Suddenly, a story about going abroad came to me. The content of the story was as follows.
At that time, it seems that the so-called human dock, which is a one-day health checkup, was a hot topic even overseas. Suddenly the inquiry came from Poland. Toshiba’s medical device sales company was already established in the Netherlands in Europe. The Dutch company was trying to get this inquiry. Moreover, the contract was at the final stage.
Suppose a number of devices were shipped and engineers dispatched from Japan installed them. However, there was a problem of who would do the subsequent maintenance.
Maintenance of X-rays and other diagnostic equipment can be done from the Netherlands, but computer engineers cannot be trained immediately. At that time, there were only computer engineers, Mr. Wakamatsu and myself, at the Tamagawa Factory in Kawasaki City. However, Mr. Wakamatsu could not speak English. He said he didn’t even feel like studying Polish.
However, Mr. Wakamatsu wanted to do electronic design and didn’t want to go to Poland for two or three years for maintenance.
On the other hand, one of the purposes of joining Toshiba was to go abroad, meet various people from all over the world, and get in touch with culture.
So I thought it was an opportunity for me.
I was studying English when I was in college, and even when I entered Toshiba, I read English newspapers every day, and I belonged to the adult English conversation club and studied English conversation.
However, when I heard this story from Mr. Wakamatsu, I didn’t jump right away. Because I didn’t know what this story would be like.
However, the story came to me earlier than I expected.
I was called by the section chief and asked about my intentions.
The moment I answered that I could go, I was called by the director and reminded me. A few months later, I moved from the factory design department to the Toshiba headquarters in Hibiya, Tokyo.
At that time, the Medical Devices Division was in charge of developing and manufacturing medical devices and selling them in Japan.
Toshiba’s Second Export Department was in charge of exporting them. I moved to the Second Export Department.
Only three years have passed since I joined the company, but the direction of my life has changed dramatically.