Chapter 127: Earn Your Keep

Alexander Vance received his master’s degree a month after the blessing and open house for Second Life Workshop.

Vance Holdings held a small gathering to celebrate their CEO’s latest achievement, complete with a cake someone from Human Resources had apparently ordered with his graduation photograph printed across the top.

Alexander stared at his own face.

"I’m supposed to eat myself?"

Vincent handed him a knife.

"Preferably before the frosting starts melting, sir."

Alexander looked around the conference room.

"Does nobody find this disturbing?"

Apparently not.

So Alexander reluctantly cut directly through his own forehead while several executives applauded.

Shortly after the celebration, he gave them something considerably more surprising to discuss.

Alexander filed for a five-month leave of absence.

Not a business trip or three days tacked onto a weekend he would inevitably spend answering emails anyway.

Five months.

He hadn’t taken that much uninterrupted time away from Vance Holdings since becoming CEO.

The Board of Directors approved his leave after discussing succession arrangements for his absence. The Board considered several senior executives, including people Alexander recommended, but made the final appointment.

After a formal vote, the company’s Chief Operating Officer was appointed interim CEO for the duration of Alexander’s leave.

The arrangement was supposed to be temporary.

Alexander handed over his ongoing projects and attended every transition meeting necessary to ensure his replacement understood what was currently on the table. He left detailed notes regarding negotiations still in progress and made himself available for questions that couldn’t reasonably be answered by anyone else.

Then, on his final Friday, he walked out of Vance Holdings as though he knew exactly what he intended to do with himself for the next five months.

He didn’t.

At least, not entirely.

He had Giovanni.

He had Second Life Workshop.

He also had a disturbing amount of free time for someone who’d spent most of his adult life complaining that there weren’t enough hours in a day.

The first week felt wonderful.

By the third week, Alexander discovered that not being responsible for several thousand employees left an alarming amount of mental space.

He began spending more time at the Workshop. He was almost always there on weekends, and he often dropped by during the week without warning.

The artisans noticed.

They also noticed that their normally talkative owner had become unusually quiet.

Alexander Vance could ordinarily speak enough for two people in a day. Lately, he could stand beside a worktable for several minutes without saying anything.

Nobody was brave enough to ask why.

Fortunately, plenty of work kept him busy.

Alexander had started adjusting Second Life Workshop’s strategy after his professor’s warning.

For now, he focused on smaller pieces that took less time to restore and were easier to sell afterward as restored or pre-owned items. Chairs and side tables began moving through the Workshop alongside small cabinets and other decorative pieces that didn’t require several weeks of concentrated labor.

It wasn’t as glamorous as taking on an enormous antique dining table from a wealthy client and returning it to its former glory.

It was considerably more useful for figuring out whether the business could survive.

Alexander needed numbers.

How long did each restoration actually take?

How much labor went into it?

What did buyers consider worth paying for?

Most importantly, which pieces attracted plenty of admiration but sat unsold because admiration and willingness to open one’s wallet were apparently two entirely different things?

Alexander had managed businesses long enough to know enthusiasm was considerably cheaper than a purchase order.

He also changed how the artisans were compensated.

They weren’t being paid purely by the hour anymore.

Not entirely, anyway.

Alexander introduced a completion incentive after realizing restoration had the unfortunate habit of becoming more expensive with every additional day.

Their regular pay remained guaranteed.

No artisan was going to lose his livelihood simply because a hundred-year-old cabinet turned out to have considerably more problems underneath its varnish than anyone anticipated.

But every project now came with an estimated completion window and an additional amount waiting at the end if the work was finished on schedule and passed inspection.

Finishing efficiently meant more money.

Sloppy work meant no bonus.

Alexander refused to reward anyone for destroying an antique faster.

The system helped.

Not dramatically, but enough.

Projects moved through the Workshop more predictably, while the artisans became more conscious of how they divided their time. Alexander finally had enough completed pieces to compare actual labor costs with selling prices.

Unfortunately, that created another problem.

Some of the pieces they’d restored beautifully weren’t worth enough afterward.

Alexander stared at the figures on his tablet.

"What do you mean we lost money on this?"

The older artisan standing beside him glanced at the restored sideboard.

"We didn’t lose money."

Alexander turned the tablet around.

"This says otherwise."

"I meant we didn’t lose the furniture."

Alexander stared at him.

The artisan rubbed the back of his neck.

"It was in terrible condition when we got it."

"I know. I bought it."

"And now it’s beautiful."

"It is."

Alexander looked at the numbers again.

"And apparently beautiful enough to lose me eight hundred dollars."

