How Can My Manager Be So Stupid?

by Kazumasa Hayami

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction; Satire

Synopsis

"The perfect mix of wry humor, fascinating characters, and heartfelt thoughts on what it means to understand the world through stories.”—Kristen Perrin, New York Times bestselling author of How to Solve Your Own Murder

A wickedly funny office comedy about one bookseller’s (occasionally) ludicrous attempts to understand her manager while against all odds clinging to her passion for books—the perfect read for anyone who has felt that they can't even . . . with the idiots among us.

Kyoko Tanihara loves books. Just about. But life at the Musashino Bookshop is starting to get her down. Instead of promoting her favorite stories, she finds herself distracted, tearing her hair out at the mere sight of her infuriating manager Takeru Yamamoto who can’t seem to do anything but get in her way of success.

From Yamamoto’s useless obsession with self-helps books to his cringey remarks on the hottest author in town, everything about Yamamoto seems designed to set Kyoko off. All that amid her struggle to make a name for herself in the publishing world, it's tough for her to keep her love of literature pure and alive. 

Until one day she is handed a book that speaks to all her frustrations, and opens her eyes to a whole new reality. What if there's actually more to her manager's obnoxious antics? What if, just maybe, her manager isn't so stupid after all?

Release date: September 1, 2026

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 272

Sample

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1

How Can
My Manager
Be So Stupid?

Fed up to the back teeth with Manager Yamamoto's meandering story, I suddenly remembered I was close to my period.

I had been on edge since I had woken up this morning, and it took forever just to crawl out of bed. Groaning in pain, I'd somehow managed to pull myself out from under the covers and stumble into the bathroom. There, staring back at me in the mirror, was the bloated, haggard face of a monster.

And to think, just hours before that, everything had been so incredibly fun. I had gone to Miharu, my dad's small restaurant in Kagurazaka, with a few friends from my university days, where we had drunk late into the night. Little did I know that I was setting myself up to suffer from terrible swelling and a debilitating headache.

"What's wrong? Kyoko Tanihara? Are you listening?"

There I was, massaging my forehead to absolutely no effect, when Yamamoto directed that question my way. For whatever reason, he had a habit of addressing his staff by their full names. Maybe he thought it was funny.

If you haven't guessed already, Musashino Books' Kichijoji branch was home to a famously incompetent manager, our very own Takeru Yamamoto. The name might call to mind the legendary prince Yamato Takeru, but our fearless leader wasn't anywhere near as heroic, his standout quality being a mere foppish smile that scored full marks for getting right under your skin.

He was reasonably well liked among the part-time staff, seen as relatively lenient as far as managers went. Rumor had it he would be turning forty this year. Of course, I could hardly care less about whether he was turning forty or thirty or fifty.

And so, standing there, his scrawny chest sharply outlining his rib cage through his shirt, he turned his gaze away from me and back again to the staff. "I know I mentioned this yesterday, but we're expecting a visit from one of our publishing company partners, Hoeisha, probably tomorrow or the day after. They might come up to the counter. If they do, please let me know so I can take over."

With that self-satisfied look of his, there he was, repeating the exact same thing he had told us yesterday-tomorrow or the day after. Nothing meaningful ever came from his long-winded morning pep talks. If the representatives were coming tomorrow or the day after, why not just tell us then?

Heck, even without any advance warning, if someone popped into the store during open hours and asked to see the manager, of course we would call him over. It wouldn't matter who they were or whether or not we had been warned beforehand.

Nine-forty a.m. The beginning of another ridiculously busy day at the store. Not one morning went by that I wasn't left at the end of my tether by how much time we wasted on these pointless meetings.

Yamamoto had always been overly enthusiastic about these morning assemblies. Come to think of it, I heard recently he was currently obsessed with self-improvement books. If he started screaming quasi-motivational platitudes like Teamwork is dream work! expecting us to repeat them after him, I would seriously have to consider throwing in the towel. I couldn't survive in that kind of environment.

Hurry up, I murmured under my breath. Get this over with. I hadn't even finished shelving all the newly arrived books yet.

In that moment, as if in silent mockery, Yamamoto raised the object clutched in his right hand into the air and fixed me with a smirk. "I bought this book for myself when I came in this morning. I've only flipped through it so far, but it's quite interesting. Very informative. I hope you'll consider reading it yourselves. If you're interested, I'd be happy to lend it to you."

