-Continued from the last post.

My eyes gaze upon the vacant potato machinery. There’s an absence. An absence at the battlefield.

What do I do? Do I rush and cover for the absence or do I hold my position. Thousand thoughts run through my head but then one voice punctures through, ‘‘Do what the Japanese would do.’’ As soon as I hear those words I get ready. Neither can leave my position nor can I leave the potatoes unattended. So what I did what any Japanese employee would do, I do both.

The next half hour is crazy. We are a man down and I am covering two positions. As I am answering orders on my headset I stir the potatoes with one hand and put salt with the other. This is the time when it feels like Japan is going through a famine and the only food that’s left is McDonald’s. You won’t believe how many bags of potatoes I had to make while taking the orders and running to the cashier at the back. But as a well-trained soldier, I don’t make a single mistake.

After this initial late-night rush things calm down. Slowly the night soldiers replace the evening soldiers. We get ready to prepare the shop for the morning. As a night soldier that is your most important job. The weight of how the shop will run the next day rests on your shoulders. It is you who prepares the ammunition for the morning soldiers.

The head for the night arrives and changes with the evening head. He greets me as we discuss the strategy for the night. Now let me tell you something about the night shift. We start at 10 pm and finish at 5 am. That is the time the morning soldiers arrive. Within this time we have to not only prepare the shop for them but also clean everything up.

The strategy is set. The head handles the things at the front all alone from 2 am while I go clean the whole shop. But the thing is I can’t rest on my laurels. Anytime the head gives me the signal on the headset I need to rush back and handle orders.

The next 1 hour goes pretty smoothly. I sweep the whole shop, mop the whole shop, deal with the trash and clean the toilets. I do this faster than the other soldiers so I give myself some breathing space. Normally we are given 2 hours to get it done but I do it in 1 hour.

Although I said I can’t rest on my laurels, I always end up doing it. I rest for a bit. But then I hear the doors open, the smell of alcohol hits me and I immediately stand up. ‘‘They are here’’, I say to myself.