I was working on the 19th floor of the company building in Tokyo on March 11, 2011. Closer to 3 pm, I felt a gentle shake. Then the shake got bigger and bigger, until you could feel the entire floor swaying side to side. It was the great Tohoku Earthquake, and though Tokyo was not directly hit, it was by far the biggest earthquake I ever experienced in my life. I was terrified.

For the next half an hour after the shake stopped, all of us made frantic calls and texts to family and friends to confirm their safety. Then after everyone’s safety was assured…. we went right back to work. I don’t know how they were internally, but neither my bosses nor my colleagues showed any visible distress nor made comments about the earthquake. Really, it was business as usual on the surface.

A slight complication came up around 6 pm, when we heard the announcement that most of the train lines were closed for the day, which meant that most of us, including myself, couldn’t go home that night. Some of them opted to stay in office since the company (of course) had blankets and food for situations like this. My colleague offered me to stay at his apartment nearby, so I gladly took up on his offer with other couple of my team members.

The second moment came as we were walking to the apartment. The street was packed with other fellow workers who were also walking home, and we were hungry and tired after an hour. We stopped by a Thai restaurant, where we were greeted by the shop owner, who apologized in advance that the service might be slow because his workers couldn’t show up because the trains were stopped.

It was so bizarre (even for me) to see that a huge earthquake didn’t affect work ethics nor customer service.