Hello.
I’m Swishmar Shell, an independent artist.
When you truly feel that you’ve done something wrong,
you raise your voice,
and you apologize for it.
And when you do that—
when you let your heart make a positive change—
what kinds of things might happen?
A scene from my childhood: a snowball fight.
My older brother and I were throwing snowballs at each other, playing.
One of the snowballs we threw hit the window of the house next door—
the neighbor who lived beside my grandmother’s home,
where she lived alone.
The glass made a sharp crack.
Back then, old houses still had wooden window frames
with a single thin pane of glass.
My grandmother received a call about what happened.
She told us,
“Go apologize.”
So my brother and I went to apologize—
just the two of us.
In this way,
my grandmother always guided us
to act on our own initiative.
— My View on Work.
Work, for me, has always been a challenge aimed at personal growth.
Now that I look back, I can say this with confidence:
the type of job or the choice of occupation doesn’t really matter.
The more you do something, the more skilled and familiar you become with it.
And the deeper your sense of purpose is,
the more your sincerity and passion naturally come to the surface.
In my case, there were many times when I became so absorbed in my work
that I hardly took any breaks at all.
People often saw me as too serious.
— Looking Back on My Previous Job in the Cleaning Department.
Irreplaceable moments with a coworker.
In the cleaning industry, even a small mistake could lead to being scolded
by a senior coworker—a woman one year younger than me—
driven by her skill, pride, and sense of responsibility.
But that kind of thing happens everywhere, doesn’t it?
For me, once I finished a task I had poured my energy into,
the points of reflection would come rushing in,
turning into a heavy sense of responsibility—
a stressor.
To deal with it on my own,
I would often get in my car after work
and drive for about two hours into the nearby outskirts,
just to ease the stress—
buying something small, spending time, letting myself unwind.
After a few months of this,
I became so cautious in similar situations
that I would think ahead long before anyone needed to warn me.
— Workplace Policy.
There was a reason why I had to learn quickly
and become able to handle all tasks at an early stage.
In the department responsible mainly for periodic cleaning,
the supervisor in charge was over sixty years old
and working under a re-employment contract.
There was also another coworker—
a man about four years older than me, with no prior experience—
who was considered someone who could at least cover the physical aspects of the job.
And I, too, was inexperienced.
The company’s policy was that the two of us, as new hires,
needed to become capable of carrying out the work together.
The re-employed supervisor was an older woman,
someone more than twenty years my senior,
who had started working in cleaning around the same age I joined—at forty.
However, she did not know every aspect of periodic cleaning.
So the one who filled that gap was the female senior coworker I mentioned earlier—
the one who taught me—
but she was only a part-time employee.
This part-time worker had over eight years of experience
in both periodic and daily cleaning.
She had been recommended for a full-time position,
but because she had left her previous job due to illness,
she didn’t want to place any additional burden on the company
and declined the offer.
She was a considerate person.
Even at the end of the workday,
she would thoroughly clean the storage area
and prepare everything for the next day.
It may seem obvious,
but based on her experience,
if you don’t complete the preparations properly,
it affects the work in the days that follow.
There had been a previous supervisor—
a man nearly sixty,
about twenty years older than she was—
who once hurled terrible, discriminatory words at her
simply because she was a woman.
That incident wounded both her identity as a woman
and her pride in her cleaning work.
As a result, she was temporarily reassigned
to a different work location.
Eventually, that discriminatory supervisor was transferred away,
and the new older female supervisor—the one I mentioned earlier—
arrived at the branch office.
To compensate for the change,
the part-time female senior coworker returned to our team.
Over time, I stopped being scolded as often,
and about a year later,
I began preparing for the Grade 3 Building Cleaning Technician exam.
By then, I had become able to use almost all of the cleaning tools proficiently.
However, the other new coworker could not keep up.
His mind would panic,
and he became increasingly uncooperative,
making teamwork difficult.
He also had some minor visual issues
that affected the precision required for periodic cleaning.
Because of that, there were many times
when we had to redo large portions of the work.
Eventually, he was reassigned.
— The Weight of Being the Only Full-Time Employee.
Before long, the situation changed into something unexpected:
it became clear that I would be the only one left to take responsibility
for all the periodic cleaning in the company from that point on.
More and more, it was just the two of us—
the part-time coworker and me—
working together all the way to the smallest details of the job.
At that point,
I had become the only full-time employee in our team.
