The Lonely Life of a Business Manager - Reflecting on Endless Isolating Work and Heavy Responsibility

Almost 30 years have passed since I founded Sound House. When I think about how hard I have worked over the long years, I even feel like I should be praising myself. In order to get Sound House off the ground, I took no holidays off and I have to give up everything in my life to work seven days a week. I still work until midnight to look at reports from my employees and make up for the work that falls short. If only I could get the results I wanted, but that’s not how things work! Little problems pop up throughout the day every day, leaving me to have to also clean up the staff’s mess. The work just never ends.

I put in so much effort but people around me often shun me instead of being grateful to me for giving them work. Lately, I rarely see staff members who say, “Thank you” to me. They take my hard work for granted and if I scold those who repeatedly make mistakes, they often make retorts back to me. These people never reflect on their mistakes. If I ask them to have dinner with me tonight, many of them just refuse the dinner invitation from the founder saying, “Sorry but I already have plans tonight...” leaving me totally shocked. They probably don’t even feel an ounce of respect. Even though running a company is a hard and unreasonable job, I’ve been doing it as long as my body can take it. It’s an endless fight.

I think others only see me as a hard worker in a good way, but in a bad way, I may just look like the selfish founder or a poor old man. Generally speaking, no one in the staff wants to hang around the business manager. This also causes isolation. Even at my age, I still can’t make enough time to enjoy my own life, and I have to work constantly day after day. I guess I really am the “lonely business manager”.

It’s true about what people say that running a company is a lonely venture indeed. Unless you have some good reason, you should not run a company because it is too lonely. Regardless of whether you love solitude or not, you cannot run a company properly unless you push yourself into difficult situations and continue to persevere. The only reason I am still going like this is because the mental strength I developed in the Showa period is still running through my veins. This may be the only thing I can be proud of.

In order to succeed in company management, it is crucial to strategically look into the future and make risky moves. Otherwise, you will be eliminated from the fierce competition. This is why business managers are known for stepping into the unknown. It is a lonely and dark path that not many have had the courage to take. We must proceed ahead alone on faith alone. We have to take responsibility for good and bad results while we feel more isolated. Running a company also entails a lot of responsibility for many people. We must support our employees and their families. In addition, we also have to take on the enormous task of providing a large number of customers with excellent service in order to please them. Therefore, the manager cannot be exempt from the responsibility of management. This is why I always feel the burden somewhere in the back of my mind. Without the weight of this responsibility, I would have already disappeared from this company a long time ago.

Since there is no escape from the endless work for me, I still persevere and do my best to carry out my duties. This is the image that comes to mind when I think of the “lonely business manager”. This is also a painful business with no end in sight, but this is life. An ancient wise man once wrote that everything is meaningless. That’s right. The life of a business manager is symbolized as empty, lonely, and alone for long days. After all, the good thing in life is to work, eat, and drink well every day with gratitude, and to sleep well at night. There is nothing better than that. Perhaps this must be the reward that God has given me.