OSAKA--When new employees start at Sunco Industries Co. in Osaka's Nishi Ward, they get the benefit of a "living history" briefing from Yasuko Tamaki.

Tamaki, 90, joined the specialty fastener trading firm in 1956 and is still going strong as the company's office manager.

“She tells me she wants to die at her desk,” said Hirohiko Sato, 47, the head of the general affairs department who supervises Tamaki.

After passing through the retirement age of 60 some 30 years ago, Tamaki is assigned to the department under a one-year renewable contract.

“For me, the official retirement age means nothing,” said a determined Tamaki. “I have a future. I will live strong in the present for tomorrow.”

Late last year, Tamaki was surprised when Guinness World Records held a ceremony to certify her as the “oldest office manager.”

“I am just amazed,” Tamaki said in an astonished but cheerful tone on a stage. “I have simply been continuing to do ordinary things.”

Tamaki welcomes new employees in the training program as one who has lived the company’s history with words carefully selected from the vocabulary she has refined through her long career.

She is responsible for accounting and other clerical procedures at the general affairs department of the company, which has more than 430 employees.

As she is really respected as “a great senior official skillful with words,” Tamaki is asked to write letters of appreciation or commendation to be presented to Sunco Industries’ important clients and exceptional staff.

Tamaki usually stays at the office between 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The daily business hours now end at 4 p.m. due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and two extra days off are given a month as well because of the pandemic.

Up to two to three years ago, Tamaki would come to the office at 7 a.m. and stay working later than others.

WITNESS TO HISTORY

Living with her sister three years her junior in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, Tamaki wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every morning, does yoga for 30 minutes and repeats Buddhism’s Wisdom sutras three times.

She said she “uses a BMW to go to office in one hour.” The fact is that she commutes by bus, metro and walk, or BMW, as she jokingly insists with her tongue sticking out.

Tamaki entered Sunco Industries in 1956. At the time the company had only 20 employees. She has watched the “life” of the business entity for more than the six decades since. 

Sunco Industries benefitted from the booming sales market coinciding with the 1970 Osaka Expo, but saw its sales plunge during the two oil crises in the 1970s.

After its recovery, the asset-inflated bubble economy burst in the 1990s and U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. In the face of such difficulties, Tamaki moved to overcome these setbacks “together with others as a business can grow more in difficult times.”

Tamaki built her belief that one should “work to help others” in her teens. She lost her father when she was 15 and took over the responsibility to provide support for her three siblings to go to school.

After graduating from high school, Tamaki devoted herself to her job for the sake of her family for a prolonged period. She now wants to do her best for each of the staffers at Sunco Industries.

When she was promoted to a divisional manager position at age 40, however, Tamaki experienced a setback. She set the bar too high and gave excessively detailed instructions, provoking antipathy from her subordinates.

Tamaki one day found no one working overtime, due to the resentment her management style had generated. She thus started washing every one’s tea cups and realized that offering instructions “in a condescending and patronizing way will not work.”

She decided to “prepare a place for learning so they will grow on their own,” and introduced her new three-pillar training principle of “following, breaking and separating.”

Under her three pillars, subordinates should follow senior staff’s ways to learn them. They are next allowed to deviate from the conventional work methods in their own fashion. If their skills reach a satisfactory level, they will work separately from higher-ups.

Yumi Ueshige, 36, a general affairs department member who has been working with Tamaki for 15 years, called her a “teacher in life.”

“She (Tamaki) is more than 50 years older than me, but never looked down on me due to my age,” said Ueshige. “She has never skipped in-house baseball events or farewell parties. She remembers the names of all company employees.”

Asako Muto, 43, a division manager, also gave a respectful look at Tamaki.

“She reads many books and has deep knowledge,” Muto said of Tamaki.

LITERATURE, GAMING

Last spring, Tamaki delivered a short speech for new recruits: “Reaching the destination as if ascending through a spiral staircase, the landscape will change at every step. Expectations and hopes arise for the next step. Interest arises in unknown worlds. When you arrive at your destination, you will discover your unbelievably awakened self.”

Tamaki searches through books and newspapers for wisdom to dispense to new staffer through different discourses every year. She jots down sentences in her pocket notebook if she finds phrases she likes, and has taken the Japan Kanji Aptitude Test Grade Semi-1 exam.

Repeatedly reading some writers’ complete works she purchased, Tamaki describes herself as a fan of novelists Takeshi Kaiko and Tomiko Miyao.

Tamaki said with glittering eyes that she also loves “competing with others” in card games and mah-jongg.

“I have never married but came across a great partner--my company,” Tamaki said. “I am the only myself in this universe. I will work hard to see how far I can go.”

ELDERLY WORKERS ON RISE

A growing number of elderly citizens continue working as more people are expected to live to 100 years and older.

According to the labor ministry’s report on elderly individuals’ employment, businesses with 31 or more employees were  permanently employing a total of 32.34 million people as of June 1 last year. Of these, 4.09 million were aged 60 or older, up 230,000 from the previous year.

The figure has continued rising, and the latest number is 1.67 million more than that of 10 years previously.

The report also asked employers about how accommodating they are of older workers. A system has been established at 33.4 percent for those 66 or older to keep working, increasing 2.6 percentage points from a year earlier.

The ratio for small and midsize companies comprised of 31 to 300 staff members was 34 percent, up 2.6 points year-on-year, while 28.2 percent--2.9 points higher--of their larger counterparts with more than 300 workers have such a mechanism, lagging behind smaller firms.

With the revision of the law for the stable employment of elderly people, employers will be obligated to make efforts toward providing employment opportunities for individuals up to age 70, starting in April. This will lead to even more seniors continuing their professional careers.