A superhero on the operations team!!
Satoru Matsunaga saves everyone

This time, we'd like to introduce you to the superhero of our operations team, who is affectionately known within the company as "Papa" or "Dad."

His name is Satoru Matsunaga. He is 36 years old. He is 178cm tall. He is from Okayama. He is married and has two children.
Matsunaga is almost a generation older than me and we are in the same year.
We are comrades, so to speak, having worked together on projects for a long time.

He serves as a coder, director, team leader, and many other roles in the creative department, and is someone everyone can rely on.
I don't think there was anyone in the club who hadn't been helped by Matsunaga.

Although it may be presumptuous of me, I, Kakarai, who is on the same operations team, would like to say a few words about Matsunaga.

A budding hero, Kind Santa.

It was about three years ago.
Matsunaga joined the company about a month before me.
He was tall and skinny, and frankly, gave off an air of unreliability, but he handled the difficult tasks with such efficiency that it was hard to believe he was a rookie.
He has a gentle demeanor, and from his appearance, the way he speaks, and his whole being, it is immediately clear that he is a kind person.
Matsunaga, who was still enrolled in a vocational training school for web production, left work at 3 p.m. to attend class.

I was surprised to hear through the grapevine that he was married with children.

Working as a coder and director, he quickly gained the trust of those around him in terms of his technical skills, and coupled with his good personality, others naturally approached him with work. Soon the number of projects he received increased, and I vividly remember Matsunaga having his head in the sand about how to adjust resources, consulting with his senior colleagues.

According to the leader, Kurihara, Matsunaga was a very motivated person, but he also had a tendency to be clumsy at key points. However, he said that Matsunaga was someone who would face any task head on.

Matsunaga and I never had the opportunity to work on the same cases, so we didn't have many opportunities to talk.
The day before my first Christmas since joining the company, Matsunaga happened to be taking a break at the same time, so I asked him about his daughter's Christmas present. His eyes sparkled as he replied,

"I'm going to be Santa!"

Apparently, he was going to dress up as Santa Claus at a Christmas party with his relatives and hand out presents. I think the present was a bicycle.
I had only ever seen him busy at work, but that winter of my first year made me truly realize what a kind father he was.

The hero draws his weapons from a colorful past.

Matsunaga has a diverse background and it is difficult to describe him in a few words.
So let me explain briefly step by step.

A photo of him in Seoul when he was a ship operator. He looks sharp in a suit, but his aura is not that different from now.

1. Checkers

Matsunaga got a job at a software development company and was assigned to the quality control department.
The developed software was test-run and checked.
It seems he has had an awareness of IT for quite some time, and it was around this time that he started to take a serious approach to a problem.

Part 2-1. Apparel store clerk

In a complete change from my previous job, I once worked as an apparel sales clerk for a certain famous brand.
His experience in customer service, including making phone calls to customers, can be seen in his current work. Matsunaga is able to act and speak from the other person's perspective, and whether he is talking to a customer through a screen or over the phone, he treats them as if they were right in front of him.

Part 2-2. Creation of an EC site

When I was an apparel store clerk.
Apparently he was creating and running a personal e-commerce site through a friend's connections.
He learned HTML and CSS by himself and created the site. Surprisingly, he also studied and implemented SEO measures.
Apparently they tried various things to get it to the top of search results.

Part 3. Ocean transport operator

This is also a sea transport operator, a complete change from his previous job and the job before that.
I was checking the routes of ships arriving at various ports and handling port entry procedures.
It seems that it was a lot of work to contact all the different parties and make the necessary arrangements, as bad weather such as typhoons caused delays to the ship's progress, procedures had to be changed when returning to the original port, and a different ship had to be sent to the destination port.

Matsunaga's work as a web director is also quick in coordinating projects.
Even if we receive a request for a short delivery time, we will flexibly decide the delivery date based on the customer's schedule, including checking the resources of designers and coders.
The speed and accuracy is a joy to watch.

The birth of a friendly, honest and positive superhero.

After a diverse career, he switched to web operations because he wanted to create something useful. His experience in creating e-commerce sites gave him a positive feeling for creating something useful.

The reason he chose Monosus was because of a comment from a teacher at his vocational training school. He was hired straight away at his first company.
The person who did not miss such a talented person as Matsunaga was Kurihara, the head of the current department who was in charge of recruitment at the time. It is no exaggeration to say that this was Kurihara's greatest achievement of the century.

