<Begin Segment 30>

TI: And so what was your place? What was your role at Osborn & Ulland?

YN: Cleaning up, stocking, doing all the things that nobody else wanted to do. I knew I could have a job by default, just like my mother and father knew. Nobody wanted to do what my mother and father wanted to do. I never knew why they could work, (even during a difficult economic environment). No comment.

TI: So your, your... sort of, your role in these early years was doing things that others didn't want to do. You would do the, those, those little sometimes dirty jobs that --

YN: Cleaning the toilets, the sidewalks, was not success (or having a job, but also gave security).

TI: Now how did you feel, because you were there for perhaps years now, and there would probably be newer people who would come. And yet, you were still doing these, these...

YN: And earning more money, and by the time I finished college (...) and everything else, I (still must have been the) lowest-paid person in that (store).

TI: So here you were, a college graduate, with seniority, and you would have these new people come in that would get paid more than you.

YN: That's right.

TI: And how did you, how did you feel about that?

YN: I felt that that was normal because they knew how to ski, they could play tennis. I couldn't do any of those things. We were in sports; I didn't know, I was not all-American or all-city or all-conference nothing. I never was on the Olympic team. My people, they were on the Olympics. They set world records, they jumped the furthest on a pair of skis. Jim Whittaker was the first man to climb Mount Everest. I knew my, I had none of those credentials. But the awesomeness of America is those are the (same) people that wanted me to become the boss.

TI: Well, so how did that transition happen? Being from the --

YN: Because none of them wanted to stay the rest of their lives being in the retail business. I won by default.

TI: So at some point, I mean, you started... because you must have started doing other things, too, besides the --

YN: And never because I was appointed. I did it because it wasn't being done. And pretty soon, the awesomeness of America, I was the boss. I still wasn't earning the money, but I was the boss.

TI: Because the, the founders at that point, they wanted to retire?

YN: They didn't like the retail business. It became seven days and seven nights. Nobody that owns anything wants to work seven days and seven nights. I was the (...) one that enjoyed it.

TI: Oh, so they put you in charge, because you would, you would be willing to spend the hours...

YN: That it was necessary. But the bank would say it differently, because all of us know banks. The bank said simply, "Do not let Yosh be the visible head of the company. We want you to be successful. We loan you the money. So therefore, put somebody besides Yosh as the visible head." And when my principals refused to do that, I knew I had a job for life.

TI: So when your principals, when the owners said, "No, Yosh is our man," and told the banks that, you knew that you had that job for life.

YN: For life.

TI: At what point -- I mean, how old were you when you started getting this responsibility?

YN: It was well after my college years, and I never, never, never once asked for a raise. I was a Japanese American; I didn't know how.

TI: [Laughs]

YN: You see...

TI: Well, how big was Osborn & Ulland during these years when you were...

YN: They were nothing. I built a business upon people, not economics. I had no wealth. I could not buy anything. My parents had no wealth. I needed to make a living, or my children would never have anything, and I lived in homes that my people wouldn't come to visit me because I lived next to Holly Park. They were scared. And I (lived) on Mercer Island, then another group of people thought they won't visit me because they didn't like (coming to the) Island. I couldn't win for trying.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.