One of the best-selling books of the past month is called "Moshi Kokoyakyuno Jyoshi Manejyaga Drucker no Management wo Yondara"(「もし高校野球の女子マネージャーがドラッカーのマネージメントを読んだら」"If the Girl Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker's 'The Practice of Management'") by Natsumi Iwasaki. The novel follows Minami, manager of her high school baseball team, as she uses Peter Drucker's famous tome on management to guide the team to success. The book sheds light not just on the issue of management but also the profound world of high school girl managers.
Many able-bodied and intelligent jyoshi (女子, teenage girls or a woman with the energy and spirit of a teenage girl) dream at least once in their lives of being a manējyā (マネージャー manager), preferably of a baseball, basketball or soccer club (the sweatier the better). But having made it through the gates, they're often appalled at the incredible effort and workload involved.
A good friend of mine was the manager of the danshi kendō-bu (男子剣道部, boys' kendo club) in high school, and within six months she had developed a jyūen hage 十円はげ, a bald spot the size of a ¥10 coin) on the side of her head and had undergone a mōchō no shujyutsu (盲腸の手術, appendectomy) due to sheer, undiluted stress.