And when you look at Matsunaga's past work history, all of it has become his weapon.
His approach, his gentle demeanor, his ambition to improve production and its convenience, his ability to respond flexibly and get people involved... Matsunaga is rapidly becoming a superhuman thanks to his honesty, experience and learning.

Another great thing about him is his stable motivation and mentality.
Even if he has a cold, or if it's the day after working late into the night, or even if he's under pressure with a project, his typing speed remains fast. His attitude toward the project and his speed remain unchanged.

Naturally, everyone began asking Matsunaga for his opinion.
Moreover, he is very caring and never gives up on people, so in the past, whenever he called out to people, he would stop what he was doing and listen to them one by one. He doesn't just give advice, he also gives out knowledge and gives his all, saying things like, "Why don't you try that?", "Have you tried this?", "I'll do it!"

Matsunaga's work didn't progress because everyone was talking to him so much that it even became a problem at one point, so there was even a rule that said, "When I have a marker on my desk, I will be concentrating on my work, so please refrain from talking to me!"

I feel like I'm the one who's been talking the most recently. I'm always sorry.

Matsunaga stops what he is doing and gives serious advice. His advice is spot on and you can't help but nod and say "I see."

Matsunaga also came to prominence when he worked single-mindedly to launch a new project for a certain e-commerce site.
Just the coding itself was a difficult task, but we scribbled down a lot of JavaScript to reproduce the complex processes and movements.
In addition, since there was more text input than in normal projects, they implemented a system to process the confusing parts using CSV, which increased the efficiency of subsequent operations and enabled them to handle a wide variety of content.
Moreover, there were times when I was juggling two jobs at the same time, even though one was already quite difficult.
He has also built a solid foundation for operations, and is now able to hand over the business to his subordinates in a stable state.

Leader Kurihara also praises his coding skills, saying they have improved significantly since he joined the company.
They seem to respect the fact that he not only completed the projects independently, but that this is the result of his daily efforts outside of work.

Anpanman helps everyone,
Uncle Jam and Buta-san help him.

Hmm.
I would like to talk more about Matsunaga's heroic deeds here, but I am so grateful for his help that I don't know what to write. Of course, there are stories of him helping me. But I'm not sure if I can write something that will really touch your heart.

To be honest, although we hype up superheroes, flashy heroes like Superman and Batman are a bit different.
Matsunaga is more like a hero like Anpanman or Mito Komon, who work hard every day to make the world a better place.

In the Anpanman story, Uncle Jam senses danger and makes a new face, and Buta-chan replaces the face with a fastball. In the end, Baikinman is defeated by a one-hit killer Anpanman punch, but he cannot ignore the support of Uncle Jam and Buta-chan.
Of course, this sequence wouldn't work without Anpanman's sense of justice and Anpanchi's special move.

Matsunaga is surrounded by talented designers who respond quickly, and when he is in a pinch, he has subordinates who pick up excess projects. When he is in a pinch, he also has connections in other departments who are willing to listen. Clients also trust Matsunaga, and give the OK to adjust estimates and schedules.

I think the scene where Anpanman gives part of his face to a hungry child is similar to Matsunaga.
It is because he puts his life on the line to help others that everyone cheers him on and gives him strength in times of need. Even those who don't have a face in their hands see him doing so and want to help him.
This is something neither Superman nor Batman can do.

Matsunaga is a hero because he has a combination of stable motivation, mental strength, personality and experience that can be called a decisive weapon, and because he has people who support him.

It's surprisingly difficult to give specific examples of Anpanman's heroic deeds.
But I can say with complete confidence that they have taken care of me.
Matsunaga's presence is immeasurable to the operations team.

He looks intently at the screen. He is so focused that he doesn't even notice the camera lens pointing at him. But when the camera calls out "Matsunaga-san," he stops.

Last year, there were rumors that Matsunaga would be away for a month on childcare leave.
This means that Uncle Jam and Butako have to save the city. What a disaster.

The hero is actually a father of two children.

After the Christmas story, I had many opportunities to chat with Matsunaga about his children, and when he talks about his children, he definitely belongs to the category of doting parent.

Matsunaga is what people often call a devoted husband.
He had heard many times his wife express concern for him, but this was especially true when it came to pregnancy.

Although Matsunaga's absence was worrying, everyone wanted him to take parental leave.

Although her parental leave came with its challenges, such as handing over responsibilities to other employees, Matsunaga managed to get back on leave and reported in the department's group chat that she had just had her second child.

"Last night, a baby boy was born safely, weighing 4,010g. His name is Ken."

Newborn Ken-chan. May 27, 2016.

