Chapter 70: I’ve been adapting to the real world

"Sir, today's site is a newly built multi-tenant building, right?"

Two of the employees started playing with their phones, and I was too lazy to talk to them, so I talked to the president who was driving.

"Oh, yeah. I've heard that it's some kind of IT Company that's been doing well lately. They're cleaning the reception area on the first floor of a four-story building, and the corridors and stairs on each floor. The rest is toilet cleaning. I've been told not to enter any rooms by mistake, so be careful."

"I understand."

Cleaning corridors and toilets is a surprisingly common job, and is usually part of the regular cleaning schedule for corporate buildings and public facilities. It's been five months since I started working as a cleaner. One month of that time was taken off due to a trip to another world, so I've actually been working for four months. I've gained a good amount of knowledge about cleaning.

The most important part of cleaning is the first job. If you do a job that the client likes, there are many cases where a one-time job evolves into a regular cleaning. This job was particularly lucrative because the president received it directly from the client without going through the main contractor.

"Guys, I'm serious. They pay well, and if we can get a regular cleaning here, it'll be huge."

The president's voice was feverish. It seems that my imagination was right. The president picked up a guy like me, and instead of firing me even though I took a month off, he took care of me when we met again. I have to work hard to repay that favor.

"Don't worry, boss. We have a good reputation for careful work, don't we?"

"Yes, yes. If we do what we always do, they'll like us."

A reliable statement from the seniors, I'll...try not to drag my feet!

We arrived at our destination and unloaded the cleaning equipment from the wagon. The president is talking to the client in front of the building. He is wearing a suit with no tie and his face looks quite young, maybe the same as mine or a little younger. That's amazing, is he a president with enough achievements to get such a new building at his age?

The building was not a typical inorganic building, but rather a glass walled building with a stylish feel that wafted from the entrance and reception area. It had a sense of design that required a bit of courage to enter in work clothes. As I finished preparing the cleaning tools, I listened in on the conversation between the president and the client from a distance.

"Thank you for your time today. Are you aware of the scope of the cleanup?"

"Of course. Is it okay if we start cleaning now?"

"Yes. I've decided to take a temporary day off today because of the cleaning. Some people seem to be coming out, but I've already told them about the cleaning, so please don't worry about it and get to work."

He's a very young president, but he's a very low-key guy. I glanced at his face and saw that he was an okay looking guy. With a face like that, the president of an IT company...would definitely be irresistible!

"He looks like he lives in a different world than we do."

"I can see that."

I nodded broadly at Mr. Yamamoto's sarcasm.

"Don't be upset, our work is necessary for the world. There's no one better or worse than the other."

Ms. Cape is an adult with a child, so she has an adult opinion.

"So, Ms. Cape, if you were asked to choose between us and that president, which one would you choose?"

"The young president, of course."

She answered immediately. I knew it, but that's how the world works, right?

"Let's get to work, boys!"

"Yes, sir."

I was called by the president and entered the building with my cleaning equipment and tools in hand. The first floor is spacious with a reception area, restrooms, a sofa and a table where you can have a small business meeting.

The floor is shiny black....The material looks like granite. I've studied it a bit since I've been doing this job, so I think it's probably right. The walls are white and the floor is black. I personally like this kind of design.

"Like a panda."

Ms. Cape, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It seemed to be true that the company was closed, and there was no one at the reception desk. Is that a security guard looking at me from a little distance? The biggest enemy of cleaning is the dirt that can't be removed, but the next most annoying thing is the traffic.

If there are people around, they may try to walk by while you are cleaning, or they may walk by when the wax is not dry and you have to re-wax. There's not a lot of cargo, and not a lot of people. It's an easy site to work on, though the new construction and too-clean floors are less fun to get dirty.

"He wants us to finish the first floor and the second floor first."

Normally, the theory is to clean from top to bottom, but maybe someone will come to the office to do the first floor first.

"Please be efficient and polite."

We finished the first and second floor, the stairs and bathrooms are done, so only the third floor hallway remains to be cleaned. This is a four-story building, but it seems that the top floor is not included in the cleaning scope.

As I observed the building during the cleaning, I noticed that I couldn't understand the contents of the...company name at all. The company name is not in English, is it? Is it French, or is it Spanish? Utopian?　That's...different. I wonder what it means.

On the way was a corporate philosophy written on the wall, so I glanced through it, but I couldn't...understand it. What's global and what's sociaeti? Compliance? Core competence? Agile? I could hardly make sense of it. The mixture of English and Japanese makes it even more confusing.

Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge, and ordinary working people can understand it properly. While cleaning the third floor, I encountered a person who seemed to be an employee for the first time.

"Thank you for your time...."

