Yonai Mitsumasa
If your boss won’t let you go home
Politician | 2 March 1880 – 20 April 1948

You don’t get to choose your parents, and you don’t get to choose your boss.

For the average office worker, dealing with their superior remains an eternal challenge. There’s the type of boss who is generally difficult to approach, but when they drink, they suddenly become outspoken to the point where they don’t even notice from all their babbling how the other party wants to go home already. But then there’s also the type of boss who remains silent, even when they’re drunk.

The former type of boss—while annoying—at least feels familiar in a way. But the latter? Honestly, bosses like that are just scary. You have no idea what they’re thinking to begin with, and now that feeling of “who even is this guy?” is only amplified.

Among all the great men of history, too, there are some whose expressions did not change even when they were drinking. You could never tell what was on their mind. Yonai Mitsumasa, Navy Admiral and once Prime Minister, is a good example.

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Kuroda Kiyotaka
If your boss accidentally fires a cannon
Politician | 9 November 1840 – 23 August 1900

People who become annoying when they are drunk. Surely you, the reader, know one or two individuals who would fit that description.

There’s drunks like me: guys that are usually quiet who suddenly get all jovial, guzzling down booze by themselves like it was water until suddenly you notice they’ve passed out.

But then you also have the guys who can get surprisingly belligerent. While you might yourself be feeling nice and woozy, you can never quite totally relax when you’re drinking with these individuals. You never know when that switch inside of them is going to flip.

They’re the sort of people who are going to pester other customers and waiters, sometimes with verbal abuse. More than just once or twice, I have personally had to apologize on behalf of these people. One drunk apologizing for the misbehavior of another drunk to a third party who is in all likelihood also drunk themself—it’s the Japanese izakaya hellscape.

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Tsuji Jun
If your coworker jumps off a roof
Author | 4 October 1884 – 24 November 1944

I’m sure many of you have experienced that feeling when you’ve had too much to drink, and then, suddenly, you feel like you could literally do anything.

While it goes without saying, that feeling is of course but an illusion. And yet, the majority of booze-related troubles and gaffes are brought about by this simple misunderstanding.

Drinking can’t turn you into a superstar—at the end of the day, an office worker is still but an office worker—but it can change the way you think and behave. Your department chief, that one Average Joe who’s always going, “Oh, I’m no Ichiro, I’m just a nobody,” who happens to like baseball? If he were to turn into a serious binge drinker, it might get him to start copying Ichiro by eating curry for breakfast every morning and practicing his bat-swinging skills at the office.

Or, well… He might start not coming to the office in the first place.

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Kajii Motojiro
If your coworker throws a tantrum and lies down in the middle of the street
Author | 17 February 1901 – 24 March 1932

When one hears the name “Kajii Motojiro,” the first thing they think of is lemons. When one hears the word “lemons,” the first thing they think of is Kajii Motojiro.

Okay, that might be an overstatement. The first thing they think of is lemon soda. And lemon sours. But right after those two things, it’s Kajii Motojiro. Even before one thinks of lemonade, they would think of Kajii Motojiro.

Even if you have never read his works before, surely many among you would at least be reminded of the title of Lemon upon the mention of his name.

Kajii died of tuberculosis in 1932. He was 31 years old. Because he died so young, he left behind only around 20 short stories. The majority of these stories were released in fanzines, and only one book of his writings was published during his lifetime.

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Hiratsuka Raicho
If your coworker hurls rocks at your house and still you don’t stop drinking
Thinker | 10 February 1886 – 24 May 1971

The proportion of women over 40 who regularly consume alcohol is increasing.

According to a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the percentage of women in their forties who drink frequently (meaning more than one unit of alcohol on three or more days a week) has seen a drastic rise in the last 20 years. It now stands at 15.6%—an increase of 5.7% since 1996. On the other hand, the percentage of men in their twenties who drink has dropped to less than a third of what it used to be, falling from 36.2% to just 10.9%.

Surely a result of women’s social advancement and diversification of interests, if you actually go to a bar and do a quick visual survey, you will instantly notice the multitude of lively women present there. Then, almost as if to prove the results of this survey correct, if you go and read the comments on forums discussing this news, you will find numerous young men saying things like, “Alcohol just tastes bad.”

But while it is none of anyone’s business what anyone else drinks or does not drink, you still come across comments saying things like, “What are you aunties doing, drinking alcohol? And you call yourselves women?” Apparently, it does bother some people.

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