There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

By Kikuko Tsumura

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'Surreal and unsettling' - Observer Cultural Highlight

'Wise, comical and exceptionally relatable' - Zeba Talkhani

'Quietly hilarious and deeply attuned to the uncanny rhythms and deadpan absurdity of the daily grind' - Sharlene Teo
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A woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that requires no reading, no writing – and ideally, very little thinking.

She is sent to an 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 isn't so easy. 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...
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'An irreverent but thoughtful voice, with light echoes of Haruki Murakami ... the book is uncannily timely ... a novel as smart as is quietly funny' - Financial Times

'Polly Barton's translation skilfully captures the protagonist's dejected, anxious voice and her deadpan humour ... imaginative and unusual' - Times Literary Supplement

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Nov 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526622235

Kikuko Tsumura

Kikuko Tsumura is a writer from Osaka, Japan. She is the winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and numerous Japanese literary awards including the Akutagawa Prize, Noma Literary Prize, Dazai Osamu Prize, and a New Artist award.

Reviews for There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

[familiar_diversions · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The narrator (who I don't think was ever named, but maybe I missed it) burned out from the work she'd previously been doing for about 14 years, so badly that she no longer even wants to work in the same field. She's been living with her parents and her unemployment insurance has run out, forcing her to seek some form of employment again. She tells Mrs. Masakado at the employment center that she wants an easy job located as close as possible to her home, and Mrs. Masakado finds her the perfect thing: a surveillance job located across the street from her house. Literally all she has to do, all day, is watch video footage of her assigned target, paying special attention to any deliveries he receives or any DVDs from his collection that he interacts with in any way.It's a weird little job. It's technically easy and close to her home, just like she asked, but she finds that she has enough issues with it and its particular drawbacks that she doesn't want to stick with it when her contract is up. After that, Mrs. Masakado does her best to match her up with the perfect job for her. She takes on a bus advertising job, creating audio advertisements for businesses located along a particular bus route. After that, she works as the writer of interesting notes and messages on cracker packets. Then she switches to a job that involves putting up and switching out various informational posters. Finally, she ends up taking on something advertised as "as easy job in a hut in a big forest." Sounds kind of ominous, right?This was a strange and quirky book, in a way that was pretty much perfect for me. Not much happened, but I found each new job that the narrator took on to be fascinating. If she'd stuck to the letter of what the jobs required, she probably could have been perfectly content with several of them. However, the narrator was the type of person who became emotionally involved in everything she did. Nothing was "just a job."In her surveillance job, she found her wants and needs being influenced by the target she was assigned to watch. In the bus advertising job, she became caught up in her boss's concerns and a potential mystery involving one of her colleagues. At the cracker packet job, the amount of attention her work received took a toll on her and led to her suffering imposter syndrome. She became so invested in her postering job that she essentially put herself out of work. Even her final "easy job" became a puzzle for her to investigate and solve. This was not a woman who was capable of just doing the bare minimum, collecting her paycheck, and going home.I'm still not sure how I feel about where the story (and narrator) ended up. This was essentially a book about burnout, but I didn't get the impression that the narrator learned any techniques to prevent it during any of her various jobs. If anything, it seemed like she'd be inclined to burn out faster. Maybe her journey was about recognizing and accepting the type of person she was?I don't know. Despite my issues with the ending, I enjoyed seeing the narrator tackle each of her various jobs. They all had quirky aspects that didn't always quite feel real - the bus advertising job, in particular, left me with questions that were never really answered. I could see myself wanting to reread this at some point - maybe if I did I'd get something different out of the ending. (Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

[islam lanie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved it. Loved getting lost in the seemingly simplicity of the book, and suddenly realizing you’re on her journey of healing.

[tuusannuuska-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really good up until the ending, which was incredibly disappointing.

[Benjamin Farr · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This story doesn’t really go anywhere and became a bore listening to

[stretch_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While recovering from a nervous breakdown caused by her previous employment, an unnamed narrator takes a series of temp jobs. Looking for a perfect job that isn't really a job, more a task that isn't too taxing. With each new job requiring the narrator to become more emotionally invested, even as the job description becomes ostensibly less challenging. Her quest takes her down many rabbit holes, with her self-imposed exile from real work acting as a form of personal liberation. She excels at working behind the scenes, with observational feats that her male colleagues deem both inspired, if not a bit distasteful for their own liking.Really, this story is Tsumra's subtle exploration of Japanese workplace relations and entrenched gender bias. Tsumura experienced severe gendered workplace harassment herself in a previous job. But here she only give vague reasons for the career burnout caused by an excessive engagement with her work. Tsumura's advocacy aspires toward incremental, harmonious change rather than outright revolution. Her change is much more stealthy and insidious and far more introspective. It does not read as a quirky magical realist book that I've seen from some reviews. It has something to add to workplace culture, even if it is only a subtle message. The one issue I had is the injections of British-isms from the translation. They felt out of place and the character an odd voice that isn't fitting with her tone.

[aug3zimm-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I completed this book but wish that I had stopped reading it several days ago. While it did get a little better, considering where it started that really isn't saying much. If you read the title of the book, you've gotten everything out of the book it tries to convey. There are no deeper truths, there are no lovable protagonists, there are no great mysteries solved, things do not circle back and make previous storylines clearer. Perhaps if you are having trouble in your first job ever after school, this book may possibly "speak to you", but otherwise I doubt it. The main character was wooden for a good portion of the book and once she started showing personality, it was in a way that made me think she was fairly off-balance but not in an engaging way. Some of the jobs were interesting and I would start to get invested - the magical realism turn in the second job got me all excited for a bit - but then everything would just be dropped and she'd get another job. I need either an engaging protagonist or an engaging plot and I got neither, at least not with any consistency. The translation is... weird. Some bits seem more directly translated in the way that gives that awkward quirk to language that is particularly Japanese (which I actually quite like) but other bits are very casually British which gives a very uneven feel to the tone of the book. Also, I was left with a fair number of questions that I'm not sure were due to the translation lacking clarity, the original source having weirdness, or just a completely unknown facet of Japanese culture. (I need more explanation over the poster drama. What? Also, the close ties between the sports team and the park. Again, what?) All are possible. Ultimately, if either the bus advertisement chapter or the poster/cult chapter were split apart and developed into their own fully-realized story (which an actual developing plot), I'd be into it. But as it stands, I wish I had stopped reading at 20% when I first got the urge.