BUSY OFFICE -Afternoon on the Islands of Langerhans-　Haruki Murakami

    I have never worked for a company since I was born. It's not like I have refused to work for a company, it's just that things have turned out that way. Sometimes I wonder, if I were to color-code every element that makes up my life with a marker or something, the color marker for "circumstance" would require a considerable amount of ink. Nonetheless, because I have never worked for a company, my understanding of companies and various peripheral things associated with them is completely absent. For example, what does it mean to wear a tie and go to work for a company? What is the psychological relationship between a boss and a subordinate? What is office romance? What do window workers do every day? I also don't understand what it means for a company to be busy. If someone says a soba shop or a greengrocer is busy, I can feel it as a reality. But I just can't understand what it means for a company to be busy. One of my high school friends runs something like an advertising agency, and I sometimes drop by their office to play. When I look around, about twenty employees all seem to be busy. Some are answering the phone, some are writing something down, and some are running outside with paper bags. I think it looks tough, but I don't feel sympathetic because I don't know exactly what they're busy with. Looking at the office landscape, I can really feel how complex the world is. If the world were only made up of soba shops and greengrocers, everyone's lives would be much simpler. If I say to my friend, "You look busy," he replies, "Of course. You can see that, can't you?" But he won't explain exactly what is busy because he's too busy to explain.