Chapter 269 – #41. Cafe Manager (1)
Unlike us, who were relieved at the end of Amazing Star Season 11, people were buzzing about Amazing Star even after a week.
The agency started to change the schedule in earnest, as if to properly eat the mulberry that had been thrown at the party.
The schedule that I used to do little by little while preparing for the 3rd and 4th rounds is now packed tightly without days off.
During most of our schedules, we asked questions about our performances on Amazing Star.
Still, the world couldn’t get away from the topic of Amazing Star.
Sometimes no, quite often there were a lot of people who threw subtle or blatant flirting at us.
However, it was very difficult because the method of flirting in Korea and the way of flirting abroad were so different.
‘Is it a national rule to take a picture of these guys once they like it?’
Even if the manager is off guard for a moment, he will come and flirt with you.
It was very embarrassing that most of the flirting started with contact.
Moreover, unlike me, who is accustomed to interacting with women, the members did not.
Anyway, after such a busy schedule, I diligently moved to Korea to meet my girls again in the remaining time.
And now, he had split that time further to meet Lanna.
With my daughter
“I have a bell on the door.”
“Uh? President!”
I came to the cafe around 12:00 when the cafe closes on purpose to avoid confusion.
She found me while tidying up the cafe and her machine, and smiled broadly.
“You worked hard today too.”
“What are you doing here at this hour?”
She had a pretty smile as if she liked my surprise visit.
However, I was slightly surprised to see her face, which I hadn’t seen in a long time.
‘I’ve lost a lot of weight.’
It wouldn’t have been easy to run a cafe while attending school.
At that time, they gave candy to restore physical strength, but it was not a large amount, so it seemed that Lanna’s physical strength was not fully preserved.
“It’s a bit late, but I work while eating.”
“Ah! Thank you.”
There is nothing as delicious as a late-night snack.
While she was eating her late-night snack, I started tidying up the cafe.
I had a hard time forcing Lanna to sit at her table, who said it was okay.
“I am receiving the calls that I report every day.”
“Ah… ! Am I going to bother you too much?”
“It can’t be. I was just worried about one thing.”
“Are you worried? What made you uncomfortable?”
“Lanna-san, are you healthy?”
Lanna-san’s eyes widen at my words.
“Did you know I lost a lot of weight?”
“… I thought there was nothing wrong with the idea of a free diet.”
“It’s not a diet to lose weight like this, it’s a loss of body.”
“I’m really fine. But since you say you care, I will pay more attention to my health from now on.”
“No.”
I will take care of her health.
“That is my responsibility. If an employee has a health problem while working, it is an industrial accident.”
“Eh, is that how it works?”
“Of course. So from now on, I hope you accept Lanna-san so that I can take care of her health.”
“How are you going to take care of it…”
“I plan to provide free health food and health checkups once a year.”
“One year each? I am a part-time student!?”
There is no case where the boss, who is not a company, but is self-employed, even takes care of the health checkup of part-time workers.
Seeing Lanna shaking her head in contemplation, I shuddered and said,
“As expected, that’s a bit overkill for a part-time worker, isn’t it?”
“Yes! You don’t have to. I will run the store while taking care of my health.”
“No. That’s not it. In order to take care of Lanna’s health in the future, she needs to not be a part-time worker.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to become the manager of this store and manage it.”
“!!!!!”
Tangrang-!!
Lanna-san dropped the spoon she was eating.
“Thanks to Mr. Lanna’s hard work, I felt like she could trust the shop completely. I’m going to be busier in the future. I thought I couldn’t let Mr. Lanna operate with my permission forever.”
“That… I’m sorry about what she said, but what will happen if I become the store manager?”
“First of all, the salary part will be more certain, right? I’m thinking of increasing net sales to 50% instead of 20%. And if you work as a store manager for a long time, I will gradually increase the percentage.”
The most important thing to Lanna is ‘money’.
So, from the start, she clearly appealed to the money part.
“Oh, isn’t fifty per cent too little for the boss?”
“I thought that Mr. Lanna would pay more attention to her shop as much as I gave.”
“If you gave me 20%, it would have been enough!”
“Only 20%?”
“There is no shop tax.”
It does not pay shop tax, which should have accounted for a significant portion of its sales.
Because the owner of the building is me.
Thanks to this, it was possible to sell drinks at a low price, and the net profit was not bad.
However, if she takes 50% of the sales, it is too little for me as the owner of the building and cafe.
“It’s not a store trying to make money, but it’s a big loss to the boss. There is no reason to keep this store.”
Rather than opening a cafe, renting a shop elsewhere was more convenient and cost effective.
“You don’t have to worry too much about me. I’m happy with the current situation and have no complaints. It will be vacation soon, but then I plan to focus more on running the cafe.”
“Ms. Lanna?”
“And after vacation, I can write a job application from next year. I thought about it, but I think I can pay more attention to running the cafe if I open a job application.”
“Why are you so anxious all of a sudden? I did it because I thought it would be a good suggestion for Lanna…”
Obviously, I had proposed her manager for her sake, but Lanna-san was strangely uneasy.
“I know it’s a good offer. What I’m worried about is that I don’t know how important the cafe is to the boss. I am confident that I can run the cafe well, but I don’t think it will be of great benefit to the boss. Then, in the end, this cafe will become unimportant to the boss.”
