After reading 'Problem Employee', I've come to like the author.

How to Create a Problem Employee by Hitomi Shiri
This is an article sharing my thoughts on it.

A is undoubtedly intense.

A crystal with my face photo embedded in it, playing a music box version of 'Always With Me'.

I could never think of something like this even if I spent my whole life trying, and I would never want to receive it either.

What stayed with me most after finishing this essay wasn't that crystal.

It's this sentence: 'Because I can only react this way, problem employees are created.'

This is that one sentence.

At this point, the entire perspective of the article flips.

Up until then, I had been laughing along with the author, thinking, 'A is crazy,' 'That's scary,' or 'Run away.' But at the end, the author turns the arrow toward herself.

'Maybe I was part of the cause, too.'

Normally, people would want to paint themselves in a better light.

Things like, 'I was just too kind,' or 'I have a personality where I can't say no.'

The author doesn't choose such an easy way out.

She presents her inability to say no, her desire not to be disliked, and her tendency to just accept things because it's too much trouble, all as her own weaknesses.

That's why it doesn't just end as a list of 'common problem employee tropes'.

It comes back as a very quiet question: 'Are you properly drawing boundaries with other people?'

This is the part of the author's writing that I have always liked. No matter how much she makes you laugh, she always returns to the place where she herself is most hurt.

She doesn't end it by making A the laughingstock. She puts herself on the same stage. I think that's exactly why I can laugh with peace of mind.

What I found truly frustrating (in a jealous way) was the structure.

After making us laugh with the 'Yaba-Colle' (Crazy Collection), making us laugh with the gift, and making us burst into laughter with the crystal, she ties it all together with a single thread: 'Maybe I was the one who created her.'

It was supposed to be a funny story, yet my heart ached a little after finishing it. This lingering feeling is not something that can be created by calculation. Or perhaps, it is a perfect calculation.

I laughed many times while reading it. The emotion that remained at the end was not laughter.

“Ah, this is a person who does not place themselves outside of the laughter.”

I was completely won over by that sincerity.

　
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