Surprise Gifts

We had a monthly morning assembly this morning.

I spoke about the feedbacks we got from the customer to whom we just proposed something we’ve been working on and the conversations I had with Mr. Shibata from Scholar.

Following my speech, Mr. S came forward out of the blue.

I had no idea what was going on.

But as soon as he started speaking, I found out it was about my kanreki (60^th birthday)

I’ve been wrapped up in coming up with ideas for my speech recently.

I totally forgot about my own birthday.

It took me by complete surprise!

Mr. M who joined ISOWA the year I was born gave me an appreciation letter.

What surprised me most was that it was written by my wife.

I’m wondering how she did this without letting me know at home.

Mr. A presented me with an album that has messages from all the ISOWA employees.

All the employees. From the oldest one over 70 to the freshmen who just joined us three months ago.

Those messages are neatly filed in order of age.

I read all of the messages right after the assembly.

I was too happy to wait.

The gift from Mr. F who will have his kanreki this year as well was “kanreki newspaper”.

It is a book made of newspaper that was published on my birthday over the past 60 years.

There was even more.

It’s from ISOWA Europe. It’s a deformed drawing of Duren’s landmarks.

Duren is where the ISOWA Europe office is located.

I never saw all of this coming.

I guess I was too surprised to understand what was happening.

I had to ask Mr. S what happened again afterwards.

I honestly think I’m the luckiest president in the whole world.

I’m so lucky that I’m working with all these amazing people.

I would like to say thank you to all who arranged everything for me.

Someone even sent me 60 roses.

Thank you so much, Mr. T!

Actually, I wasn’t very happy about turning 60.

But you all made me change my mind. It wasn’t bad at all.

Thanks again to everyone who’s always supported me.

Happy Belated Birthday

I visited the customer plant where we installed our printer 'Ibis' earlier this month.

Thanks to all our efforts, we got many positive feedbacks about the machine.

And I found Mr. X there who was in charge of the installation.

When I saw his face yesterday, I somehow remembered that he just had his birthday last week.

I apologized to him for making him spend his birthday far away from home.

But he looked like he didn't care at all.

"That has been happening to me for years now."

That made me feel even more guilty.

"I hope at least you will have a good time celebrating your birthday with your wife when you get back."

That was all I could say.

And he has finally finished all his work and come back.


Now that he's back, I assume he's having a wonderful moment with his family tonight.

ISOWA wouldn't be where we are right now without dedicated, selfless employees like him.

I couldn't even thank you all enough!