“…”
“You say you don’t open a cafe for money, so I’m really helpless. The only thing I can do is give you a financial benefit, but the boss says that’s not important.”
Did I get it wrong?
After hearing Lanna’s story, I understood why she was so anxious.
I tried to make her affectionate by leaving her cafe entirely to her, but from Lanna-san’s point of view, I thought it was neglectful for me to leave everything in her cafe.
What if I say I’m going to give up because my love for cafes is gone?
‘I’m afraid of losing my job all of a sudden. You were stupidly short-tempered. Even though I knew that spreading money around wasn’t the answer…’
Even though she gave her too much money, Mr. Lanna was the one to break up with.
I felt like I hit the first button well, so I relaxed too much.
She humbly admitted her mistake and gently held the uneasy Lanna’s hand.
“Sorry. I had no idea she could think that way.”
“No. What am I… It was presumptuous. Sorry.”
She should have cleaned her mouth well here.
A wrong twist could have caused her to quit her part-time job and walk away.
Then it becomes very difficult to deal with her.
I was on a difficult mission to impregnate her.
While organizing her thoughts for a moment, she came up with an excuse that Mr. Lanna could understand and pass over.
“Actually, I think I did something wrong today. I was too careless and acted impatiently. It was so nice to see Lanna-san at work. I was grateful that Lanna seemed to like my favorite cafe a lot. So I think she felt the need to do something more.”
“!!”
“What will you do? If I do something, will Lanna-san like it? After thinking about it for a while, what she thought was what she said today. She calculated that if Mr. Lanna became the manager of the store, and she worked here and earned a little more money from her, she would love her cafe more than she does now.”
“…”
It was an excuse that contained my sincerity to some extent.
To make the cafe a little more affectionate, so making a lot of money to make room for her boyfriend.
I embellished my purpose appropriately and conveyed it, and it worked well for Lanna-san.
“… Did you really think that way?”
“Yes. I apologize again. I didn’t mean to put such a burden on Lanna-san.”
“I didn’t know.”
“The two of us seem to be lacking in conversation. If we had time to talk often, we wouldn’t have misunderstood each other. In the future, Lanna-san, I will contact you more often so that you don’t feel anxious and come back. Is that okay?”
“Of course! If you do that, I won’t ask for anything.”
Her terrified Lanna-san’s expression straightens.
Thank god.
If we couldn’t resolve these serious misunderstandings and kept piling them up, it would have resulted in a terrible breakup later on.
I already thought of her as my woman, so that should never have happened.
“Then, I will continue to ask you to take good care of me. Manager!”
“To? I, the store manager?!”
“If you accept it. My apologies.”
“That and this are different!”
There is a best way to use when you have to insist like this.
‘It was good that I improved my acting ability.’
I am using the acting that I posted for a web drama well in real life.
“Can you please accept it? I don’t want to be a bad employer. Lanna-san is already doing what a store manager does. She works for our store for 3 months and is going to quit? I want Lanna to take over and run this cafe forever. To do that, you need the position of manager.”
She said with a sullen expression that leaving her as her part-time job would make her day her anxious.
“Oops!”
I said while touching her face, but she seemed to have been eaten well by Lanna-san, and her face turned red in an instant.
Ms. Lanna, who lowered her head, cautiously nodded her head as if she couldn’t keep looking.
“Ah, I get it. Then I will accept the manager position. Instead, please cancel 50% of your salary. The money I’m getting now is enough.”
“I will cancel 50% of net sales. Instead, the longer you work, the more you accept that the amount you receive increases little by little.”
“How much do you want to increase?”
“I will raise it by 3% for each additional year of work. Instead, up to 60%.”
“It suddenly increased by 10%?!”
“To get 60%, you have to work at a cafe for more than 10 years. If you’ve worked for that long, can’t you get 60%?”
When the specific working year of more than 10 years comes out, Ms. Lanna, who refutes it, shuts up.
She has only been working at the cafe for a month, and it seems that she still feels a long way from working here for 10 years.
“Since I gave in too, please give in to Lanna-san too.”
“… All right. I will do as you say, boss.”
“Cheer up!”
It was a satisfactory negotiation.
After that, she told me about the cafe-related opinions she wanted to discuss.
She said that since I rarely work in a cafe, I would like to have a seat inside the store and use the second floor as well.
Actually, the 1st floor is a bit narrow, but the 2nd floor is very wide, so there are many places to put tables.
“All of our cafes are good, but the only flaw is that they are only available for takeout. There are many customers who regret that part. Also, I want to expand sales to confectionery and baking as well as beverages. Ah! I heard that there are many cafes selling macarons these days. To be honest, there are a lot of things I want to change in the interior…”
She is sincere about running the cafe. After that, she discussed with me about the contents of her cafe for more than 2 hours.
Even though it was already approaching 3:00 in the morning, she couldn’t see the fatigue in her eyes.
On the contrary, his eyes only grew brighter and brighter.
‘If you’re this serious about the cafe, it’d be nice to bring a few items.’
If you decorate a cafe using small items that have much better abilities than regular products, at least you won’t have to close the cafe because of poor business.
There were dozens of items that could be helpful in business right now.
‘Fresh flowers’ that invite guests, ‘Blessed pig’ that invites guests, and so on.
If he was going to give money in the first place, it was right that he should have bypassed it this way.
“I’m already looking forward to how Lanna will run the cafe.”
“I will not disappoint you!”
The answering voice was full of courage.