The imbalance of workload and responsibility grew heavier,
turning into a constant source of stress.
I often found myself irritated,
and sometimes my frustration caused mistakes in my work.
During those times,
she—who had training in management and instruction—
would shift into a strict, unyielding attitude.
Sometimes she became extremely cold,
as if to say she would absolutely not forgive me.
To avoid carrying that awkwardness into the next day,
I gathered my courage and said,
“What I did earlier… it really was wrong, wasn’t it?”
I waited until the very last moment—
after all the cleaning and tidying were finished—
and apologized again.
Even though she had been so stubbornly angry,
and even though she was still upset inside,
she accepted my apology with reason.
Anyone, when they suddenly feel bad,
can become difficult to approach,
or conveniently avoid things they don’t want to do,
or become someone you can hardly talk to.
That kind of thing happens everywhere.
In this company’s periodic cleaning team,
it was almost a bad tradition
that employees or part-time helpers would suddenly disappear from the site,
or storm off in anger.
With so many bad examples around,
it was easy for anyone to think
that acting out of anger was acceptable in this workplace.
In the midst of that environment,
I endured,
and sometimes apologized in a way that blamed myself.
But that was what allowed me
to maintain trust
and preserve those small, heartfelt moments
with the people I worked with.
The coworker who worked with me so cooperatively—
she began to appear to me as someone
who could calmly sort through her emotions
and accept the true meaning behind my apologies
with a dignified sense of reason.
Because of that,
I believe she carried a great deal of emotional burden herself.
When the end of the workday came,
you would think it would be fine to go home.
But in this workplace,
our supervisor always had some reason
to leave early.
She would say, “You can leave it for tomorrow,”
but the next day always brought extra tasks
that chased us relentlessly.
That’s why
if we didn’t prepare for the following days in advance,
we would only suffer for it later.
She understood this completely.
So she would watch the older female supervisor leave on time,
and then the two of us
would stay behind,
working unpaid overtime together.
Through that cooperative relationship,
and through the rational, mutual trust we built—
and perhaps because we were of the opposite sex—
we naturally began talking about going somewhere together
after work or on our days off.
It was a small, irreplaceable affection
born from our shared work and collaboration.
When we went out together in private,
my heart felt clear and calm,
as if purified.
Spending time with her felt far more adult,
far more independent,
than staying at my parents’ home.
Those moments with just the two of us
were when I felt most like myself.
— The Feeling of True Loneliness.
This was the background.
She, too, suffered work-related harassment and injured her shoulder,
and she ended up leaving the job before I did.
I was left alone,
doing unpaid overtime to cover all the supplementary tasks—
cleaning up, preparing for the next day—
and of course, handling the unbalanced deskwork
that fell on me as the only full-time employee.
Around that time,
there was a male partner employee in his sixties.
For some reason, he would leave right at the end of his shift
together with our older female supervisor.
He must have seen me staying behind
to finish all the supplementary work.
Since we were in the same department,
I believed communication should naturally happen
while working together—
cleaning up, organizing, finishing the day’s tasks side by side.
But an unspoken implication kept knocking in my mind:
“If you don’t talk, I won’t help you until the end.”
Then another thought knocked again,
seeing how tired he looked:
“I’m just exhausted, so I’m going home early.”
One Sunday,
when no one else was in the office,
we finished work at 3:00 p.m.,
and by 3:30 he had already left early.
Meanwhile, I stayed past 5:00 p.m.,
still working—
finishing the paperwork required of a full-time employee,
cleaning up, organizing,
handling all the supplementary tasks alone.
I was filled with frustration
that no one else ever stayed until the very end.
Then came the personnel reshuffling—
new people coming in, others leaving.
I was unfairly labeled within the company,
mostly by older employees,
spoken about behind my back,
humiliated.
Even when frustration and anger doubled inside me,
I showed no change in attitude
and continued dedicating myself
to the supplementary work expected of a full-time employee.
But just like Heinrich’s Law says,
when small things pile up,
the risk eventually grows larger.
To make matters worse,
I had to hear comments like,
“It’s your fault for not speaking up first,”
from people I could hardly believe were my coworkers.
That arrogant, oppressive atmosphere—
created without my consent—
pressed down on me.
Anger mixed with pain,
and while working alone on those supplementary tasks,
the feeling of true loneliness grew heavier and heavier.
I genuinely thought:
“There is no meaning to my existence in this company.
That’s who I am.”
