance.
I should have called the police, too.
I should have contacted my company.
I should have handled it properly as an accident.

But at that time, I did not do so.

I received the other person's business card.
I might have even handed over my own.
And then, I left the scene immediately.

I was heading to the next repair.

I was a fool.
I truly think I was a fool.

However, I didn't think of that as foolish at the time.
I believed that not stopping work was the right thing to do.
I thought it was important not to keep the other party waiting.
The next job site came before my own body.

Was that youth?
Was it a sense of responsibility?
Or was it just a suspension of judgment?

Looking back now, I think it was closest to the last one.

When people are in too much of a hurry, they stop making judgments.

They keep pedaling even when they should be stopping.

My detailed memory of what happened after that accident is hazy.
I didn't sustain any major injuries.
I was lucky.
Really, that was all it was.

If I had hit a bad spot, it might have ended right there.
If I had hit my head hard, I wouldn't have been in any condition for the next repair.
If a car had been coming behind me, I don't know what would have happened.

But I headed off to work anyway.

When I was young, I worked in the midst of such danger.

And that danger hadn't completely disappeared even after about ten years.

It was about ten years later.
I was still riding my bicycle through the city center.

That day, too, I had a backlog of repairs.
I was already running late on a few, and I was rearranging the schedule in my head over and over.

It was a familiar road.
A road I had traveled many times.
It was a place where my body more or less remembered the length of the traffic lights and the flow of the cars.

While I was riding my bike there, I passed a man who looked to be about sixty.

We made the slightest bit of contact.

I didn't have the sensation of a hard collision.
At least, that's how it felt to me.

But the man fell.

I hurriedly stopped my bicycle.
The man got up immediately.
But he was in pain.

I should have called an ambulance right then.

I can say that now.
I can say it clearly.

It wasn't about whether the other person got up or not.
It wasn't about whether there were any visible major injuries.
If I had made contact and caused them to fall, I should have called an ambulance or the police, contacted my company, and handled it properly.

But at that time, I failed to choose the correct procedure again.

I spoke with the man.
It hurts.
What are you going to do about this?
That was the kind of conversation it became.
I handed over my business card.
I also told him my company name.
In the end, it turned into something like an out-of-court settlement right there on the spot.

When put into words, it sounds strangely trivial.
But on-site, you can sometimes be swept away by the atmosphere.
The other person is standing.
They can talk.
They don't look like they have any major injuries.
I have my next repair job waiting.

All of that dulls your judgment.

A few days later, I met with that man along with my supervisor.

I paid for the hospital bills and a small settlement fee.
I had him sign a settlement agreement.

And that was the end of it.

As far as the company was concerned, the matter was closed.
My supervisor didn't make a bigger deal out of it either.
I had no choice but to think it was over, too.

But a small thorn remained in my heart.

When I think about it carefully, there were parts that made me wonder if this had been the goal from the start.

Of course, I cannot say for sure.
There is no doubt that I was careless.
It is also a fact that the other person fell.
It is also a fact that they were in pain.

So, this is not about blaming the other person.

It’s just that I felt the flow of events at that moment was arranged far too quickly.
The flow of handing over my business card.
The speed at which it moved toward talk of money.
The feeling that they saw right through my impatience.

Those things bothered me little by little afterward.

But it is already over.
There is a signature on the settlement agreement.
I paid the hospital bills.
The company handled it.
It’s no use saying anything now.

All that remained was regret toward myself.

Why didn't I call an ambulance right there on the spot?
Why didn't I call the police?
Why didn't I contact my company immediately?

And why do I always think about the next job site first?

It was the same during the accident in my second year.
Even when I was hit by a car, I was thinking about the next repair.
It was the same during the collision in my tenth year.
Even though the other person had fallen, my schedule was still lingering in the back of my mind.

Of course, the situations were different.
One was an event where I was the victim, and the other was one where I could have been the perpetrator.

However, the root was the same.

The disease of being in a hurry.

While being chased by work, you lose sight of the moments when you should stop.
You push what should be checked first to second or third place.

Is your body okay?
Is the other person okay?
Shouldn't this be handled as an accident?

Before such obvious things, the next repair, the next customer, and the next time slot come to mind.

That is not a sense of responsibility.
At least, that is what I think now.

Responsibility is not about rushing.
Stopping in the correct order is also a responsibility.

