There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Japanese author Kikuko Tsumura is funny at times, deep at others. An excellent read about passion and finding meaning.
There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job synopsis
A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing – and ideally, very little thinking.
She is sent to a nondescript office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end can be so inconvenient and tiresome. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly – how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?
As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she’s not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful…
Book review
After a burnout all the narrator wants is a job without substance, a job that is close to home. She lands a surveillance job across the street and soon the one being watched seems more alive than the watcher. Every day the things the narrator does and eats resemble the life of the novelist she is watching more. What does this say about being worried that other people are paying more attention to you than to their own lives?
Her surveillance job is only part of the story in There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, but it already feels complete with well-rounded characters and its own subplot. The main character is a very observant narrator. Unfortunately for her, her active mind can’t seem to take a break as she tries her best at this job and her next jobs: the cracker packet job, the bus advertising job, the postering job and the easy job in the hut in the big forest (where they cut holes in the fence to help people escape).
Coincidences happen at every job when people and companies respond to her work. Appearing and disappearing play a major role in the jobs she does, adding some mystery to the stories. At every job, she encounters something or someone that, like her, appears and disappears. While her colleagues are all set in their jobs, like she was for fourteen years, she is the exact opposite. Now she has even escaped our surveillance and gets to live her life without us watching her every move.
I really enjoyed this book because of the narrative tone. Burnout can be a heavy theme but the main character’s approach to life is not negative. The people she encounters are passionate about what they do. While the jobs don’t seem important, the people make a difference. I’m taken in by their enthusiasm too, reading with a smile on my face.
You can read this book as a light book and enjoy reading about the odd jobs she does which is perfectly fine. But if you take some time to think about her thoughts, then you’ll notice the deeper layer almost obscured by the light and ‘funny’ way Kikuko Tsumura describes the jobs.
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job is foremost about believing in yourself, picking yourself up after a burnout, and finding meaning. Even though the people around you say you’re doing a good job and are content with what you do, that won’t matter if you don’t believe it yourself. If you can’t feel your own usefulness, any hurdle that comes up can be an excuse to run away. To draw a parallel with the bus advertising job: when no one can hear your ad, it is like you don’t exist. And when you do nothing, your contract and job might as well cease to exist.
Translated from Japanese by Polly Barton.
Interested?
Pre-order your copy of There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job from Amazon (available 26 November 2020).
Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
