Mister Robert and Quincy stood in the restaurant in the early morning. There were five employees, three waitresses and two chefs. One of the three waitresses in a maid uniform also doubled as a kitchen helper, cleaning dishes.
“Alright everyone, Mister Quinn is now the new owner of Robert’s Eating House.”
Quincy nodded and smiled at the workers. The three ladies, he had seen them back when he came for a meal. “Hello. This is my assistant, Sara. Both of us will just watch how things are done for a few days, while we figure out where we want to take this business as the new owners.”
There was a look of fear in the workers, one of them immediately asked. “Will you sack us?”
Quincy was somewhat taken aback, but shook his head. “For now, unlikely. If I observe some significant underperformance or unsatisfactory behavior, that would be a conversation I have for another day. For now, my current objective is to watch and learn. Please, carry on as normal. I will sit here for the day.”
Robert laughed. “He meant to say, he’s just here to watch and learn how shit gets done. People from the capitol talk differently.”
Quincy paused, and realized he needed to tone down his language. “Ah, yes. Exactly that.”
He sat in a corner in the restaurant, and observed the shop operate for the entire day. It was fairly clear that the entire staff was very experienced and Robert’s actual input was fairly minimal. But, he did have to step in to deal with troublesome customers, and also spent time chatting with the regulars, who were clearly his friends.
Once Robert was out of the picture, some of these regulars would no longer turn up and would eat elsewhere, which would reduce their revenues.
Quincy loved watching people at work, his father once said that the ability to observe exactly what was going on is a skill every leader should have. It is significantly easier to make good decisions if the leader knows the truth. Businesses, thankfully, didn’t have that much ambiguity, compared to the complicated field of noble politics and their constantly shifting alliances.
“Everything okay, Quinn?” Robert came over as the day’s business came to a close.
“Yeah.” Quincy looked back at his own notebook. He counted the number of customers that ordered food. He wanted to estimate whether Robert engaged in any kind of book-fudging, whether the numbers that came were similar to what was reported. Thankfully, the numbers were pretty close. “What’s the take for today?”
The waitresses worked in teams of three to tabulate the daily sales. One person counted, one person recorded, and a third person placed it in a safe. In this sense, Robert had a fairly good process going on.
The waitresses eyed Quincy warily as he stood and observed them count money, and make the daily recording of the take. They had 1,140 bronze coins in sales. 28 customers for a day. It was fairly close to his estimates, and likely they had some fluctuations day to day.
Sara came out of the kitchen around that time, looking absolutely clueless.
“You alright?”
“It’s way too hot in there.” She cursed. “But they seem to know what they are doing.”
On a certain level, Quincy felt like they were overstaffed, noticing the idle periods where they had nothing important to do, and they just kept cleaning the restaurant. They had 5 employees, and only 28 customers per day. It felt like Robert just wanted more employees for the sake of it.
“Alright, thanks everyone.” Quincy declared. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
They all looked uncomfortable. It was expected. He was the new owner, and ownership transitions were messy.
“What are your real thoughts?” Quincy asked Sara as they both walked home. It was fairly late at night. Sara wore a simple shirt and pants, her dagger at her side. She didn’t take a sword, because that would be too obvious and would definitely scare off the workers at the restaurant.
“I actually don’t know what I was looking at.”
Quincy rubbed his forehead. He should’ve seen it coming. Sara wasn’t competent at cooking, and placing her in the kitchen to observe the two kitchen workers wasn’t a good idea. “You’ll switch places with me tomorrow. What you’ve got to do is just count how many customers come in, and observe what everyone does.”
“Alright.”
The next day, it was naturally Quincy’s turn in the kitchen. The first he paid attention to was the workflow of how orders came in, and what the kitchen workers worked on. Food storage, wastage, speed.
Waste was money, literally. If he could make do with more, it’ll save him money. How much food was stored in their fridges was another thing. Magical fridges cost money, and maintaining them involved regularly commissioning the mages from the mage guilds to come over and give them a refresh. If he could keep his fridges lean, he’d spend less over the long term.
Lunch hour was when he focused on how they worked, and he didn’t have much to criticize about how they cooked food. Wastage was also not as high as he expected.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Instead, he decided to talk to them about the menu. After the lunch rush, he decided to talk to them about the menu.
“Actually, what are the popular items on the menu?”
“It’s the ribs. Everyone’s here for the ribs.” The chef said without any hesitation, and he looked at the menu again. Like most diners, the eatery had items on the menu that absolutely no one ordered.
But he decided to ask the chef for their opinion. “Are there things that you guys buy that never get used?”
The two chefs looked at each other. “The broccoli, I think. We still keep it since we occasionally get kids coming with their parents, so we will take them out to steam it.”
Quincy inwardly cursed. The children’s menu was certainly something they can’t do much about. He probed a little more. “Can’t we use the other vegetables?”
“We could, but- broccoli’s like a kid’s meal thing, right? There’s a farm up north that grows a lot of it and sells it cheap.”