When I was young, I didn't understand that.
Even ten years later, I still didn't fully understand it.

Work helps people grow.
That is certain.

But at the same time, work can also distort people.
You get too used to rushing.
You make unreasonable things normal.
You put your own body on the back burner.
Even the other person's body gets pushed to the back of your judgment.

That was a scary thing.

The weight of a tool bag includes such things.

It's not just screws, screwdrivers, and parts.
Impatience.
Judgment errors.
Regret.
Not calling an ambulance immediately that day.
Heading to the site even though I had been hit that day.

Even those things are sinking to the bottom of the bag.

Even now, when I see people in a hurry, I think a little.

You don't have to be in such a hurry.
Stop first.

However, even if I could have said that to my past self, I probably wouldn't have listened.
I think the young me would have pedaled on without listening.

That is precisely why I want to write it down now.

Rushing is not work.

There are days when you have to hurry.
There are job sites where you absolutely have to run.
I understand that.

But there is an order of priorities you must not lose sight of in the rush.
People's bodies.
Your own body.
Treating an accident as an accident.

In reality, there is no job site worth protecting at the expense of those things.

I learned that only after a very long time.

Those who are not taught

As you get used to the work, your position changes little by little.

At first, I was on the side being taught.
No, to be precise, I was on the side that wanted to be taught.
But I was sent out to the field without being taught enough.

Even so, after a few years, new recruits arrive.
And before you know it, you are on the side doing the teaching.

It is a strange thing.
While you still feel like you are not good enough yourself, someone is already standing behind you.

That year, two new recruits joined the company.
One was immediately sent to sales, and the other came to our department as a CE.
His name was Morita.

When I saw Morita, I was a little troubled.

Because the memory of when I was the one being taught still remained somewhere in my body.
The memory of being told to learn by watching, nodding without understanding, and breaking into a cold sweat on the job.
When I remembered that, it felt a bit embarrassing to put on the face of a senior to Morita.

I was not yet a person complete enough to raise someone else.
Even so, within the company, I was placed on the side of the teacher before I knew it.
The field does not wait for people to be ready.

Twenty-two years old.
Fresh out of vocational school, he had a thin build and always wore work clothes that were a little too big for him.
His voice was quiet.
But his eyes were serious.

For the first few weeks, Morita followed Yano-san around.
After that, he accompanied me several times as well.

I tried to explain as much as I could, remembering what I had wanted someone to do for me when I was young.

"Can you see this?"

"Yes."

"If this sensor gets dirty, it can mistakenly detect that there is paper. So, you must always check this when cleaning."

"Yes."

But if you wipe too hard, you'll break it instead. Don't press down with the cotton swab.

Yes.

Morita answered well. He also took notes.

However, answering well on the job isn't enough on its own.

Whether you can see it. Whether you can do it with your own hands. Whether you can remember it when you're flustered.

That was the issue.

One day, I took Morita to a small office in Ginza. It was a paper jam repair. The symptoms weren't difficult. I thought it was perfect for showing a newcomer.

Perhaps I was a bit careless when I made that judgment.

For a newcomer, whether something is difficult or easy isn't determined just by the nature of the breakdown. The atmosphere of a company you're entering for the first time. The tension of being watched by the person in charge. The way you handle your tools. Where you place your bag on the floor. Each of those things is already a burden.

I was the same way once. But when you stand on the side of the teacher, that feeling fades easily.

I watched from the side while I had Morita do the work.

Open the cover. Look for the paper scrap. Check the transport path. Clean the rollers. Check the sensors.

His movements were awkward. But that couldn't be helped. Everyone is like that at first.

Partway through, Morita dropped a small spring.

I heard it bounce on the floor.

We both looked for it. Under the desk, behind the machine, in the gaps of the shelves.

We found it.

Morita's face was pale.

I'm sorry.

It's fine since we found it. Just remember, springs fly. Keep your hand over it on the assumption that it will fly.

That is what I said.

As I said it, I felt something slightly unpleasant within myself.

I intended to be kind. But deep down in those words, there was a part of me that thought, "Isn't that obvious?"

Even though I couldn't do it myself back then. Even though I had dropped screws, nearly lost parts, and trembled on the job site myself.