How could someone in his shoes, literally the manager of a bookstore, casually talk about lending books? He didn't have the faintest shred of concern for giving back to authors.

And while his ho-hum attitude never failed to rub me the wrong way, what I found most infuriating was that this man, despite his choice of vocation, despite his title and position, barely read anything.

The book that he was so proudly holding up in front of us all was a bestselling business title from a few years back by someone called Tomoya Takemaru, whose credentials were as clear as mud. It was like if someone came up to me asking for a literary fiction recommendation and I gave them Harry Potter.

I just couldn't stomach that steady, unwavering gaze of his. Letting out a quiet sigh to break the silence, I glanced again at the book in his hand.

I felt like punching Tomoya Takemaru in the face.

Seventy-Seven Ways for Capable Leaders to Instill an Appreciation for Hospitality in Unmotivated Staff!

Who in their right mind would want to read something like that?!


I had been in a foul mood since the start of my shift. I had to rush to finish restocking the shelves before opening time, then dashed behind the counter and carefully massaged my face back into some semblance of amiability.

"You look a bit worked up, Kyoko. What's wrong? Is it that time of the month?"

Even though she had her own duties to see to, Mari Koyanagi, a permanent full-time employee seven years my senior, came over to check up on me.

Her skin was so radiant and flawless that you would never guess she was thirty-five. Between us, ninety-nine percent of the newly hired part-timers probably assumed I was the older one. Mari was wearing the same generic moss-green apron that I was, but on her, it somehow had the look of expensive Scandinavian couture.

Koyanagi was one of a very small number of straight-dealing individuals working at the store, and she was practically the voice of my inner conscience. By my own conservative estimate, there had been no less than ten occasions when I had seriously considered giving my two weeks' notice, and for at least nine of those, it was Koyanagi who had convinced me to change my mind.

"No, not yet. Right? Our cycles are usually in perfect sync, aren't they?" she said with a chuckle.

The frustration that had been bubbling away in me all morning slowly subsided. I didn't mind when Koyanagi addressed me by my first name-in fact, I found it kind of endearing. Of course, if Yamamoto tried speaking to me that way, I would make a huge fuss-that could easily be taken for sexual harassment.

It felt like only yesterday that we had both been standing at the counter, rubbing our temples like mirror images of each other, and discovered that our menstrual cycles were almost perfectly aligned. Yes, I thought with a sigh, that discovery had meant a great deal to me at the time.

"No, not yet," I answered her.

"So, what's bothering you? Is it him?"

"Yamamoto?"

"No?"

"What about him?"

She opened her mouth in silent imitation of his earlier speech. I couldn't help but laugh.

"No, no," I said with a wave. "Well, yes. But not today."

There wasn't really any way to explain it, but when it came to Yamamoto, I couldn't stand it when other people spoke ill of him, and for whatever reason, I would quickly leap to his defense.

Koyanagi, understanding this well, let out a loud snort. "Then why are you so tense? When you rub your face like that, it's usually because you're trying to calm yourself down. Right?"

Ah, here it was-my belief that no matter how dissatisfied everything at the store might leave me, I could put up with it, I could endure, just so long as I had at least one colleague who truly understood me.

I had nothing against busy evenings when the store was packed full of customers, but my favorite time of day was the few quiet minutes before opening time, when soft sunbeams would stream in through the east-facing windows, catching dust motes as they danced faintly through the air.

"Have you read the advance copy of Kenya Onishi's new book?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Hmm? The one Oraikan sent a while back?"

"That one, yeah. The Continuing Adventures of Koyoi Saotome. It's coming out next week."

"Ah. Nope. It didn't grab me."

"I was going to give it a pass, too, but then I started flipping through it the other day. It was . . . I don't know, it was kind of interesting, in a way."

"Really? I thought it looked kind of off, you know?"

"Well . . . it was and it wasn't. Did you know it's set in a bookstore?"

"No. Can't say I did."

"That wouldn't normally be my thing, but the story kind of grabbed me. It's about a bestselling author who publishes under the pen name Koyoi Saotome. Feeling like she's reached her limit, she retires from writing and starts working in a bookstore while hiding her true identity."

"Oh? That does sound kind of interesting."

"Right? But at the same time, I was rolling my eyes, you know? A story about a novelist with shattered dreams who ends up working in a bookstore? Seriously, does she understand just how badly this line of work pays? I kept pushing through, but it was really starting to get on my nerves."