It's big! You can see from the attached photo how big it is.
Along with relief, the group chat erupted with congratulations from members.
There was a celebratory mood within the company, with several people from other departments even asking, "Has your (Matsunaga's) father had a baby?"

An article about Matsunaga's parental leave has already been published.
"For the first time at Monosus, a father took parental leave. What has changed at home and at work?"

Even after her return, she talks with high cheekbones about her eldest daughter, Tsubaki-chan, and eldest son, Ken-chan.

"Ken-chan is too big to fit into the Bumbo (baby chair) (laughs)."
"Tsubaki (my first daughter) said to me on a sunny day, 'It's going to rain today,' and it really did rain that evening! Isn't that amazing?!"
"I'm going to run in the dad relay at the sports day, but I'm worried about whether I can run properly."

There aren't many men around me who are raising children, so hearing stories from a father's perspective is fresh and very interesting.
I wonder if my father ever spoke to anyone else.
It made me wonder what it was like between me and my father, and I suddenly felt like I wanted to visit him in the countryside.

The Matsunaga family. A photo from Ken-chan's first birthday party. His wife is so beautiful that everyone is always surprised, and Matsunaga's nose always grows longer. Matsunaga's mobile phone wallpaper is a picture of Tsubaki-chan. He also draws pictures of his family, adding blush with watercolors to the cheeks and often drawing in Matsunaga's beard, so he's really good at it!

According to Matsunaga, since becoming a father he has become more careful about his behavior.
"For better or worse, children imitate their parents, so when I see my child misbehaving, I feel like I have to stand up straighter. I'm not always conscious of it, but even when I'm at home, I've started to think about whether it's okay to behave like this."

Seeing Matsunaga's gentle yet strong back, Tsubaki and Ken will surely grow up healthy.
He said that when his children turn 20, he hopes they will be a family that can laugh together, eat meals together, and drink alcohol.
There's no need to worry, that time will come, but I too sincerely hope that my wish will come true.

A hero who aims for "smooth operation"
Propagating skills and kindness,
Possessing unfathomable power.

"I want to be able to carry out projects more efficiently, with less stress, and more smoothly."
When asked what he wants to do in the future, his answer was powerful, passionate and very realistic.

Over the past few years, the level of services requested of our operations team has risen dramatically.
The web industry is constantly changing, with SEO strategies, switching to new tools, security measures, analytics analysis, social media trends, and more. New technologies are constantly being developed, and customers' sites must be updated accordingly.

The introduction of new technology can sometimes improve efficiency, but can also make the previous workflow no longer applicable and take a lot of time. To prevent human error, each employee was required to improve their skills.

At that time, Matsunaga held a study session for members of the department to improve their skills.
The demand for Git (a version control system) in operations was beginning to increase, but there were few staff members who understood the basics and how to use it in practice. Although it is a convenient tool, one step in using it incorrectly can cause accidents.
That's when Matsunaga, who had been at the forefront of introducing Git, stepped up.

This pose in front of everyone. It looks amazing. The spotlight is on Matsunaga.

The participants correctly understood each and every basic operation, including how it works, and actually operated Git on their own.
The good thing about this meeting was that everyone felt free to raise their hand and ask questions.
Although the training took place in a small room, the participants naturally became close to each other and there was no sense of tension in a good way, and they were able to raise their hands and speak about even the simplest things.
What impressed me most about the lecture was how much fun Matsunaga seemed to be having while giving it.

Starting with the Git study group, Matsunaga's comments of "Why don't you try that?" and "Have you tried this?" have improved the skills of those around him, and may be steadily progressing towards the "smooth operation" that Matsunaga aims for.

Igeta, who has been working on projects under Matsunaga the longest among the team members, said he hopes to learn as much of Matsunaga's knowledge as possible and pass it on to the next person in the team.
Now that he has juniors under him, he is in a position to mentor them. I'm sure he too is stopping what he's doing, listening to what each of them has to say, and sharing his knowledge.
The knowledge will continue to spread, and the operations team will continue to circulate under Matsunaga's influence.

Matsunaga's team consists of five people. From the left, Matsunaga, Sato, Gouda, Murakami, and Takahashi. Having a meeting with Kamiyama on Hangouts. And on the left edge of the screen, cut off by Kurihara.

Although this is only a small part of it, I hope I was able to convey how amazing Matsunaga was.
There are many things I would like to talk about, such as Matsunaga as a team leader and how he shines at karaoke, but I will leave it at that for now. Matsunaga is a man of unfathomable potential.

Thank you as always, Hero Matsunaga.