People easily forget after just a few years. No, rather than forgetting, they tuck their own failures away on a back shelf and keep only the newcomers' failures right in front.

I was a little afraid of that.

As always, the company had no systematic training. Newcomers follow their seniors around. Seniors show their own methods. Newcomers learn by watching. After a certain period, they go out to the field alone.

And then, they get stuck.

No rescue is coming.

Of course, you can consult over the phone. But there is a limit to what can be conveyed over the phone. The crampedness of the site, the pressure from the customer, the age of the machine, the tightness of the screws, the impatience. Those things cannot be fully transmitted through a receiver.

Morita, too, clearly changed his expression a while after he started working on his own.

In the morning, his eyes looked dark when he saw the repair request slips. When his pager beeped, his shoulders would twitch. Even when he returned for lunch, he didn't eat much of his bento.

I called out to him.

Are you okay?

Morita smiled.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

There is nothing less trustworthy than those words.

A few days later, Morita got stuck on a repair at a small trading company in Nihonbashi. It was a communication error on an old model. A call came in.

I'm sorry. I can send, but receiving works sometimes and doesn't work other times.

Their voice was trembling.

I checked my schedule.
Two repairs in the afternoon.
One delivery.
I don't have the time to go.

I asked about the situation over the phone.
The line.
The settings.
The destination.
The test site.
The error code.

Morita answered.
But they couldn't see the big picture of the situation on-site.
They were panicking.

I spoke in a slightly sharper tone.

"First, isolate the issues one by one. Don't try to look at everything at once."

The moment I said it, I felt a slight ache deep in my chest.

I felt like I had been told the same thing a long time ago.
No, maybe I had wanted to be told that.

In the end, I joined them in the evening that day.
My schedule fell apart.
I called the other clients to tell them I would be late.
Section Chief Murase gave me a lecture.

When I arrived at the site, Morita was frozen in front of the FAX machine.
On the desk, the removed cover and screws were lined up, and several test papers were scattered about.

I assessed the situation.
The cause lay on both the line side and the machine side.
It was a case completely beyond Morita's capabilities.

"This is a difficult one."

When I said that, Morita looked down.

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's unreasonable to expect you to handle this alone."

I said it in as normal a voice as I could.

At that moment, I understood a little.

It isn't just the difficulty of the repairs that breaks a new recruit.

The atmosphere where you can't say something is difficult.
The atmosphere where asking for help feels like losing.
The silent pressure that says everyone else learned it on their own, so you should too.

That is what wears people down.

I worked with Morita to isolate the cause.
We tested the lines, checked with another terminal, reviewed the settings, and replaced parts on the machine itself.

By the time we finished, it was dark outside.

On the way home, Morita said,

"I don't think I'm cut out for this."

The sidewalk toward the station was a bit crowded with evening commuters.
Office workers hurried past.
Someone was carrying a convenience store bag.
No one knew how stuck we had been in front of that old FAX machine just a while ago.

Morita walked with his tool bag slightly slipping off his shoulder.
The bag looked heavy.
No, it actually was heavy.
But I don't think the weight at that moment was just from the tools.

When I heard those words, I couldn't answer right away.

I had thought the same thing many times.
I'm not cut out for this.
This job is impossible for me.
I'm scared of models I don't know.
I'm scared of standing in front of customers.
I'm scared of the pager going off.

That's why I couldn't easily dismiss it.

"I don't think you can tell right away whether you're cut out for it or not."

That's what I said.

"But it's normal to feel scared. If you stop being scared, that's dangerous in its own way."

Morita said nothing.

After that, Morita continued for about half a year.
But in the end, he quit.

When I heard he was quitting, I wasn't surprised.
If anything, I thought it was impressive he lasted half a year.

There was no farewell party or anything like that.
He said a quick goodbye and left the company.

On his last day, Morita's face looked a little brighter than usual.
Perhaps now that it was decided he was leaving, he could finally breathe again.
Seeing that was also a bit painful.

There are people who are saved by leaving this job.
At that time, I still couldn't quite accept that simple truth.

His notebook was gone from his desk.

I looked at his empty seat for a little while.

Could I have done more?
It wasn't that I didn't think so.

But I didn't have any room to spare either.
Daily repairs, inspections, deliveries, collections, contracts.
I was doing all I could just to handle my own sites.

In field work, the thing you lack most is time to train someone.