"Why?"

"For one thing, everything was just so rose-tinted, you know? I mean, maybe there are people out there who can jump out of bed each morning all excited about putting in another day of work at their favorite store. I'm sure there have to be shops like that-people like that. Anyway, that wasn't my main problem with the book. I could have lived with that. But there was one thing I just couldn't stand."

"What?"

"Someone gets killed in this all-too-perfect bookstore, turning it into a murder mystery. But Saotome manages to solve the case. And then a handsome writer who used to be her rival comes to the store one day for a book signing and falls head over heels in love with her. But she rejects him without revealing her true identity, and then ends up dating the store manager instead, convinced he's the only one who truly understands her. At that point, the manager reveals that he already knows who she really is."

"How?"

"That's just it. He said the way she solved the murder was exactly like in the books she wrote. And he also noticed that her name was an anagram."

"An anagram?"

"Yeah. So the protagonist's name is Sayoko Emoto."

"Mm-hmm?"

"If you rearrange the letters, the manager tells her, you get Koyoi Saotome."

"Huh. That's pretty clever."

"The i is missing, though."

"Oh?"

"The letter i in Koyoi isn't in the name Sayoko Emoto! But the book doesn't mention that at all! It isn't a proper anagram! Talk about sloppy! It's unbelievable!"

While I rattled on, with Koyanagi this close to dissolving into a fit of laughter, the tune of "Music Box Dancer" started playing over the loudspeakers to signal that we were now open for business.

Several elderly regulars, some of our most finickity customers, came through, but I wasn't about to let that dampen my spirits. Glancing back at Koyanagi, I tried to imagine myself in Saotome's shoes.

An unexplained murder on the store floor?

A manager armed with astute powers of deduction?

An author falling madly in love with you?

Responding to said author with a savage rejection?

Because you realize you have feelings for your manager?

And then you both fall happily in love?

Gah! Blech!

Disgusting!

As if!

"So you read the whole thing?" Koyanagi asked, pulling me back from the depths of my revulsion.

"Right. That's my point. I couldn't put it down."

"Are you going to write any promotional comments, then?"

"No way in hell."

"Well, it's published by Oraikan, you said? I suppose that makes sense."

Koyanagi shifted her gaze back to the sales floor, and I followed suit. Our workplace, Musashino Books, was a medium-sized bookstore with five other branches. True to the company name, the majority of them were located in the Musashino district of Tokyo.

The main store, where I worked, was located in fashionable Kichijoji, albeit a ten-minute walk from the station area, which was overcrowded with competition from larger bookstores. We were situated in a somewhat remote spot off the main shopping street, and the sales floor was only around a hundred and twenty square meters.

There were two main reasons the store had managed to establish itself in spite of these disadvantages.

The first was that we stocked a strong lineup of titles belonging to a variety of different subcultures. In the past, there had been a good number of independent movie theaters in the area, and the management had sought to cater to these audiences. The theaters might have closed over the years, but the store still had the support of a great number of subculture fans.

The second was standing right next to me-Mari Koyanagi. Early on in her career, one of her written reviews got picked up by the publisher and wider media, which turned the novel she had written about into an explosive success-though she would no doubt humbly attribute it to beginner's luck.

At the time, the name Mari Koyanagi had been just as recognizable as that of Musashino Books itself, appearing not only on covers and blurbs and in newspaper and magazine advertisements, but on train station billboards as well. Even as a student, I knew how much weight her endorsement carried. Since then, publishers from all over the country have been asking her to give recommendations.

I absolutely adored her reviews. They were filled with such love and kindness. It was clear from the way she wrote that her comments came from the heart and weren't given simply to keep in with the publishing houses. I bought every book she recommended without the slightest hesitation, and while I had never told her this, it was largely because of her that I had chosen to work at Musashino Books.

That being said, we didn't start off as colleagues. I started at the Kichijoji store as a contract employee, while Koyanagi, working for the company full-time, was transferred from another branch three years ago. I couldn't even make eye contact the first time we met, my hands trembling as I told her how much I admired her. Yet despite my odd behavior, she was even kinder than I had imagined.

She taught me everything I needed to know, and not just about my work duties-how to pick interesting books, how to review them, how to deal with a pain-in-the-ass boss, you name it. Sometimes she even took me out for lunch or drinks.