“Ah.” If it’s cheap, he could definitely see why Mister Robert put it on the menu. The shelf life of broccoli was relatively good, at least compared to the other leafy vegetables.
As much as he hated to admit it, Mister Robert’s kitchen was fairly well run. The two chefs ensured that food came out quickly enough, since most of the customers came during that peak lunch hour. If anything, it’s the waitresses that he’d have to cut.
But that wasn’t a good idea either, since he wanted their [maid] uniforms.
He paused and thought about his maid core. Why didn’t he get the benefits from his new maids, yet?
Total maids under your control or employ : 1
What was the condition?
Maids must acknowledge you as their employer or master, and be in service for at least a month.
But Sara- No. Sara has been his servant for more than that. He knew her even when they lived in their own estate back in the capitol. The Core had access to the world itself, it’s magic permeated every fabric of reality.
Sara had referred to him as her master for years. That meant his plan of just hiring a large number of people for a day and then commanding them to wear the maid uniform wasn’t going to work.
***
They returned on the third day, and Quincy noticed things were about the same. He took the dining floor, while Sara continued to observe the kitchen. Maybe she'd learn how to cook after observing the chefs at work.
"Mister Londen. I want to introduce you to someone." Robert walked over as the day came to an end. Next to him was a tall, rather old man with a thick mustache and beard “This is Mister Adrian Harris, he runs the Harris Goods Trading Services.”
Quincy stood and shook the old man’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mister Harris.”
“You’re from the Capitol?”
“Yes. Things are-”
“Complicated.” Harris laughed and answered on his behalf. “I heard from Robert you’re the new owner. Allow me to buy you a drink at the nearby bar! Robert, you come along, it’s on me.”
Robert laughed. “These old bones can’t drink that much.”
“I will not take that fake modesty, Robert. Which restaurant owner doesn’t drink? Come, come.”
The trio went to the nearby bar called Willy’s.
“So, Mister Londen. Quinn, right?” Adrian Harris said with a hearty laugh. He already finished half the mug of rum the moment it came.
“Yes.” Quincy nodded.
“What made you come to Bridgehill, instead of any of the other cities? Like Westhall, or Southlands? Those places are now filled with Capitol escapees.”
“Ah. I suppose, property’s a little too expensive there.”
Adrian paused and thought about it. “Oh. That is true. So, since we’re talking about that. Where do you live?”
“A haunted mansion. Maxwell Mansion.” Quincy answered. “Still trying to find what’s causing all the haunted creatures.”
Mister Harris chuckled. “Oh dear, young man. You bought it from Madam Maxwell. She inherited it many, many decades ago, who passed it down all the time. Apparently it used to be owned by her great-great-great grandfather, Anton Maxwell. In it’s glory days, the entire place was filled with maids! But apparently maids died in that place and now there’s ghost maids in that place.”
“Huh.”
“Perhaps the ghost-maids like you, so they have not bothered you just yet.”
Quincy did his best to look sad about it. “Yeah. I hope it stays that way.” He then raised his mug. “A toast, to ghost maids.”
Mister Harris and Mister Roberts both chuckled and joined in.
“Tell me more about this Maxwell Mansion, Mister Harris. You seem to know about it.”
“Not much, really. Just back in the day they had a lot of maids, and those maids did everything. We had maids in shops, maids in businesses, maids in banks. Anton Maxwell was a great pioneer of maid fashion and outfits, and is partly why we see a whole load of maids in our city! But things kind of fell apart after he died. The maids thought they could run it themselves, and kind of fought among themselves for control of the various businesses. The Maxwell clan went downhill during the few decades after his death, and these days they don’t have much left. The old lady was desperate to offload the haunted mansion too.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” Quincy admitted, and suspected the old Lord Anton must have somehow figured how to abuse the maid core. Wait-
If the maids were in businesses, did that mean the maids could give augmented classes that improved business performance.
Actually, that absolutely made sense. There’s no specifying the maids have to be specifically combat abilities. “Are you thinking something dirty, young man?” Mister Harris teased as he noticed Quincy thinking. “Or you dislike the maid outfits.”
Quincy chuckled. “I gotta admit, I don’t hate it. The maids, they look good!”
Harris smacked Roberts on the shoulder. “See! I knew he chose your shop because of the maids!”
Quincy just felt like he was accused of being a meido-pervert. Robert just sniggered. “Well, young man, don’t touch the waitresses- unless they invite you to.”
“I’ll keep my hands to myself.” Quincy promised.
“Good. I don’t want them coming to me to complain about the perverted new owner.” Robert chuckled, his face already a little red. But he’s clearly not drunk. “I’ll beat you up with a walking stick if that happens, even if you’re nobility!”
The young master laughed.
“Say- that beautiful young lady with you, is she your wife?” Robert asked.
“Ah.” Quincy thanked his luck that Sara wasn’t here. She’d probably choke on her drink. “She’s my servant in name, but I suppose she’s more like my aide.”
“I see. If you like her, put a ring on her before she runs away.”
Quincy chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind, Mister Robert.”