That might be an excuse.
But it was also the reality.

After Morita quit, I looked back through my notebook.

The first two hours.
Aoba Trading.
Otemachi.
Circuit breaker.
Missing gear.

In those records written in messy handwriting, I found my younger self.

I survived.

That sounds strong when you say it.
But I don't know if I remained because I was truly strong.
Maybe I just happened not to break.
Maybe it was because I was helped a little by those around me.
Maybe I just missed the timing to quit.

Even so, now that I have remained, is it right to pass on the same hardship to the next person?

That question remained with me long after.

A company doesn't change easily.
Educational systems don't just fall into place overnight.

But at least when I am standing next to someone, I will try to put it into words.
Instead of just showing them my hands, I will talk about why I do things that way.
I will say when a site is difficult.

I don't know if that counts as proper education.

I just didn't want to pass on the things I hated having done to me to the next person as much as I could.

Perhaps that, too, was part of growing up a little as a CE.

A while after Morita quit, I found an old parts list he had left behind in the corner of the parts shelf.

On the edge, there was a note written in small letters.

"When there's a paper jam, don't panic first."

It was probably something I had said at some site.
The person who said it doesn't remember, but Morita had written it down.

When I saw those characters, something strange remained deep in my chest.

Sometimes your own words end up in someone else's notes.
And that someone is no longer here.

It wasn't quite responsibility, and it wasn't quite regret either. But it wasn't light, either.

Field work was bad at nurturing people.
At least, that's how our company was back then. We provided parts for broken machines. But for a newcomer on the verge of breaking, we couldn't provide enough words or time.

I had gotten used to that, somewhere along the way.

A newcomer quits.
Another one comes along.
And they quit again.

It was easy to dismiss it as just the way things are.
In fact, there were days when we couldn't function if we didn't do just that.

But after seeing Morita's small handwriting, my thinking changed just a little.

People take home more of someone's words than you might think.

Sometimes they become a support.
Conversely, they can also become a wound.

A casual remark like 'That's basic, isn't it?' can make someone stop working. A casual remark like 'It's normal to be scared' can help someone hold on for just one more day.

Teaching a skill isn't just about handing over procedures.

It's also about passing on the rhythm of standing in the field.

That is what I came to believe.

Of course, that didn't mean I became a model mentor afterward. I still lacked composure, and my tone would get harsh when I was busy. My own immaturity remained stubbornly present.

Even so, after seeing Morita's note, I started choosing my words a little more carefully when accompanying newcomers.

'This part is difficult.'
'You don't have to memorize this all at once.'
'If you don't understand, stop.'
'When you're feeling rushed, put your tools down.'

I tried to put things like that into words as much as I could.

I felt as if I were passing on the words I had wanted to hear to someone else, just a little late.

Saturday night, phones ringing from all over the country

When I had been in my career for about eight years, I started working night shifts.

Every Saturday night, it was my turn to be on duty alone.
From 6:00 PM until 8:30 the next morning.

There was a different kind of fatigue compared to working on-site during the day.

The office floor felt strangely vast at night.
Even though it was just rows of desks, the density of the space changed when there were no people.
The whiteness of the fluorescent lights became more intense.
The sound of the clock on the wall became distracting.

In that environment, two of us would take calls from all over the country.

One person was not a dedicated receptionist.
We CEs also answered the phones.
We would listen to the situation, troubleshoot, check the contract, and if necessary, dispatch someone or make arrangements.

The person on the other end of the line was usually in trouble.
And people in trouble tend to be vague in their explanations.

"It won't work."
"I can't send anything."
"It's making a strange noise."
"There's something on the screen."
"I'm in a hurry."
"Come right now."

From there, I had to draw out the details.

What is the model?
Where is it installed?
Is there a contract?
When did the symptoms start?
Does it turn on?
Is there paper?
Is it just one recipient?
Is it all of them?

If I were on-site during the day, I could see it with my own eyes.
I could hear the sounds.
I could smell it.
I could see how the paper was jammed.

But on the phone, the caller's voice was my only guide.

Moreover, the person on the phone was not familiar with the machine.
They were calling because they didn't know.

Yet, I had to imagine the state of the machine based on their words.

This was quite nerve-wracking.