―A scene where that anger and frustration become unbearable because of a single remark from an insensitive older man.
There came a moment when the anger and humiliation I had been carrying
finally overflowed.
During a night shift with several older coworkers,
a single careless remark—
“You never talk.”
—struck me harder than anyone there could have imagined.
Something inside me snapped.
I walked away from the group,
seeking a place where no one could see me.
The loneliness I had been swallowing for months
rose like a tide,
and for a brief, terrifying instant,
I felt myself slipping into a darkness
I had never known before.
A thought crossed my mind—
not because I wanted to disappear,
but because I no longer knew
how to carry the weight placed on me.
And then,
as if the world itself intervened,
someone appeared nearby.
That small interruption
pulled me back into myself.
I steadied my breath,
returned to the worksite,
and finished the long night alone,
as if nothing had happened.
Afterward, I reflected on what had happened,
but the negative labels forced onto me at work
did not fade.
The stress had already gone far beyond
what any person should bear.
I felt powerless,
unable to speak,
unable to trust anyone around me.
Perhaps someone sensed something in my demeanor—
I will never know.
But the company received a report
from someone who had been worried about me.
No one blamed me after that.
Still, the situation continued to twist.
Because only older workers had been present that night,
they became entangled in the aftermath,
and anger spread among them.
Later, two of those older workers confronted me,
their voices sharp with accusation:
“Why don’t you ever talk!”
Their words struck me like stones,
but by then,
I no longer had the strength to respond.
— This was something I could never tell her.
When I met privately with her—
my former coworker—
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what had happened.
She was already struggling,
barely able to drive because of the pain in her shoulder,
living with difficulties I didn’t want to add to.
I didn’t want to worry her any more,
or place another burden on her heart.
And yet,
perhaps she sensed something in me—
a feeling, a shadow,
something unspoken.
One day, when we went out together,
we happened to visit the very place where the rumors had begun.
Someone who knew her saw us and said,
“Is it true?”
I saw the look on their face,
and I heard the tone of their voice.
After that,
she began to speak to me with a hint of doubt—
as if something inside her had shifted.
Perhaps she had already begun to feel disappointed in me.
It was only about work,
and yet it seeped into our private time as well.
I felt a sharp divide forming in her heart—
a vivid, unmistakable distance—
and within it,
a quiet, rational anger.
I’m sure she must have wanted to be angry—
truly angry.
And still,
she told me,
“You should quit that company already.”
She understood that I was being crushed inside,
even if I couldn’t explain everything.
But even though she said that,
when I finally decided to resign,
she sent me a message:
“I thought you were joking about quitting.”
A one‑sided message,
revealing the contradiction in her heart.
There were also messages
that showed her disappointment in me.
By then,
we were no longer able to meet.
I had thought that,
after I left the company,
I might finally be able to tell her
the things I could never say while I was still employed—
the background,
the reasons,
the truth behind everything.
But in the end,
there was no reply.
No explanation.
Just a silent parting.
I still regret it.
If she had been suffering deeply—
perhaps even brushing against thoughts she could not voice—
then I understand why
I could not tell her everything.
And the rumors about my actions,
twisted and exaggerated,
spread through the small world around us,
reaching the people connected to me.
In the end,
I must accept that I was the one
who pushed her heart into that painful place.
(If she—someone with such a strong sense of responsibility—
had blamed herself too much,
if she had fallen into despair because of it,
would that have been my fault?
And if I blamed myself as well,
should I disappear from this world to take responsibility?)
— Where resignation and sorrow intertwine.
Amid all the complicated circumstances,
sometimes she wouldn’t reply to my messages,
and at other times,
she would send brief, one‑sided messages—
this continued right up until my final day at the company.
But once I left,
her replies stopped completely.
I told her that my next message would be the last,
and I waited for a final answer—
a chance to see her one more time.
But there was nothing.
No reaction at all,
as if she had vanished from the world.
I kept searching for an answer in my heart,
but without understanding anything,
I realized I would never see her again.
I sank into a state where sadness,
pain,
and humiliation
were all woven together.
And then,
from within that heaviness,
an image rose in my mind—
a folded paper crane,
a wish for the recovery of a wounded heart.
Little by little,
hope began to open again,
like a phoenix lifting itself from ashes.
And perhaps that is how
I came to be born anew—
as Swishmar Shell,
someone who wished to be reborn,
to begin again.
— Compassion.
