2:  September, 2019

What’s so strange about Seigyoki Corporation, you ask? Security, and lots of it, for starters. And it’s same company wide, whether you’re working on the insides of a cruise missile or a new toilet seat (both of which we sell to the Pentagon). RFID fobs, photo ID badges “worn at all times while on company property”, metal detectors, armed guards with their standard-issue sunglasses and ear pieces, and network passwords that must be changed every week are all facts of daily life for a Seigyoki Corp. employee, even in what I like to call the “baseball division”. Yes, even in far-flung Okinawa we get the full Seigyoki experience, but I haven’t been strip-searched yet, so there’s that to be thankful for.

Still, one sometimes gets the feeling they’re living in some sort of information age, William Gibsonesque dystopia, even in the supposedly bucolic setting of a baseball stadium you can feel something pressing down on you. Truthfully, the distant, and sometimes not-so-distant, roar of American fighter jet engines doesn’t help. Usually, once I’m sitting in front of my spreadsheets the feeling goes away. I can still get lost in the work (these offices are helpfully quite soundproof). I honestly enjoy it, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.

And of course there’s Iyou Seigyoki. Our dear leader. Not married. Has no kids. Heaven knows who his heirs are. I know nothing of any extended family. I should probably look into that. Every day he likes to send out company-wide motivational messages: “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light”, or “Life is a short day; but it is a working day. Activity may lead to evil, but inactivity cannot lead to good.” Things like that. The man makes no official public appearances, so maybe this is his proof of life. I don’t know. I suspect these are algorithmically compiled, anyway. Sent out by some forgotten server in a lonely Tacoma office park, or something. As I mentioned, no official public appearances. He’s always acting through surrogates, usually his lawyer, Yoichi Higo. Much of the corporate day-to-day is handled by corporate officers, as you’d expect. So there’s a measure of stability within the company.

Is he a recluse? A privacy fiend? Just plain crazy? I hear Seigyoki likes to prowl the streets of Seattle in disguise, you know, like that fictional shortstop from that movie. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. Maybe he is not a recluse. Maybe he likes to get out of the house, and he just doesn’t want anyone to know about it when he does. A bit odd that the man supposedly running (or at least owning in large part) a Fortune 500 company has rumors like that swirling about him, but he leaves himself open to such things with such odd behavior. Company stock, I’m told, is doing just fine in spite of this.

Seigyoki Corporation’s footprint here in Okinawa is also unusual. The baseball team you already know about. Additionally, Seigyoki Corp. owns or operates a sugarcane plantation and a small fishing fleet (no, not the infamous “Japanese whaling fleet”, that’s based in Shimonoseki). These are all fairly mundane economic activities with far from ordinary security measures. One would have an easier time entering a U.S. Marine base here than setting foot in those sugar fields, or boarding those fishing vessels. Is Seigyoki Corp. hiding something? Does it have something to hide? Not from what I can gather, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to any fishermen of sugar farmers.

Maybe I’ll have time to delve further into these areas, though I doubt it. The playoffs are coming up, and the office is a fairly tense place to be right now, particularly with Naha sliding into second place. Next time more baseball talk, I promise.