There were times when the dialect was so strong I couldn't understand what they were saying.
There were also calls in foreign languages.
Sometimes I was yelled at.
Sometimes the registered information was outdated, and the name of the installation site had changed.

The night makes people more impatient than the day.

Phrases like "Please wait, let me check" were hard to get across.
The caller was in trouble right now.
It was stopped right now.
They couldn't send anything right now.

That impatience came directly into my ears through the receiver.

And if they said, "Come right now," we would be dispatched if it was within Tokyo.

Working in the middle of the night is different from the daytime.

For one thing, the tool bag you take is different.
Instead of the bag I usually use, I have to use the shared bag for the person on duty.

This is quietly difficult.

The contents are slightly different.
The arrangement of the tools is different.
The grip of the screwdrivers is different.
The things I need aren't where they usually are.

The more urgent the site, the more these small differences take their toll.

My own bag was an extension of my own hands.
I knew where everything was without even looking.
But the duty bag is different.

It was like trying to run while wearing someone else's shoes.

In the case of regional areas, I have to contact the local person on duty.
This is not easy either.

It is the middle of the night.
Sometimes they don't answer.
Even if I finally get through, sometimes they don't have the parts.
Sometimes the site is far away.

Meanwhile, the customer is waiting.
They are frustrated on the other end of the phone.

I don't have the perfect answer either.
Even so, I have to decide something.

This act of "deciding" was heavy.

Should I send someone?
Can it wait until the next morning?
Can it be fixed over the phone?
Is it covered for nighttime support under the contract?
What if there are no parts?

If my judgment is slow, I get yelled at.
If my judgment is wrong, it becomes an even bigger problem.

Even in my eighth year, I was nervous every time.

As I mentioned at the beginning, one Saturday night, I got a call from a regional sales office.

They can't send a FAX.
Everything is stopped.
Do something about it right now.

It was a man with a rough voice.

Even when I asked for the model name, the shape didn't immediately come to mind.
It was an old, special configuration.
Looking at the contract information, it seemed that it wasn't just a normal FAX, but was linked to peripheral equipment.

It was a troublesome case.

I elicited the situation from the other party.
Error display.
Destination.
Whether it can receive or not.
Line lamp.
Power status.

The other party said it many times.

"Look, I'm the one using it here."

If I were younger, those words might have annoyed me a little.
Thinking, I'm asking because I'm the one who has to fix it.

But that night, I was a little different.

The one using it.

That is certainly true.
The other party is the user, and I am the repairer.
It is only natural that they cannot explain it well.

I lowered the tone of my voice slightly.

"I understand. I will check them one by one from here. Please just read the characters on the screen slowly."

The other party was silent for a while.

"...E, four, two, I think."

I take a note.

E42.

I flip through the booklet.
There was a corresponding error.
Communication control system or connection abnormality with peripheral equipment.

It required an on-site check.

Saeki is calling the on-site person in charge next to me.
It won't connect.
He calls another number.
Still no answer.

Only time passes.

I guided the man on the phone through the reset procedure as much as I could.
The order to turn off the power.
Checking peripheral equipment.
Whether any cables are unplugged.

"There's no way a cable would come unplugged."

The man said that.

However, in the field, things that "couldn't possibly come loose" often do.

Just to be safe, could you please check the thick cable on the back?

After a while, there was a sound on the other end of the receiver. A sense of something being moved.

...One of them might be loose.

I closed my eyes.

Here it comes.

Please push it in all the way. You should feel a click.

There was a brief pause.

It's in.

Then, please turn the power on once more.

The startup sound could be heard faintly through the receiver.

I waited.

The night reception floor grew quiet. Saeki also stopped dialing and was looking at me.

A few dozen seconds.

...It might be able to send.

The man's voice had changed slightly.

Please try sending one page as a test.

The sound of paper being inserted. The sound of a button being pressed. The sound of the machine moving.

And then, after a while, the man said.

It sent.

At that moment, I almost let out a long sigh.
But it wasn't over yet.

"Just in case, could you please send one to another destination as well?"

I was able to send the second one, too.

The cause was a loose connection cable to a peripheral device.
I don't know why it came loose.
Maybe someone moved it while cleaning.
Maybe some luggage bumped into it.

But it was restored.

"Sorry about that."

The man said quietly on the other end of the line.

There are moments when someone who was shouting suddenly becomes small.
I remembered the man from Aoba Trading.

