Mobile Suit Elegy for Late-Night Overtime: Our Survival Strategy for Those Who Couldn't Become Char
I, Tomisense, am deeply part of the "Gundam Generation."
Even at work, I often used Gundam as an analogy to talk about my job.
"We're just mass-produced 'GMs' anyway, right? There are plenty of people to replace us."
(*GM = A mass-produced, lower-cost unit built based on Gundam's data)
my senior colleague muttered self-deprecatingly.
Tomisense: "Then where are the 'real Gundams'?"
Senior: "Well, that would be the corporate planning office or elite departments at headquarters."
Tomisense: "I suppose the people there are 'Newtypes', then."
Senior: "Who knows. But they are certainly different. The one I know is the kind of guy who wears a yellow 24-hour TV T-shirt under his dress shirt."
As we were having such an otaku-filled conversation, our section manager cut in from across the desk.
"You guys are still 'Earth Federation Forces', so you're fine."
"Us middle managers are Zeon's 'Zakus'. Even in the anime, they were the ones destroyed most mercilessly, weren't they?"
It was true that the number of times Zakus were blown up on screen was overwhelmingly higher than GMs.
The sorrow of middle management seemed to overlap with the green body of the Zaku.
"Tomisense, you have both sense and guts, so don't just end up as a mass-produced unit—aim to be a 'Char'."
(*Char Aznable = A genius ace pilot known as the Red Comet)
"Manager, I loved Char! I want to fight with that kind of overwhelming power at this company too!"
In the late-night overtime office, we were having such passionate conversations.
Looking back, I think, 'Just finish your work and go home already,' but
at the time, that chaotic time was a mental stabilizer that helped us survive the grueling labor.
After that, Tomisense never became a genius like Char, but remained a GM, steadily and doggedly continuing his life as a salaryman.
However, for one brief moment in my private life, I purchased a bright red personal car and became the 'Red Comet' on the streets.