A: Thank you for agreeing to this interview today. What made you decide to become a boss?
E: My previous job was at a hotel, and I worked there for eighteen years. I had been thinking of quitting for various reasons, when I was invited to open Kugurimon Coffee. I thought that with this place, I could take those personal relationships I had cultivated in my eighteen years at the hotel and put them straight to use in the next part of my life, and so I decided to become the manager here.

A: Do you think you’re well-suited to being the boss?
E: I’m not sure what everyone else around me would say! But I do think I’m suited to it.

A: Do you ever feel that gender — being a woman, being a man — has a big impact in your workplace? Do you ever feel that there is gender bias?
E: I haven’t particularly experienced that so far.

A: Then, do you ever feel you’re glad to be a woman?
E: Well, I want to do something I can only do because I’m a woman, so I do feel glad.

A: Do you ever feel it’s more difficult for a woman to become a boss than a man, or that women have to work a lot harder?
E: I’ve never felt that before — not at my work in the hotel, or in my current job.

A: What’s the biggest difference between being the boss and being a regular employee?
E: I think it’s the sense of responsibility. – If you work within a corporation, I think maybe there’s a big distinction made between men and woman. But back in my previous job at the hotel, like now, I worked as hard as I could, just like the men, and I think my hard work was acknowledged. So I’ve never once felt discriminated against on the basis of sex. I think if I were married, maybe I would really be feeling the impact of gender. But I’m single and on my own, so I can do whatever I like, and I also think maybe that’s why I’ve lived for fifty years without really experiencing anything like that.

A: How did you become a boss? What were you doing before that?
N: I originally started an art gallery in 1989, where I mainly held exhibitions of work by young artists from Hiroshima. But the reality was that those artists couldn’t really make a living from their work. I didn’t just want to display the art that I liked, but also to be a support to those artists, I suppose — to understand why it was such a struggle for them. The best thing I could do for them was to sell their work, of course, but there was a period when nothing was really selling.

A: It lasted a long time, didn’t it? Things were quite difficult in Japan…
N: Yes, it was pretty difficult — and so I was thinking about how they might be able to make a living. And then around that time, there were revisions to the Child Welfare Act in relation to children with disabilities, and I learned that you could start new after-school children’s centres. I thought if I could get children and artists spending time together in that way, it would help the artists make a living, and maybe I could provide something different for the children, too. I did a few trial workshops, and they went really well, so I decided to try and set up an after-school day service in line with the Child Welfare Act.

A: So you launched your business with the idea of using art to provide support and education for disabled children.
N: And I was running Gallery G at the time, I was doing the two things in parallel, so it gave me an even greater opportunity to nurture my relationship with art, and with artists. I was running this day service on one hand, and managing Gallery G, still mainly exhibiting artists’ work, on the other.

A: And was the fact that your daughter has a disability also a part of that?
N: Yes. If my daughter wasn’t disabled, I wouldn’t have known about it. She had just graduated from primary school, and in her first year of middle school they made a special allowance for her — she could attend as long as there was a helper from the children’s centre with her. But when it came to her second year of middle school, being an older girl amongst all these little children… in the end it would have been a bit confusing for everyone. I was trying to decide what to do, and I thought if I set up an after-school day service then my daughter could attend too, so that was partly why I started it.

A: Was that the main reason?
N: It was, yes. But I thought it could be effective both in terms of providing a livelihood for artists, and as a place for my daughter to belong.

A: So you do feel now that you’ve achieved what you were picturing back at the start?
N: I do think I’ve arrived at where I was picturing. And I’ve realised that there are far more children like my daughter than I had imagined, who don’t have a place to go, and so I had to take them in too.

A: So there was a real need for your role, then. When you’re managing the day service now, is it with the awareness that you’re the boss?
N: I see myself as being responsible for the whole thing. So, if that’s what it means to be the boss, then I suppose so. I’m aware that if anything happens, I’m fully responsible for dealing with it.

A: But you don’t really feel like a boss, exactly? Do you have a strong sense that you’re the boss?
N: I suppose I feel it in terms of the responsibility. Originally, I was self employed and was just running the day service on my own, but as we’ve accepted more children, we’ve had to take on more staff, so I’ve gradually had to become the boss by way of that responsibility.

A: If you were a woman running an ordinary company, you might have people calling you ‘boss’, you’d be sitting at a desk, maybe — there would be the employees, and then there would be you, the head of the company. But where I think you’re a bit different is that you work in the same way as your staff. You’re not just running the business from behind a desk as the company head.
N: Well because I think of myself more like an odd-jobs person than anything else. When we’re short of people, I go and provide support, and I think maybe that’s what it is to be the boss.

A: So, do you think within your identity, then, you have this feeling that you’re the boss?
N: I can’t not feel that way. My job very much involves dealing with other people, so if there’s an incident or an accident, it could be a criminal case, even… in various ways, I really feel the weight of that responsibility every day. But I’m prepared that I have to shoulder that responsibility.

A: Do you think there is gender-related prejudice in your industry right now, in welfare service workplaces?
N: No, I don’t think so…

A: As in, people being treated differently based on whether they’re men or women? A view that men are more important, for example, or that woman are easier to manage. Do you consider differences like that when it comes to managing your staff?
N: No, not at all. Nor whether the employees are foreign, or anything else. I think it’s a completely borderless industry.

A: Do you think that, generally speaking, woman are better workers?
N: Yes… I do think so. It’s not that the men are particularly lazy or anything, but I think that maybe it’s the women who are more attentive. I do think it could be because we’re working with children.

A: I see, so you mean in your line of work in particular.
N: Yes, in my line of work.

A: So you don’t feel that, for example, women have to work harder than men?
N: No, I don’t.

A: What do you find toughest about being the boss?
N: Well, it’s hard because everyone is different. It’s difficult to understand each other’s thinking.

A: Do you mean in terms of managing your employees? Rather than the children.
N: Yes. I think it’s really tricky.

A: My mother says it, and everyone says it — that that’s the most difficult thing. That work is fun, but managing to find yourself with good employees is really tricky.
N: Yes, it really is. But everyone’s life is different, and it’s impossible to understand every single aspect of someone else’s life. It’s difficult to understand one another… I think we’re all working towards the same goal, but maybe part of that is just me thinking what I want to think.

A: We’ve been talking about the day service just now, but what about in terms of Gallery G?
N: It’s the same. When I set it up we had the same goal, the same vision, but since then there have been staff changes — there are fewer and fewer of the original staff left, there have been about three changes — so I do wonder whether we have really fulfilled our original aim. But I don’t try and force it. When it comes to the gallery, especially, I think you’ve also got to make good use of the staff’s individual personalities as part of the gallery’s character.