People raise their voices the most when they are in trouble.
And when their trouble is resolved, they return, just a little, to their true size.

"No, I'm just glad it's back up. Please keep an eye on it for a while, and if it happens again, I'll arrange a visit first thing in the morning."

That's how I replied.

I hung up the phone.

Silence returned to the floor.

Saeki said.

"We managed to avoid a call-out."

"That's a relief."

I leaned back in my chair.

It wasn't a flashy repair.
I didn't even use any tools.
I didn't even go to the site.

I just had them plug a cable back in over the phone.

But that night, work started moving again at their office.
The FAX that couldn't be sent was sent.
Someone's schedule that had been stalled got back on track, just a little.

That was enough.

When I was young, I thought a CE's only job was to go to the site and fix things.
But by my eighth year, I knew something a little different.

Managing to finish without going to the site is also part of the job.
Unraveling someone's anger, organizing the situation, and guiding them through the necessary steps is also part of the job.

Turning a screwdriver isn't the only skill.

Bringing the person on the other end of the receiver to the machine in front of you.
That, too, was a skill.

The weight of a tool bag

After the night shift calls settled down, I stared at my desk for a while.

The reception slip still held the record of the case from earlier.
Installation site.
Time.
Symptoms.
Response details.
Restoration confirmation.

On paper, it ends in just a few lines.

But beyond those few lines, there was a man shouting on the phone, a loose cable, and work that had come to a halt.

Work, when recorded, becomes terribly thin.

The work report is the same.
Replacement parts.
Work time.
Confirmation results.
Signature.

It doesn't capture the trembling of fingertips, the fluorescent lights at night, the cold feeling in the stomach, or someone's small "you saved me."

Perhaps that is why I am writing.

I think I am putting those days into words now like this because I want to leave behind, somewhere, the things that didn't remain in the work reports.

When pagers were beeping.
When FAX machines were at the center of work.
When I was running through the gaps between buildings in Tokyo, clutching my tool bag.

I was young.
I was truly young.

Being young isn't just about having physical strength.
It is also about not knowing.
You can enter scary places without knowing the true nature of the fear.
You can open the cover without knowing the weight of breaking something.
You can head to the next site anyway, without knowing what you are suited for.

That was both a strength and a vulnerability.

The two hours of my first day.
I sweated over replacing a single roller, turned off the power and lost data, replaced a battery, and re-entered the speed dial numbers.

At Aoba Trading, I fixed FAX machines while my fingertips trembled in front of scary men.

In Otemachi, I faced large machines on floors where the fluorescent lights were flickering out.

At a small company, I tripped the circuit breaker with a worn-out soldering iron.

At a bank in Nihonbashi, I made a gear disappear.

Morita quit.

At the night reception desk, I answered phones ringing from all over the country and listened to voices filled with anger and impatience.

None of these are glamorous stories.

They are not success stories, either.
In fact, they are all rather embarrassing tales.

However, I think work is probably just a accumulation of things like that.

People don't learn their jobs just from the days that go well.
You don't become capable of standing on the front lines just from the days you are praised.

You fail, you break into a cold sweat, you bow your head, you get your tools fixed, you search for parts, you get yelled at over the phone, and yet, the next morning, you look at the repair requests on your desk again.

Through that repetition, you gradually learn how to stand on your own two feet.

For a long time, I fixed FAX machines.

Of course, to be precise, it wasn't just FAX machines.
I handled peripherals too.
I made deliveries.
I performed inspections.
I collected payments.
I discussed contracts.
I also worked the night reception.

But for me, it was still the work of a FAX technician.

Paper would enter, a sound would ring, it would connect to the line, and information would reach someone far away.

From today's perspective, it might seem like a very roundabout machine.
You could just send an email.
You could just share the data.
You could just upload it to the cloud.

If you say so, that is true.

But back then, FAX machines were spread out like the blood vessels of business.
In government offices, hospitals, companies, markets, production sites, and shops.

When a single sheet of paper arrived, work would move.
When a single sheet of paper didn't arrive, someone would be in trouble.

We were called when that line went dead.

Customer Engineer.

CE.

It might sound like a grand title. But in reality, it was a job of sweating, kneeling, crawling on floors, inhaling dust, apologizing to customers, and occasionally missing lunch.

