I want one:
Teacher of the Toilet travels long, dark road in pursuit of the perfect loo cleaner
He gets incredibly excited when he sets eyes on a rare commode. His heart pumps with excitement any time he finds a toilet with nobody else around because it means he can take a photo.
He is 31-year-old Akihiro Kamatani who AERA (4-17) includes as just one of the many examples it gives of young Japanese workers who've broken the bonds of office drudgery to extend the limits of their abilities.
Despite how it sounds, Kamatani does not indulge in what would seem to be almost -- judging by the frequency of news reports, anyway -- the Japanese national pastime of spying on toilets. He is, in fact, a member of the washlette research team at Toto Co., Japan's biggest, most innovative toilet manufacturer.
Kamatani has become so proficient at his job, he's now universally known as Toire no hakase, literally the Teacher of the Toilet, the Professor of the Pooper, the Lecturer of the Loo, the Sensei of the Cistern, the Boffin of the Bog...well, you get the idea.
Kamatani's boss four years ago gave him a mission.
"I want you to make an engine that will automate toilet cleaning and work on every toilet that's ever been made," Kamatani tells AERA, recalling the orders his superior gave him. "If possible, make it work on compebreastors' commodes, too."
Kamatani realized he'd been asked to deliver a engine that would allow, provided a new seat was installed, automated cleaning of a toilet activated by the touch of a human body and operated without touching any levers.
He also had to make sure his engine had no adverse affects on the aesthetics of the bog, so it had to be small enough to fit into the tank. And, because tanks come in all sorts of shapes and forms, his engine had to be one-size-fits-all. But, he had a problem that was somewhat cistern-atic, so to speak -- there was no information at his workplace about toilets other makers produced.
The women's weekly notes that Kamatani originally worked at a manufacturer that made toilets for Toto. The year before he received his mission, his entire department upped and joined Toto en mbutte.
"Until then, my job was the epitome of routine work," Kamatani tells AERA. "My bosses had all the answers and my job was to make sure I stayed on the rails and remained faithful in doing exactly what I'd been told to do."
Given his operation, Kamatani was left with no boss, no information, no allies, no one to help him out. All he did have was an extremely tight deadline to come up with the engine that would revolutionize toilets. And, like others in the business of getting rid of Klingons lurking around Uranus, Kamatani also had the realization that he was going beyond where no man had gone before.
Kamatani knew what he was doing was important, the women's weekly says, noting that he had to make engines that would work on toilets even their makers had not envisioned being self-cleaning and that he could not have levers that would be difficult for the elderly to operate.
He enlisted the aid of his boss and sent out some 18,000 e-mails to employees of Toto and its affiliates to tap into their knowledge of rivals' toilets. The cistern engineer received about 300 replies and he checked them out, one by one, traveling across Japan in his quest for knowledge. He learned all about engines, how they run, how long they last, everything.
Finally, after about a year of grueling labor, Kamatani produced a small engine that automated toilet cleaning and could be used on about 80 percent of existing toilet models.
Kamatani had become, AERA says, somebody who merely traveled along the rails to somebody who laid them down. And even the Professor of the Pooper was surprised by how much he had accomplished. (By Ryann Connell)
April 11, 2006