The Office Cats that like to Travel — A&S Inc.

By Monthly Cat-Friend Newspaper <月刊 猫とも新聞> No.97 July 2018

FROM THE TITLE, you might think that A&S Incorporated is a travel agency. However, it is actually a tech company that provides IT communication strategies such as web development and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), helping clients to optimize their online conversion goals.

So what’s all this talk about cats? Well, apparently, cats are a good match for people who work at IT companies. According to a survey in 2013, the highest percentage of people who prefer dogs work for trading companies, and the highest percentage of those who prefer cats work for IT companies.

In fact, if we take a look at some famous cat people from the past, it appears that creative people (like painters or novelists) were better matched with cats than people in other professions. A couple of noteworthy examples are Léonard Foujita, a Japanese painter renowned for his participation in French culture as well as his paintings of cats, and Sōseki Natsume, a Japanese novelist best known for his novel "I Am a Cat" and whose portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1,000-yen note. These days, many creative people find themselves working for IT companies, and so in the same way, they may find it beneficial to work alongside some feline friends in the office.

To this end, A&S Inc has made cats an integral part of office life. Believe it or not, both their general manager and secretary are actually cats.

The name of the “general manager” is Daikichi, and the “secretary” is Fuku-chan (real name Daifuku). They are both personal cats of the CEO, Daisuke Nagasawa.

Strangely enough, Daisuke initially had no intention of having any pet cats. Although he loved cats as a boy, his father was of the opposite mind and would go as far as to throw out all the kitties he tried to keep in boyhood. Those terrible experiences had a traumatic effect. He vowed not to have pets as an adult because he would find it too difficult to be separated from them, even for a short time.

However, Daisuke's wife Tomomi is a born and bred animal enthusiast. She used to be employed by the Ministry of the Environment as a national park ranger, working there for 10 years until she joined A&S Inc. as an executive alongside Daisuke. 

By that time, she had become an expert on wild birds and animals, such as eagles and bears. Although more conventional pets like dogs and cats were out of her professional field, she also had a great affinity for them, too.

Then, one shivery winter day in December 2006, while she was still working as a ranger in Hokkaido, the largest and most northern prefecture in Japan, she got an emergency call dispatching her to a snowy road in a suburban area. A cat seemed to have been found on the ground in a bad condition.

According to the caller, a cat lover who happened to have driven by, the cat was a scrawny male on its last legs. He got out of his car to feed some canned cat food to him. Fortunately, he always carried some cat food in his car, both for his own beloved cat and for any stray cats he stumbled upon around town.

Revitalized by the food, the poor cat suddenly got up and jumped into the car. Initially, the man tried to put him back into the original spot because he thought his own cat wouldn't take well to having a rival around. However, to his annoyance, the cat kept coming back to the car, despite being unsteady on its feet.

At this point, the man requested the assistance of park ranger Tomomi. This was thus the moment when Daikichi entered the Nagasawa’s lives for the first time.

Some years later, Tomomi also rescued an abandoned female cat while she was working for Shinjuku Gyoen National Park in Tokyo. This cat was Fuku-chan.

Daikichi and Fuku-chan then became formal family members when Tomomi got married to Daisuke, despite the fact that he was still strongly opposed to owning cats.

Indeed, these days Daisuke is completely fascinated by the fluffy cuties. He takes his cats everywhere he goes.

However, his love for them was not the only reason he started to take them on all his trips. Daikichi was a stray adult cat born in the wild, meaning that he was very unfriendly to other people at that time. Both “Mom and Dad” loved traveling, and were away from home on a regular basis, but Daikichi's behavior during their absence was proving to be a great worry.

Daikichi got so upset at being kept in a pet hotel during their absence, that he would end up screaming all night. Therefore, Daisuke and Tomomi decided to hire an experienced pet sitter to take care of Daikichi and Fuku-chan during their next trip. However, they soon got a telephone message from the pet-sitter requesting that Daikichi be kept in the cage. Apparently, he had been bitten by Daikichi, who was unforgiving towards unfamiliar people. They had no alternative but to apologize to the pet sitter and try a new strategy.

It was at this point that they realized that maybe the best course of action would be to simply take the cats with them. After all, Daisuke and Tomomi also disliked being parted from their beloved cats whilst on the road. Therefore, they decided to try out this new strategy.

They started to go everywhere with the cats, including trips up into the mountains and out to the sea. Fortunately, "Traveling with Cats" was much more fun than they had expected. They also became popular among local people wherever they visited.

There was an additional benefit, too; Daikichi was getting more and more sociable thanks to the increased exposure to a variety of different people and environments. On the other hand, Fuku-chan, who had a longstanding visional impairment, was actually the one who took longer to adjust to the new traveling lifestyle, although these days she is so outgoing that she is not even afraid of big dogs.

In this way, the cats got used to always being with Daisuke and Tomomi. And this led to them thinking, “Well if we can take them on trips, why can’t we take them to the office too?”

So, what is it like for the other workers to have cats in the office? Coincidentally, Tadashi Karino, one of A&S’s staff members, also had a strong aversion to owning cats, stemming from a similar childhood upbringing to Daisuke; his father had also abandoned rescue cats which he tried to take in when he was a boy.

However, he says, "Now it's OK. I don’t need to have a cat at home, as I can see cats in the office anytime." According to him, his smartphone is one of Daikichi’s favorite toys.

The staff and the cats get along well because they are close but still have their own personal space. The staff often tickle or pat the cats passing by, but never hug or cuddle them. Likewise, the cats are calm and relaxed near to the staff but never complain or nag for anything. The cats seem to feel more comfortable keeping a reasonable distance from their work colleagues.

Today, as always, the general manager Daikichi and the secretary Fuku-chan commute to work in a chauffeured baby stroller; their form of a company limousine.

[Translated by Daisuke Nagasawa (Dad); English Proofreading by John Rayner]