Roy, who reads the parts of Japanese newspapers that aren't about the physical appearance of celebrities (making him my nemesis, I think), hepped me up to this story about secondhand bookstore chain Book Off's new president: HASHIMOTO Mayumi. Hashimoto was personally chosen by current president and company founder SAKAMOTO Takashi, who plans to magically transform into a chairman.

Why is this story interesting? Because now Book Off will only sell diaries written in kana Hashimoto started her career with Book Off only 16 years ago, as a part-time shop assistant. Of course, that was at the very first Book Off store, and a year later she was already manager of the second Book Off store, so it isn't so much a rose-from-the-ranks story as a was-there-from-the-beginning,-paid-her-dues-and-had-her-talents-recognized story... still, I understand that it's still quite rare in Japan for a person to rise from the customer-sullied shop floor to the top of the pyramid like that.

After all, in Japan, a part-time worker is a paato or baito (from German Arbeit), but a full-time worker is a "true employee" (seishain). (Yes, yes: "he said, implicitly invoking naiive Eskimo-words-for-snowism.")