Two months later I flew to Brazil.
At that time, to go to Brazil, we were dropped off at Anchorage Airport in Alaska to refuel a jet and had to take an hour break. Then we headed to New York.
At the airport in New York, I waited for about 4 hours and changed to the Brazilian flight VARIG. Then, I changed to a domestic flight at Rio de Janeiro Airport in Brazil and headed for Sao Paulo. After all, it took me two full days to go from Japan to Brazil.
In Sao Paulo, Mr. Yasuno welcomed me at the gate. And he took me to a small inn in Japantown. One hour later, Mr. Yasuno and Mr. Takase came to pick me up for lunch.
Mr. Yasuno is a representative who was able to be the manager of the accounting department, who is four years older than me. Mr. Takase graduated from a Japanese university and came to Brazil to play and stayed there. Now he is the sales manager of TMB (Toshiba Medical do Brasil).
They first took me to a Japanese restaurant in Japantown. I usually ordered a pork cutlet set meal.
I was surprised to see the food that was carried.
Pork cutlets were two to three times as many as Japanese pork cutlets.
The volume of the fish set meal ordered by Anno was the same size as in Japan. The amount of ramen ordered by Mr. Takase is also normal. In other words, it seems that meat is cheap in Brazil.
Immediately after eating, I went to the office in Pacaembu.
Even though it was an office, it was a large private house.
There was President Okawa.
This Okawa was originally from Osaka, and was also a person who moved to Toshiba from a former trading company.
He looked fat and dignified, but when I talked to him, he was a really noisy man.
Okawa asked me to solve all the unsolved problems.
In fact, one chief was in charge of the Brazilian group in the medical equipment department of the Tokyo head office. And I joined the group. The chief was Mr. Ogishima, who majored in Portugal at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, so he was the best person to be in charge of Brazil. This person was a really nice person. He never confronted others. So when a problem occurred, he couldn’t take the initiative to solve it.
When I was in charge of Latin America in the Export Department, I was first surprised by the anger from the section chief. The manager has blamed me for not shipping the order in a timely manner and for not being able to collect the payment. In Brazil, import restrictions were so strict that it was not possible to ship ordered parts in a timely manner. That’s why the parts were piled up in stock at the factory. In addition, even if it could be shipped to Latin American regions other than Brazil, Mr. Ogishima often forgot to issue a bill.
So I was called by the chief and was squeezed.
When I argued that these were problems before I came, the manager took me to another room and said, “Mr. Sato, you should already know. Ogishima is that kind of person. If I blame him, the problem won’t be solved. Do you think so? ”
I said.
“I don’t think so!”
I thought Toshiba was a really good company.

I immediately contacted the senior manager of Tokyo by telex about the problem I was told.
President Okawa said:
“What happened to what you talked about yesterday?”
And you immediately contacted Tokyo and told him to follow the senior manager of Tokyo.
As I was told, I called the senior manager and gave a detailed explanation.
President Okawa, who was listening to it on my side, said:
“I hang up the phone right away. And tell the senior manager of Tokyo to make a call. It’s a waste of money.”
“In the first place, it’s okay to come to someone else’s house and use the phone, but it’s common sense to keep in mind the phone bill.”
At this moment, I wondered what the president was thinking.
It was basically stingy.
It was my first business trip and I was really struck by it.
I was in the boring Sao Paulo for a week.
On the first night, I went to churrasco to eat meat with company executives, including the president.
At first, I was happy to eat meat, but as time went on, I became sleepy due to jet lag. I felt the influence of the time difference of 12 hours from Japan.
There were three expatriates in Brazil besides the president.
One is Yasuno, who was introduced earlier. The other is Mr. Sakurai, the service manager. About 10 years older than me. He was from Oita prefecture and was a big man. Also, he was a person who didn’t talk much on a daily basis. He also said he likes karaoke and belongs to a karaoke club in São Paulo. The other is Mr. Igarashi. He had a slender figure and felt like a smart person. He would have been three years older than me.
During my stay in São Paulo, I was called to the house of these three people.
The first thing I went to was Yasuno’s apartment.
His wife was a very sober and quiet person. According to the story, this Yasuno was a man who worked well with President Okawa and was running the company as he wanted. When I first met him, when I tried to shake hands, he felt great and arrogant. So I visited his house and hardly remember what we were talking about. However, I remember that he was a classmate with the entertainer Tamori when he was in high school.
When I was invited to Mr. Sakurai’s apartment, it was very interesting to talk with his wife.
I was surprised that she frankly told me that she hated talking to Toshiba people.
She told me honestly.
“When the wives talk to each other, they are aware of the position of the husband in the company. I hate that. Moreover, when a high-ranking person comes from the head office, they are driven out even on Sunday. And we are used like maids, so we basically try not to go out with Toshiba people. ”
It is exactly the voice of a real expatriate.
When I was invited to Mr. Igarashi’s apartment, Mr. Igarashi talked about his predecessors.
“My predecessors were clearly divided into presidential and anti-presidential groups, and they were in conflict with each other.
President Okawa calls himself an open-minded person, but in reality it’s completely different. He is a completely different person from what he says and what he thinks inwardly.
There were two anti-presidents, a man who was a vice president and a service manager. President Okawa wanted to return this man to Japan, but he couldn’t find a suitable reason.
So, President Okawa wrote in a letter that the playful service manager had a child with a Brazilian woman and sent it to the Tokyo head office. The senior manager of the personnel department immediately flew from the Tokyo head office. Thus, the vice president man and the service manager were returned to Japan at the same time.
I have to work with such a person.
That’s why I’m trying to make it less noticeable. ”
Mr. Igarashi was called “Aristocratic gentleman” by President Okawa.
He looked like that.
However, he was from Akita and said he lost his parents in high school and his older sister helped him go to college.
“Mr. Sato, I made money in a sanitary car when I was in college.”
He told me.
I thought this person was amazing, regardless of appearance.
When I left Brazil after finishing my work in Brazil, the president came to the airport to send me
He said, “Mr. Sato, please come again.”
I returned my true intentions.
“I will never come again”
I heard that this exchange later became a hot topic in São Paulo.
In other words, President Okawa only picked up and sent off at the airport if he was a section chief or higher at the Tokyo head office.
However, I was just a person in charge, and I was afraid that I would never come to São Paulo at the airport.
Who the hell is that Sato?