My coworker Hirai has called more than three hundred strangers in America. Always at night. Always the same five questions. He works in HR at our office in Tokyo. When we hire someone in America, he checks their references by phone. In Japan, a reference check takes two minutes. The old boss says, "He caused no problems." That is the highest praise we have. You hang up. In America, Hirai says, you do not hang up. You get comfortable. Some of his notes: "Is she reliable?" "Sir, in 2019 her car died in a blizzard and she walked four miles to open the store. Then she apologized for being late. Next question." "Would you hire him again?" "Hire him, adopt him, put him in my will. My wife is telling me to calm down. I won't." "Any weaknesses?" "He can't make coffee. We all tried to teach him. It isn't coffee. It's a cry for help." "How do you know her?" "I was her fourth-grade teacher. Haven't seen her in nineteen years. She was the one who sat with the new kid. Hire her." "Why did he leave your company?" "We closed. He was the last man out. He swept the floor of a building we'd already sold." Then came Tobias, applying to our office in Nashua, New Hampshire. His résumé had a two-year gap. In Japan, a gap ends the conversation. He had listed one reference. "Gwen Barlow (Mom). She'll tell you the truth." Nobody in our department had ever called somebody's mother. Hirai called anyway. 11 p.m., Tokyo time. She talked for forty minutes. He wrote down all of it. "He was in the Army. Two deployments. He came home and didn't say much for most of a year. He slept in his truck, in my driveway. I left the porch light on every night. Some mornings he came in for breakfast. Those were good mornings. Then one morning in June, I heard the mower. He did my lawn. Then the neighbor's. Then the whole street. No one asked. He just needed to finish something. That's what the gap is, honey. Him finding his way back to the lawn. He's back now. Please. Just meet him." Under her last sentence, Hirai wrote one word. "Hire." Tobias runs second shift now. Best attendance in the building. Every Saturday, he mows the strip of grass in front of the office. Nobody asked him to. Hirai has a note taped above his phone. He wrote it the night of that call. "In Japan, references tell you what a man did. In America, they tell you who he is." (Gwen has mailed our Tokyo office a Christmas card two years running. It is addressed to "Hirai, the Nice Man Who Called." HR has no idea where to file it.)