I left that branch office with a sense of frustration,
resigning under the reason of changing jobs.
Just before that—
on December 30th, 2023—
I went to the office in the late afternoon
to check my belongings
and put things in order.
Of course, no one was there.
With anger still lingering inside me,
I reached instead for compassion,
and left a handwritten note
and a small gift
on the empty desks.
“To take care of your health,
and stay well.”
—my message to the older female former supervisor.
And to the older men—
(including those who had already hired my replacement)—
I wrote,
“Please encourage the younger worker.”
In the drawer of the young successor’s desk,
I placed a brand‑new work tool
as a small gesture for the person taking over.
Even with anger mixed into my heart,
I chose to leave compassion behind
as I walked away from the company.
— After Resignation: Putting My Mind in Order.
A complicated mix of emotions swirled inside me—
kindness, anger, frustration,
and the loneliness of losing contact
with the woman I had once wanted so much to talk with.
And yet, despite all of that,
someone from the company used my home address—
information I had left behind only for employment records—
without my consent,
and came to my house unannounced
to return items I had forgotten.
The fear of being approached without permission,
combined with the anger of being treated so conveniently,
hit me at the same time,
causing a psychological shock
that felt as if my heart might collapse.
The younger woman—
the one who had injured her shoulder
after suffering work‑related harassment from our former supervisor—
was already exhausted in both body and mind.
Yet that same former supervisor
forced a meeting on her as well,
causing her deep emotional harm.
I still have messages that show
she was in a state where her safety was at risk afterward.
Because of all this,
I felt a responsibility—
as someone who had once worked there—
to report the situation
to the headquarters of the group company,
as a way of seeking justice
for what had happened.
However, from my own perspective,
even though the people at the branch office
had taken an unreasonably forceful,
almost threatening approach
toward someone who had already resigned,
I wanted to interpret it
in the most generous way possible.
“If I was treated so conveniently and one‑sidedly,
perhaps it only means
I continued to appear as a kind person.”
If I look at it that way,
perhaps I can let this matter rest in my heart.
But objectively speaking,
what happened after my resignation
was clearly mishandled.
They could have simply waited
until they were able to contact me properly—
the forgotten items were not perishable.
Instead, my personal information was used
without my consent,
and they came to my home
without arranging an appointment.
There is no denying
that this was inappropriate.
Because I appear to be a gentle person,
I am often treated in ways
that are convenient for others.
So, to preserve my own sense of dignity—
the belief that there is nothing wrong
with my character—
I have decided not to report this incident
to headquarters,
and instead let it go quietly.
— An Introduction to the Deep Mind.
“There are always people in this world
who pretend not to understand
the kind of feelings others would clearly find unpleasant—
people who push into someone’s heart without hesitation,
and they can be found at any grand round table.”
Perhaps it is better to accept it
with that kind of image in mind.
The unannounced visit to my home after my resignation
was still something the company should have apologized for.
That much does not change.
But if someone involved in that company
were to read this article
and interpret it in their own way,
I can imagine exactly what they would think:
“Well then, I guess we don’t have to apologize anymore!”
And if they were to sweep it aside like that,
patting their chest in relief,
and toss away any sense of remorse—
then it would be fair to say
that no happiness would come from such a mindset.
— I carry with me a memory I will never forget.
Because through that working relationship,
I gained an experience that allowed me to hold a strong image—
that the happiness born from cooperation
can feel like the happiness of living side by side.
Long ago, in the music world,
I would see Yumi Matsutoya performing together with her husband,
and somehow, naturally,
I felt a quiet admiration for that kind of shared, harmonious life.
In those moments of working together,
even the smallest happiness
was more precious than anything else.
It is only now that I understand this—
because she was the one
who allowed me to feel it.
To her—
the woman I can no longer meet,
the one I never had the chance to say goodbye to—
“Goodbye.”
“Thank you.”
“I was happy.”
With these thoughts,
I want to say my true farewell
quietly,
in my heart.
最後に、今回も、Spotifyによる、選曲を、２曲、ご紹介しています
’
実際、彼女の母親も、
都会なら、何でもあるし、
「住宅街、歩行者・横断者に、注意」
「通学の時間帯、自転車、歩行者に、注意」
「右、登り坂カーブ、対向車、はみだし走行に、注意」
「交差点、赤信号、停止車両に、注意」
「夕暮れ、黒い服装の歩行者、自転車に、注意」
