Tachibana Ai was the kind of person who lived for mentoring — she looked forward to April every year.
When the new hire, Yamada Yosuke, was assigned to the General Affairs department on the first Monday of April, she was ready. Copier settings, how to clip documents together, the right way to speak to clients on the phone. She had a whole list.
But Yamada never asked.
On his first afternoon, he completed an expense report without once checking with her. No mistakes. The next day he called a client, and his manner was almost unnervingly polite. By day three, he’d quietly corrected a misfiling on a shelf that Tachibana herself hadn’t noticed.
A week in, she went to her senior colleague Tsukamoto.
“Something’s off about Yamada. He’s fresh out of university, but he already feels… done.”
“Done?”
“In a good way. Complete, I mean. No mistakes, no questions. It’s like he came pre-assembled.”
Tsukamoto thought for a moment. “Just ask him,” she said.
That evening, Tachibana invited Yamada to the noodle place nearby. Over ramen, she slipped it in casually.
“How do you already know everything?”
Yamada set down his chopsticks, looking a little sheepish.
“My dad worked here. So did my grandfather. And his father before him.”
“Wait. Three generations?”
“Four. My great-grandfather too. And every dinner growing up, someone would be talking about work. Who yelled at them, which form they got wrong, which client was a nightmare. I just… absorbed it. It’s all in my head somehow.”
Tachibana slurped her ramen. Four generations of failure, pre-loaded. No wonder he looked finished.
“So you know everything. That’s reassuring.”
“Well—” Yamada paused. “I only ever heard the disaster stories. What actually works? I have no idea.”
The next morning, section chief Tanaka stopped by Yamada’s desk before the planning meeting. “Yamada, what direction do you think we should take for this quarter’s client event?”
Yamada stared blankly and rolled his pencil across the desk.