Sometimes, the company’s ideal organizational theory and your own values are not that far apart.
Challenge yourself.
Improve the workplace.
Develop people.
Reduce dependency on individuals.
Take responsibility.
Create results as a team.
None of these ideas are wrong.
The problem is not the slogan.
The problem is that the workplace implementation is full of holes.
Responsibilities are unclear.
Decision-makers are unclear.
There is no time allocated.
Communication channels are scattered.
Training is not scripted.
There are no clear procedures or evaluation criteria.
And yet, everything is expected to work through “awareness,” “initiative,” and “responsibility.”
When that happens, even a good organizational philosophy becomes impossible to execute.
In fact, the more serious and capable a person is, the more they get absorbed by the system.
When a workplace keeps saying “awareness,” it usually lacks design
When the word “awareness” appears too often at work, it often means that the system has not been designed properly.
A job should have clear answers to questions such as:
- What are we trying to achieve?
- Who is responsible?
- What does “good enough” mean?
- By when does it need to be done?
- What should be fixed when something fails?
- What mechanism prevents recurrence?
Only after these elements exist should “awareness” come into play.
But in some workplaces, the order is reversed.
There is no procedure.
No clear responsibility.
No clear decision-maker.
No training system.
No allocated time.
But employees are told to “be more aware.”
That is not improvement.
It is a way of making individuals fill structural gaps with personal sincerity.
Being serious matters.
But being serious is not the same as producing results.
To convert sincerity into results, you need structure.
Scripts.
Procedures.
Criteria.
Responsibility boundaries.
Logs.
That is why some people try to systematize the work.
If someone looks at that person and says, “You need more awareness,” they are missing the point.
People who keep picking up gray-area work eventually burn out
Gray-area work looks harmless at first.
It feels like something that should be handled by whoever notices it.
But that is dangerous.
It belongs to no one.
But if no one handles it, it catches fire.
So the person who notices it picks it up.
Then that person gradually becomes treated as responsible.
Others do not move.
The person who picked it up becomes frustrated.
Then the next gray-area task comes to them again.
This is goodwill laundering.
Serious people tend to pick up those tasks at first.
But if they continue picking up gray work without defining it, they eventually start thinking:
Why doesn’t anyone else do this?
Why am I the only one who notices?
Why am I the only one being held responsible?
That is how people burn out.
Research on illegitimate tasks suggests that tasks violating role expectations are related to lower self-esteem, resentment toward the organization, and burnout. The Job Demands-Resources model also shows how high demands with insufficient resources can contribute to burnout.
So the answer is not “be more aware and pick up more.”
The answer is to redesign the work so that gray-area tasks do not have to be silently absorbed.
Boundary-setting can look cold from the outside
The hard part is that drawing boundaries can look cold in the short term.
You provide the materials.
You create the script.
You build the evaluation sheet.
You show the process.
But you do not absorb the final decision-making or outcome responsibility.
From the perspective of someone who wants help, it may look like this:
I thought you would help more.
Why are you only helping up to that point?
We are trying seriously.
It feels like you are abandoning us.
You are being cold.
But that is not abandonment.
It is returning responsibility to the right place, because if you absorb everything every time, it never becomes their work.
It is easy to provide short-term rescue by doing everything for someone.
But if that continues, the other person never becomes independent.
You become responsible without being officially responsible.
The organization learns that capable people can simply absorb the gaps.
Nobody wins.
That is why boundaries are necessary.
They are not coldness.
They are a win-win design that prevents both sides from breaking in the long term.
If someone says “don’t interfere with our training,” they should own the training responsibility
Some people want ownership over training.
That is fine.
But if they want ownership, they also need to own the training policy, execution decisions, and outcome responsibility.
Do not train them without permission.
But still develop them.
But still be responsible.
But still produce results.
But still manage their awareness.
That is impossible.
If you want authority, you also take responsibility.
If you do not take responsibility, your authority should be limited.
When this remains vague, the capable person becomes the absorber again.
A calm external response might be:
To avoid misunderstandings, it would be helpful if the training policy and execution decisions were unified on the responsible team’s side.
I will support within the scope of the materials, scripts, and evaluation sheets already shared.
Internally, it is fine to think:
If the awareness team wants to run it through awareness, please go ahead.
Was choosing a local job a mistake?
In this kind of situation, it is natural to wonder whether taking a local job was a mistake.
But that is not exactly right.
The local job itself was not necessarily a mistake.
You gained a lot there.
HR operations.
Contract management.
Temporary staffing renewal processes.
Training design.
QC.
Excel and VBA.
AI usage.
App development.
Writing.
Responsibility mapping.
Scripting.
Documentation.
These are all marketable skills.
The real problem is that in a closed workplace, a person who can design systems may not be evaluated as a designer. Instead, they may be used as an absorber of organizational holes.
So it is not simply that choosing a local job was a mistake.
It may be more accurate to say:
You tried to implement the ideal way of working inside a closed, rural small-company operating system.
If you drive an F1 car through a rice field, the car is not the problem.
The road is.
Moving when your weaknesses have been externalized
In the past, moving outward may have felt risky.
Improvised verbal communication.
Reading the room.
Short-term memory.
Ambiguous responsibilities.
Showing achievements.
Defending yourself against after-the-fact criticism.
When these are weak points, even a capable person can struggle to present their value externally.
But now the situation is different.
You can use AI for thinking support.
You can create scripts.
You can write Markdown documents.
You can turn insights into articles.
You can leave records in chat.
You can turn app development into a portfolio.
You can convert experience into a resume.
You can verbalize your strengths.
You can draw boundaries.
In other words, many weaknesses have been externalized.
Before, you may have been someone who could do the work but struggled to explain, prove, and defend it.
Now, you are someone who can structure, document, and show the work externally.
That makes this a good time to move.
Conclusion: From the country of awareness to the country of design
The conclusion is simple.
You do not necessarily hate the company’s ideals.
You do not hate organizational theory.
You do not hate working seriously.
What you reject is a workplace operating system that expects individuals to fill structural holes with personal awareness.
In that environment, a person who tries to implement the ideal way of working becomes not a designer, but an absorber.
So moving is reasonable.
This is not running away.
It is moving from being the person who fills holes to a place where you are valued as the person who designs systems.
In Mendoi-chan terms, this is not merely retreating from dark magic.
It is rebuilding the protective barrier in the right place.
If the awareness team wants to fly using awareness, they can go ahead.
You already built the bridge.
If they refuse to use it, that is their decision.
You can now move to a place where design is valued.
参考文献・References
- Semmer, N. K., et al. “Illegitimate tasks as a source of work stress.” Work & Stress / PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4396521/
- Schaufeli, W. B. “Applying the Job Demands-Resources model.” https://www.wilmarschaufeli.nl/publications/Schaufeli/476.pdf
- Deci, E. L., Olafsen, A. H., & Ryan, R. M. “Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations.” https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017_DeciOlafsenRyan_annurev-orgpsych.pdf
- McAnally, K., et al. “Self-Determination Theory and Workplace Outcomes.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11200516/
- Edmondson, A. C. “Psychological Safety Does Not Equal Anything Goes.” https://amycedmondson.com/category/psychological-safety/
- World Health Organization / ICD-11 discussion via occupational burnout summaries. Burnout is generally treated as a work-related phenomenon involving chronic unmanaged workplace stress, exhaustion, cynicism or mental distance, and reduced professional efficacy.
