Get Down To Flowers

OLYMPUS E-410 at the Getty
in August, 2008

Since I've loved taking pictures of flowers with my E-410, I chose to work in a flower company for my new career from last week.
...Sorry, I lied. It was totally a freakish coincidence.

I'd been looking for a job for three months after I got back to Japan from the US, but the situation for job seekers was much harder than I'd expected. I had a big blank of work experience on my resume, so most of companies I applied to returned it to me and wouldn't let me have interviews. I almost lost all my confidence and felt like I was not allowed to breath in this sucking world while I was keeping my head above the water...even though I wasn't trying as hard as other job-hunting people of my age might did. ( I'm telling you, I'm not a hard challenger at all. I'm incredibly good at giving up stuff! )

At first, I held to my ideal job : something like working for a big company with having responsibilities for overseas sales and using English, but it turned out that I didn't have enough experience as a sales person nor a business English speaker. Needless to say, since I realized my weak job experience by seeing many returned resumes in my mail box, I gave up applying to big companies. I eventually started praying every night, like "Oh God...I would take any kinds of job if there were any chance for me to touch English related things in any way. Otherwise, I must disappoint everybody who kindly supported my studying English abroad...you know I don't want that..." I was so pathetic.

Then I applied for a job whose ad said there is an opening for a processor in a flower company. I might have not sent my resume to this company if I'd seen the ad just a few weeks before, because it was just for a "processor" and seemed to be hardly related to overseas. However, luckily enough, I got an interview after I sent my paperwork to them, and what's more, the interviewer offered me an another job which is handling all the import shipments and helping domestic and overseas sales staff. She thought I had good experience on trading and skill in English which enables me to negotiate with foreign suppliers over the shipments of flowers. Three days after the interview, I had a phone call which told me that I finally made it.

The whole things were not what I intended, but on the other hand, they definitely were. It's hard to describe this phenomenon in English. I'd like to say "This is an 'en' " and "en" is a Japanese word. It means pretty much "coincidence" in English, but not only it, but also like a fate or relation. One of my senior who's already succeeded in changing his job told me "You will see an 'en' when you find a new job which can satisfy you." Yes, he was so right.

I don't have knowledge of flowers but I love all colorful things and feel happy to have them. ( Anyone who's ever seen my closet knows it. ) And now, I'm working in the office which is filled with many colors of flowers, checking many shipments from all over the world, such as India, Kenya, Ethiopia, New Zealand, Holland, Colombia, Australia, America, etc. with using English on correspondences and going to have business trips to other countries, hopefully. Moreover, the office is relatively close to my home. Thank God!

The best thing is, it is all about flowers. All I have to do at my work is thinking about flowers and finding the better way to provide beautiful flowers throughout Japan. We're selling flowers just for wholesalers now, so you cannot see me and my company at a flower shop. But I want put stress on it : my company is the best in the Japanese flower importing market. and it's true.

So, I've got all I wanted.
Working for a big company, involving overseas sales, and using English all the time. The only thing that I didn't know was I would get them without wanting them. That's so-called "en" in Japanese, and I've finally found what the word and my senior meant.

Of course your life doesn't always go on with luckiness and happiness.
Actually, I'm struggling to fit myself in the new work environment, but the harder I try, the higher accomplishment I could reach, I believe.

Once you want it, you almost have it.
...Do you know what I'm trying to say...?