The younger artisan nearby coughed suspiciously into his fist.

Alexander looked at him.

"Do you have something to contribute?"

"No, sir."

"Good."

He returned to the spreadsheet.

The problem wasn’t artistry.

If anything, that would’ve been easier.

Alexander could replace bad artistry.

He couldn’t fire arithmetic.

The piece had required more labor than they’d estimated. One damaged section had needed specialized repair, and the hardware they’d initially hoped to preserve had ultimately needed replacement.

By the time everything was finished, the restoration had cost more than the market would reasonably pay on top of Alexander’s acquisition cost.

He could simply raise the selling price.

Then it might sit there for six months.

Possibly longer.

Alexander exhaled.

"All right."

The artisans waited.

"We don’t buy another one like this at that acquisition price."

The older man nodded.

"And before we begin work on anything we’re restoring for resale, I want a better estimate of what can actually be recovered. If there’s hidden damage, we reassess before pouring another week into it."

The younger artisan hesitated.

"What if it’s worth saving?"

Alexander looked at the sideboard.

There was the problem.

He thought quite a lot of things were worth saving.

The market didn’t necessarily agree.

"If I personally decide something deserves saving regardless of whether we can sell it profitably, it comes out of my personal hobby budget."

The older artisan smiled.

"You have one of those?"

"I apparently need one."

"And the Workshop?"

"The Workshop has to earn its keep."

That silenced them.

Alexander looked around.

He’d built the place because he loved what old things could become when someone bothered to look beneath the damage.

But affection wasn’t a business model.

Neither was his bank account.

His professor had warned him about that.

Having enough money to absorb losses could easily disguise the fact that something wasn’t working.

Alexander wasn’t interested in disguising anything anymore.

"Start tracking the restoration hours separately from general Workshop time," he said. "I want to know exactly what each category is costing us."

The older artisan nodded.

"And don’t rush anything because I’m complaining about labor."

"Understood."

"If a job needs ten days, it needs ten days. I just want us to know why it needed ten."

The younger artisan grinned.

"So we’re not getting fired?"

Alexander looked at him.

"Were you planning to give me a reason?"

"No, sir."

"Then stop looking so hopeful."

The man immediately returned to work.

Alexander remained beside the restored sideboard.

Eight hundred dollars wouldn’t hurt him.

That was precisely the problem.

He could lose eight hundred dollars on that piece and another thousand on the next without noticing any meaningful change in his life.

He could keep Second Life Workshop running for years if he really wanted to.

The lights would remain on.

The artisans would continue receiving their wages.

He could buy beautiful old furniture, spend absurd amounts restoring it, and congratulate himself every time another ruined piece became beautiful again.

But then this wouldn’t be a business.

It would be Alexander Vance’s extremely expensive hobby with employees.

He’d already promised himself he wouldn’t let that happen.

Alexander picked up the tablet.

"Eight hundred," he muttered.

The older artisan glanced over.

"Sir?"

"Nothing."

It wasn’t nothing.

That eight hundred dollars mattered precisely because it didn’t have to matter to him.

He wanted to learn to treat it as though it did.

Alexander returned to his office and opened the Workshop accounts.

He adjusted the projected acquisition budget.

Then he lowered it again.

For the next batch, they’d purchase fewer pieces and choose them more carefully.

He also wanted more commissioned work, where the client already owned the item and was specifically paying for restoration. That removed the Workshop’s risk of buying something simply because Alexander thought it deserved another life.

He made another note.

Then another.

For once, no finance department prepared the projections before they reached him.

Nobody from procurement would negotiate the purchase unless Alexander asked them to.

No Board waited to question whether he’d allocated too much money to a project.

Here, Alexander had to catch his own mistakes.

That was terrifying.

Strangely, he liked it.

The Workshop wasn’t profitable yet.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be.

But the numbers were improving, and every mistake was teaching him something he hadn’t needed to learn while sitting at the top of a company built generations before he arrived.

Alexander had been born with more money than most people would ever see.

He couldn’t change that.

He didn’t particularly want to.

Being wealthy wasn’t a sin he needed to spend the rest of his life apologizing for.

But money could buy him the opportunity to try.

It couldn’t make the attempt successful.

That part still had to be earned.

His phone vibrated.

Alexander glanced at the screen.

A Vance Holdings report had arrived.

For several seconds, he merely stared at the notification.

Then he opened it.

The first page was encouraging.

The second was better.

By the fourth, Alexander had stopped smiling.

Apparently, Second Life Workshop wasn’t the only company teaching him something new.