The man who said this to me was dressed roughly, just wearing a jacket. The man, whose voice was so quiet that I almost missed it, had an ungainly face to look at. His eyes were vacant and he had a tired look on his face. I wondered if he had been up all night, unable to finish his work. He looked older than me.

When I went to wash my face after playing online games all night, I remember seeing me in the mirror of the bathroom with that look on my face. I walked unsteadily to the bathroom, and after a while, I was walking unsteadily back to my room.

"Oh, Mishima, you look tired."

"Hey, boss! No, I'm fine."

Before I knew it, the president of the company came up behind me and called out to the employee. His expression changed and he straightened his back and spoke back crisply. He seemed to be in a great hurry to respond. The president is speaking calmly, but the employee is speaking quickly and not making eye contact.

Is this...perhaps a black company? No, it would be rude to make such a judgment based on this alone. It could simply be that he's not good at talking to people just like me. After bowing repeatedly, the employee returned to his office.

"He's good at his work, but he's not good at socializing. We don't care about that as long as he's capable."

I didn't say anything, but he politely explained. Then, after a bow, he took the elevator to the lower floor.

The boss has a point, doesn't he? I thought so, but I was a little curious, so I peeked inside the door of the room where the employees had entered, since it was slightly open. The employee sitting with his back to the seat near the door seemed to be staring at his computer.

"If I don't destroy...that place, my position will be..."

It sounded like he was saying something disturbing, but I might have misheard him as his voice was faintly reaching me. I squinted and concentrated, hoping that a look at the PC screen would give me some idea of the job, but what I saw was a...game screen.

It was an image looking down from the sky, with countless monsters wriggling around, and he seemed to be controlling them. Because of the distance, I couldn't make out much more than that. A person who was in such a hurry to play a game, even working on a holiday? Could it be a company that develops games? If so, I was a little jealous.

"Yoshio, stop slacking off and get to work."

"Sorry, I'll be right there."

Yamamoto-san warned me to go back to cleaning, but for some reason the scene from earlier was bothering me strangely. He was just taking a break from work, but that muttering. Speaking of games, I'm intimately involved with them. So, I guess I was just curious about it. I took a picture of the cover of the pamphlet with the company name on it with my phone to check the company name later.

...…

"Thank you for your time."

I finished my work at 22:00 at night and was dropped off at the convenience store closest to my house. I bought some snacks and drinks and chatted with the clerk. Since there are not many people at this time of night, the clerk seems to be bored and asks me to talk about something.

"I was surprised at that time. I didn't expect to see a person collapsing in front of the store with bubbles blowing. I panicked, thinking that our food had given them food poisoning."

The clerk who told me this was the one who asked me to call the police and ambulance when I confronted my sister's stalker before. Since then, I've had more opportunities to talk to him, and we've developed a friendly relationship.

"I was surprised, too"

In the end, it was determined that the ruckus was food poisoning from the seafood they had eaten during the day. Incidentally, it seems that the people who were trying to kidnap my sister were also involved in other similar activities, and will be spending more time in prison than I had imagined.

"Well, the cute girl who often shops with you is your sister, right?"

Oops, that's what you wanted, huh? It was going to be a story I didn't want to hear from here, so I quickly paid the bill and left the convenience store. Just at that time, a bus stopped at the bus stop across the street, and my sister came out from inside.

It happened to be a little different from....My sister had called me a little while ago to tell me that she would be home soon, so I was waiting for her here. Even though the stalker problem has been taken care of, it's still dangerous to be on the streets at night when there's no one around. Besides, it's not as if there aren't people like those who attacked my sister out there.

"Hey, big brother."

She immediately noticed my presence and came running to me. My sister is beautiful, isn't she? I think to myself as I look at my sister in her suit.

"I just got off work. I was killing time at the convenience store."

"Oh, really? Then let's go home together."

I'm going home shoulder to shoulder with my sister. This is also a scene that I could not even imagine a few months ago.

"You look kind of tired, are you okay?"

"Hmm. I think I'm a little overworked. There's a company that's been stealing our work lately. The up-and-coming charismatic president of the company is a celebrity. He's famous, and he's doing well, so we're all working hard."

My sister rarely talks about her work, but she seems to be really weak and is unusually complaining about her work. The problem is that...I can't remember what she does for a living. At the time, I was so jealous of my sister for getting a job so easily that I didn't even listen to her.... I'm going to casually pull out some information about a rival company and check it out later.

"I see. What kind of company is it?"

"Well, the company name is…..U,T,O,P,I,E. It's French for "utopia."

When I heard the name, I stopped walking in surprise. I took out my phone and checked the pictures I had just taken today and showed them to my sister.

"Could it be this company?"

It was the name of the company I had just cleaned up.