Summary

In “The Surveillance Job,” the narrator watched two screens showing “the same person” (1). One screen displayed the person on one night, and the other screen of him on another night. The individual was Yamae Yamamoto, “the target of surveillance” (1). It was the narrator’s job to watch him at all waking hours in search of contraband. Yamamoto was a novelist, but spent most of his time eating, watching DVDs, writing articles, and shopping online. Whenever he opened the door for a courier, the narrator perked up. Her boss Mr. Someya believed the contraband would be in the DVD or food deliveries.

The narrator quit her previous job after developing “burnout syndrome” (7). She moved back in with her parents “to recuperate” and her recruiter Mrs Masakado found her the surveillance job (7). Although unlike her former work, the job was close to home, at...