Coming to love one's work
Recalling the time at which he joined the company and was assigned to his post, Mr. Yamagishi says "I immediately felt that I wanted to spend my entire life working on lenses...even though I was not that good with my hands. This was because I was struck by the fact that small, precise lenses had to be meticulously polished by someone, one by one."
He recounts that as he learnt techniques from his senior colleagues, he came to enjoy his job more and more. "I would like lots of people to know that—clumsy as I am—I have been chosen as a Nikon Master Craftsperson. In order to become a fully fledged technician, it is more important to strive to overcome one's clumsiness and to love one's work than to possess manual dexterity. It is by loving one's work and persisting diligently in one's task that one acquires skills."
Mr. Yamagishi turns the polishing rod while looking at the front lens and the polishing plate. He alters the speed and angle at which the rod is turned, judging the progress of the polishing by feeling with his fingertips. Simple as it looks, hand-polishing work involves a high degree of skill built up over the course of many years.