My Respected Senior Keeps Up with the Times Through Effort

I am from the generation that has owned rotary phones, pagers, and PHS phones.
I remember lining up at public phones to send pager messages, extending antennas when reception was poor, and attaching those mysterious, sparkly trinkets that would jingle when receiving a call.

Back then, I would idly think,

"I wish I could send messages directly from this pager."

or

"I wish I could carry a small phone around with me."

or

"I wish I could listen to music without needing CDs or MDs."

Things I thought about like that have become reality after 20 years.

And now, the era is all about "online" and "remote."

I think generations that lived actively during the rise of mobile phones and the internet can get used to them quickly, but I had the impression that older people were not good with those kinds of things.

There is a man in his 70s working as a part-timer at my workplace.
He is a refined and gentle person, exactly like Robert De Niro in the movie "The Intern."

He is a pure-blooded Japanese, but let's call him "Robert" here.

From what I hear, Robert is very busy, not just with his part-time job, but also learning a language like Italian or Spanish as a hobby and serving as an officer for his neighborhood association.

Just about two years ago, Robert made his smartphone debut.
Since we often communicate through apps at work, he went out of his way to buy one to match.

However, handling a smartphone that keeps evolving is not easy.
Everything from installing apps to configuring settings was not straightforward.

Just when he finally got used to the smartphone, the next thing was remote work.

"Ah, this might be a bit too much for Robert."

Thinking that, I have avoided assigning work that needs to be done remotely to Robert.

However, it finally became difficult to keep avoiding it, so I said,

"The need has arisen for us to do this kind of work."

When I told him that,

"I understand. I will do my best, so could you please teach me?"

he replied with such polite language that it made me feel humbled.

Although I created a manual to make things as easy to understand as possible, everything was a first for Robert, even operations that experienced people could do intuitively.

Even when aligning the cursor to a small point,

"Not there, here."

we had exchanges like that almost every day.

When I wasn't there, he would ask the student part-timers, who were young enough to be his grandchildren,

"Could you teach me?"

and practice with a humble attitude. Robert's manual was filled with notes written in beautiful handwriting,

"Press here," "It appears here,"

and so on.

Ah. I had assumed on my own that it would be impossible for an older person, and I had been depriving him of the opportunity to excel.

It was rude of me. In fact, he became able to do almost all the operations by himself, and the entire workplace has been helped by Robert being able to operate it.

Even so, Robert, who would make the same mistake many times, would say to me,
"I'm sorry. I just can't seem to remember it."

"It's fine! Please ask me as many times as you need!"

Looking at the digital evolution over the past 20 years, the things we think 'I wish this would happen' today will likely become reality 20 years from now.

I might not be able to keep up with the evolution by then, but there should be nothing I cannot do if I try.
Just like my respected Robert.