Norio gets up early every work day. He wants to make sure that he gets to work on time. At his job on an assembly line he gets paid by the piece. His boss, Kyu, is demanding and makes sure all of his workers get their quotas filled each day. Norio worries some days that he won’t make it. One day last week he wasn’t feeling good and he missed his quota. He was warned that if he couldn’t keep up there were many others waiting to take his job. He didn’t like his boss. He felt like he was on a treadmill that kept getting faster and faster. Maybe it was because he was getting older now and just didn’t have the same energy he used to. He wondered how much longer he could keep up. But he kept pushing himself because he needed the money. Twice a month the workers lined up to receive their pay. All of the pieces they assembled were tallied and they got what was due them. Norio knew that his production was down and just as expected his pay reflected his lagging work. He was uneasy thinking that his job may be given to someone else. He felt depressed, and there seemed to be no end in sight. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
