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| Is he being boiled to death? |
(This is a revised version of the story originally posted on September 30, 2017...)
Two years ago (meaning in 2017), my company decided to transfer certain staff to another group company. I was one of them, but had no problem. It was part of a usual reorganization process. Nothing would change, I thought....
It was just one week before the deadline for signing a transfer agreement that I learned that there would be no place for me in the group company because of my seniority. I would have been obviously pressured into quitting not immediately, but in a few years. I'd seen many people being transferred from one department to another and quitting in reorganizations, but never expected that that would happen to me. I had to decide in a week whether to accept their request (which is legally so, but practically an order in Japan) or refuse it and fight the company to stay there.
Then, I remembered the boiling frog theory.
My dad, who likes this kind of stories, told me about it when I was a kid. As you may know, it's a fable about two frogs, one slowly being boiled alive, dying without realizing it while the other suddenly put into boiling water, jumping out and surviving.
I decided to go for the latter, i.e., immediately dealing with the situation by fighting "now" for career survival. I would rather have died (i.e., fought) when people knew why I was fighting than wait and make a fuss a few years later when everyone has forgotten about what happened to me. But Japan is a "harmonious" country. It was and still is very unusual and difficult for people to disobey superiors and employers....
This has affected me physically. Last year I was hospitalized for a week. I'm better now, but still on medication. It took me two years to face up to this again and write about it not from a third-person, but from the first person perspective. I still work for the same company and looking back, believe that I was right in choosing to jump into boiling water...
（２年前に書いたものを大幅改定しました。）
数年前に会社でいろいろありました。異動を受け入れるか拒否するかの選択を迫られたのです。拒否する＝会社と戦うことだったのですが、問題は、異動を受け入れても結局は数年後、異動先でまたもめると分かっていたこと。さあ、どうするか。戦うのは今か、それとも数年後か？
その時思い出したのが「ゆでカエル理論」。カエルが水からゆっくり茹でられると知らないうちに死んでしまうけど、熱湯に投げ込まれると驚いて飛び跳ねて死なない、というあの寓話です。
この手の話の好きな父が、子供の頃話してくれました。それで思い切って熱湯に飛び込んじゃった（つまり「即」戦う方を選んだ）んですが、大変でした｡｡。精神的にも肉体的にもつらく、去年は入院しました。今も通院しています。でも振り返ったら正しい決断だったのかな｡｡｡と。
当時はあまりにつらくて三人称でしか書けませんでしたが、2年経ち、やっと一人称で書けるようになりました｡｡｡😢
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