様々な分野でグローバルに活躍する「普通の人々」が体験を語り、次世代の普通の人々のお役に立てればと思っているサイトです。

日本在住歴約40年のRon McFarlandと外資系勤務が長い齋藤信幸が、それぞれの海外体験を語ります。

Ron McFarlandの Personal Journey (4-b): 夢を忘れず、仕事・軍事訓練、そして・・・・・

2022-10-15 18:12:29 | Ron's Life Story
今朝(2022年10月16日)の朝日新聞の一面、「台湾有事 直面する懸念 米国に見捨てられ 衝突に巻き込まれ」。とはいえ、まだ、日本人の多くは、それほど深刻ではありません。

ヨーロッパ旅行から帰った当時の米国は、ベトナム戦争の真っただ中。いつ戦争に駆り出されるか。日常的にそんな心配がある中、グローバルビジネスに関わる仕事に就きたいという夢を忘れず、Ron-sanの奮闘・努力は続きます。

After boot camp, I returned to my reserve unit as a company clerk, which angered the commander. So, I was assigned to drill sergeant school for two years. Believe it or not, by going through drill sergeant school and acting as a drill sergeant for about two and a half years, I learned how to teach. I didn’t like it, and I was not a very good drill sergeant, but I did learn some things, particularly how to stand up in front of a group and teach.

In those days, my life was managing the store at Woolworth’s and going to Army Reserve meetings. I noticed at that time I still had a great desire to get into international business in any way I could. I always found myself in the stock room reading the origins of the merchandise Woolworth’s was bringing in from Asia, particularly Japan, Korea and Hong Kong in those days. I was continuing to read business magazines and what the United States was importing and exporting worldwide. With the huge figures of products being imported from Japan, I decided to start studying Japanese. I was around 26 years old at that time(1974年).

I signed up for an adult education Japanese class right in San Jose. That was an interesting experience, because here I was in a class mostly of third and fourth generation American Japanese who wanted to (or was pressured to by their direct parents) learn the language to be able to talk to relatives back in Japan. They all kind of wondered why I was putting myself through some much pain to learn that extremely difficult language. In those days, I too found the language extremely difficult. As I was not doing it for anyone except myself, I decided to flunk myself two times in the entry level Japanese classes. I finally got an understanding of the material after the third time around.

As Japanese is not an easy language, people really appreciated my effort, particularly the Japanese people who were poor English speakers. They regularly gave me encouragement while my own American friends and my own family thought I was crazy.

In order to visit my mother in Sacramento more regularly, I changed Army Reserve units to one in Sacramento. Then, I would go to Sacramento once a month to attend the weekend meetings.

With working at Woolworth’s 48 hours a week, going to the Army Reserves and taking Japanese classes, I found it all a bit much. As I paid off all the college debts I had built up when I was a student and was still single at the time, I decided to quit working for Woolworth’s and moved up to Oakland, California.

Sam Fisk, whom I lived with in the Roger Williams house in San Jose, was living in Oakland and going to school in San Francisco. His house there had a spare room I could rent. So, off I went to Oakland.

In Oakland, I set up Japanese language classes over in San Francisco and worked part-time for another person who lived in the house and had his own business selling computer data input services. Basically, it was asking companies if they needed help getting various data into their computers. He hired ladies to punch in the data and charged for the services he could sell. I did that direct selling for him too for a short time. I learned I enjoyed outside selling even though over a four-month period, I only brought in one account, Macy Department Store in San Francisco.

Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話なども聴いてみたいですね。コロナも収束間近。是非、マスクなしで開催したいですね。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミニケーション。年末にはできそうですね。

皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。

ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。

もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。



<ご興味のある地域を選んでいただた上で、出張報告をさせていただきます>

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