Even so, just for the moment the machine started working on-site, I felt a little rewarded.

The transmit lamp lights up. The paper is pulled in. The line connects. The received paper comes out.

There were times when just that simple thing felt strangely satisfying.

When I was young, I didn't have the luxury of looking for meaning in my work. I was just doing my best to get through the days.

But now, looking back, I think.

That job had meaning.

Not some grand meaning. It's not about changing society or saving someone's life.

I just made something that had stopped move again. I reconnected a line that was about to break. I made things a little easier for someone who was in trouble.

That's the extent of the meaning.

But perhaps working is, at its core, just stacking up small meanings like that.

Saturday night was still going on.

Saeki is leaning back in his chair, dozing off. The phone hasn't rung for a while. The clock on the wall was a little past two.

I looked at the tool bag for the on-call shift.

A shared bag. A bag that belongs to no one. Frayed corners. A slightly bent zipper. Inside, there are various tools.

Screwdrivers. Pliers. A tester. Cotton swabs. Small parts bags. Tape. A flashlight.

And I felt like there were things inside that you couldn't see with your eyes.

The anxiety of the first day.
The trembling at Aoba Trading.
The fluorescent lights of Otemachi.
The coldness of the moment the breaker tripped.
The panic of searching for a lost gear.
Morita's voice saying, "Maybe this isn't for you."
The anger on the other end of the phone.
The brief silence when it was restored.

The tool bag was heavy.

Back then, I hated that weight.
I thought it was just something that dug into my shoulder.

But now, it's a little different.

Inside that weight, the job sites I've been through are contained.
Failures, shame, and a little bit of pride are all in there.

I stood up and made some lukewarm coffee in the break room.
It was thin coffee, not even tasting as good as a paper cup from a vending machine.

Outside the window, it is dark.
The night in Tokyo never fully sleeps.
There are lights still on in some building, and someone is working at some company.
And somewhere, a FAX might be being sent right now.

The phone rang.

I set down my cup and picked up the receiver.

"Yes, Toto Communications Service, night reception."

The voice came out naturally.

Someone is in trouble on the other end of the line.

I listened slowly while taking notes.

Where is the unit installed?
What is appearing on the screen?
Is there paper loaded?
Since when have you had this symptom?

One by one.

Without rushing.

The voice on the other end of the phone gradually calms down.

Listening to that voice, I suddenly thought.

I am no longer the person I was on that first day.

Of course, I haven't become a perfect technician.
There are still machines I don't know.
There are still intimidating job sites.
I still make mistakes.
And even now, I'm not really sure if I'm cut out for this.

Even so, I have become able to stand on the front lines a little better than I could back then.

Standing before a machine.
Standing before a person.
Standing before my own immaturity.

Perhaps that is what it means to keep working.

Eventually, morning came.

A faint light began to enter the night reception floor.
The whiteness of the fluorescent lights dimmed slightly, and the buildings outside the window regained their outlines.

Saeki stretched out widely.

"It's over."

"It's over."

I gathered the reception slips and wrote down the handover notes.

What happened during the night turns into morning paperwork.
And then, it is passed on to someone else during the day.

That is how work continues.

When I left the office, it was Sunday morning.

A slightly quieter Tokyo, different from the weekday Otemachi, was there.
I adjusted my tool bag.

A heavy weight settled on my shoulder.

It is the same weight as it was back then.

However, the meaning of that weight has changed a little.

I started walking.

The era when pagers were beeping will likely continue to drift a little further away.
FAX machines, too, will likely one day fade from the center of our work.

But back then, we were certainly heading to the front lines.
We stood before someone's troubles and tried to reconnect the broken lines.

It was not a glamorous, efficient, or easily rewarded job.

But, it was certainly a job.

My younger days reside within the weight of that tool bag.

And perhaps, somewhere right now, someone else is heading to a site carrying a different tool bag.

To do work that leaves no name behind.
To make someone's everyday life work again.

I think of those people's backs, just a little.

Unwavering and straight.

It's not that the me of those days possessed such noble words.

I just went when I was called.
I opened it if it was broken.
I thought about it if I didn't understand.
If I was scared, I tightened the screws anyway, while trembling.

Maybe that was enough.

The weight of the tool bag remains on my shoulder today.

As the tactile feel of that era.
And as proof of my own self who was working.

End

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