There are manga lines I like and recall at work, so I'll write about them.
Two this time.
First.
Satoru Adachi — Sakura no Uta
"To build a fine castle, either have the power to order people around,
or else build it quietly somewhere no one will see."
Context: a childhood flashback. The protagonist builds a sandcastle alone; a bully comes and wrecks it. He can't even get angry — forces a smile and lets it pass.
ーーーーーーーー
At work I sometimes get pulled into bullshit jobs — formal/procedural work, internal politics coordination, conversations that aren't the essence.
Not internal company work — it arises as part of client work.
Mental stress is maybe 10× the actual task load, so it's very annoying.
I went independent to avoid this kind of work and run a small self-employed practice in a corner of the world — but I'm still not strong enough and still get pulled into bullshit jobs.
Delegating to subcontractors means I spend less of my own resource, but burning their resource on this kind of bullshit still makes me angry. (※ Not about wasted labor cost — about making excellent people spend time on meaningless things.)
Facing this, I can't help feeling like a Dragon Quest villain: more power!
I struggled to see if there's an escape option — probably not.
In private you can do as you like; this is work.
Conflict itself stresses me so I used to think "whatever," but I've been telling myself I simply have to get stronger.
Second.
Yasuaki Kida — Kenka Kagyo
"Think how big what you're trying to do is. If it raises success probability by 1%, it's dirt cheap."
Context: an underground fight promoter, recruiting someone, faces pushback on offering a huge sum — and says this.
ーーーーーー
Simply: probability and expected value.
For the self-employed, company money is basically your money, so you often wonder whether to add staff or spend this much.
E.g. increasing outsourcing is a hassle to manage, and orders often fail — when I'm tempted toward the easy path of running with existing resources, I recall this line. Unless the investment is irreversible, you have to keep moving actively or you don't progress and time is wasted. Above all, spare time/thinking resource is most precious.
Being basically solid is fine and I won't change that — but depending on the phase, I shouldn't insert useless thinking.
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