Zatsuyō wa yarimasen. “I don’t do odd jobs.” A first-year employee said this when asked to be the kanji, the organizer, of the year-end party, according to a headline in Toyo Keizai in December 2025. The employee added that the job should go to the general affairs staff. The section chief, at a trading company, was left speechless.
The author, Yokoyama Nobuhiro, writes that when the section chief was young, he had thought organizing was the newcomer’s job. He had even seen it as a chance to be valued by his seniors. Yokoyama calls the organizer’s role the best opportunity to train dandori-ryoku, the skill of preparation.