A few minutes later, Mr. Irakli finally arrived.

“Sorry! Got held up in an interview. We’re hiring a new executive assistant…” he apologized as he took his seat.

No one wanted to waste time, so they moved straight to business.

He spoke calmly about his company: how he got the idea for this company, what he had done before, and the path he had taken since. His fingers were interlocked. He would look Giorgi in the eye, then turn to Eka, who sat with her laptop open, trying not to miss a single word.

“The problem is that expenses have increased a lot. If you compare it to the earlier years… enormously. Revenues, on the other hand, have decreased. I think that’s the biggest issue. At least that’s how I see it.”

“What makes up the largest share of expenses?”

Mr. Irakli leaned in, pursed his lips, and glanced toward the door as if expecting someone. Then he leaned closer and said almost in a whisper:

“To put it simply, salaries. That’s where the biggest chunk is. The largest share of expenses comes from that.”

Big deal, Eka thought, and stopped typing. Salaries are a major expense in any company. She glanced at Giorgi, who was watching Mr. Irakli with his usual furrowed brow.

“And how did it get to this point?”

“Well… let’s just say that at different times, there were different needs.” He raised his eyebrows, as if that was supposed to explain everything. “Relationships, connections, stability… You understand. The geopolitical situation had to be taken into account too…”

Giorgi paused. One leg crossed over the other, notebook open on his lap. Then he asked again:

“And now, are those needs still there? How do you think?”

“Mmm… some are, some aren’t.” Mr. Irakli cleared his throat. Then he picked up the silver watch from the table. He took off the one he was wearing on the wrist and replaced it with that one, carefully placing the other back in its spot.

“To be honest, this is exactly what we need from you. You have to help us reduce these costs, or we’ll face a serious loss very soon. We need to understand who is doing what, who carries what load… who is redundant…”

That one word flashed through Eka’s mind like a beacon.

“You mean letting people go?” she asked instinctively.

This time, she felt Giorgi’s gaze, and her face flushed.

Mr. Irakli pursed his lips again and shook his head.

“Not exactly… Um… We just need to understand where the biggest gap is… You know…”

“We’ll conduct a diagnostic, talk to employees, and share our findings,” Giorgi said, closing his notebook.

*

The alarm went off for the fifth time before he finally turned it off and forced his heavy eyes open.

Once he managed to wake up, he grabbed his phone and looked at the screen.

It was half past ten. He had a short call at eleven. There was still time.

His head was pounding. His throat was dry.

About thirty messages.

He scrolled through chats.

“Received” “Confirmed” – he quickly typed in several of them.

“I’ll send you his number later”, he replied to another.

He copied a message – “that batch has been shipped” – and pasted it into the managers’ chat.

Then he opened a message from the administrative assistant. She wrote that some consultants had arrived at the company. Irakli had hired them. “They want to interview employees. They’re asking how you got here, what you do, things like that…”

“Don’t have time this week,” he replied and put the phone away. He and his friends were going to Ibiza. Besides, those interviews were a waste of time anyway. He had heard about these consultants.

He’d get up soon. He had things to buy and needed to go to the mall. He had to change his watch strap. Maybe look at cars too. He had his eye on a new Maserati. He’d definitely get it with the next month’s salary.

The phone buzzed again.

“They only need 45 minutes at max. They won’t take more of your time.”

Forty-five minutes was still a lot.

He exhaled.

“Alright, schedule me for tomorrow afternoon. Online only,” he replied as he slowly got up, trying not to worsen his hangover.

Wait, are they planning layoffs… the thought crossed his mind. It made him uneasy.

Maybe it was better to talk to them after all. They needed to know how important an employee he was.

He got up and headed heavily toward the bathroom.

*

This was already Eka’s third interview of the day. Job titles kept getting longer and longer.

Operational Business Strategic Development Manager.

This time, a tall, dark-haired man in a blue shirt walked in.

He held a laptop and a notebook under one arm, a coffee mug in the other.

He quickly sat down and carefully arranged everything in front of Eka.

After introductions, she briefly asked about his previous work and how he had joined the company. He turned out to be a friend of the director. He had worked in Central Asia for a few years, then received a good offer and moved back here.

“I was responsible for establishing partnerships there. Basically, most of our partners were brought in by me…”

“I see. And what do you do here now? What are your responsibilities?”

“Now…” he opened his laptop, “now it’s about optimizing relationships with those partners… coordinating processes… resolving issues, organizing visits, things like that. Communication is very important… responsiveness…”

“And what are the most important issues you typically handle with partners?”

“If something gets stuck… anything, really. Whatever needs to be handled.” He glanced at his laptop again, then turned it toward Eka. “Just look at how many calls I have this week… We go over quantities, volumes, deadlines…”

Eka looked at the colorful blocks in the calendar. Most of them were very short, fifteen-minute meetings. Some didn’t even have clear titles. She smiled faintly, then immediately retained it by biting her tongue. She had seen calendars like this before – deliberately busy-looking.

“If everything is structured as a process, why is so much repeated clarification necessary?”

The man paused and rubbed his neck. Then he pulled back his hair. 

“If I don’t control all this, one misunderstanding and the whole system could collapse…” He said after this pause. 

“Hm…” Eka opened an Excel file listing employee salaries. She found his name. It was a five-digit number. “Do you know what issues occur at the unloading stage?”

“No, I don’t really go there. Did you see my calendar? I’ve got another call in half an hour. Everything’s fine there, as far as I know… the guys are doing great… Oh, I also wanted to show you this Excel.” He opened another file. His eyes were wide, and his body was fidgeting. “This is our database of partners. I built it. This database is actually the most important thing… make sure to note that…”

Eka nodded with a polite smile. After a few more questions, she thanked him and wished him luck.

She looked over her interview notes. Calendar, optimization, system, database…

She opened the salary file again.

She still couldn’t understand how this man earned more than the chief mechanic.

*

At 7:52, he clocked in.

As usual, he went to the locker room first, greeted the guys, quickly changed into his uniform, washed his hands, put on gloves, and went down to the intake area.

He greeted the others there, too.

Then he started inspecting the conveyor. He checked all joints to make sure they were properly sealed and looked for any debris that might obstruct the wagons on the belt. He checked the tunnels, then went toward his cabin. The damp, heavy air greeted him; it had long become his everyday reality.

“How are ya, Zura?” he called into the radio.

He waved from the cabin window.

Without waiting for a reply, he checked the incoming data: how much cargo had arrived, where it should go…

“The power went out during the night, and I had to come out,” Zura called back.

“Yeah, I know. For long?”

“About 15-20 minutes. We almost had a spill.”

“Was there an overload?”

“I dunno, it all seemed fine. It was settled in the end. We got really lucky, man…”

“That part needs to be checked. It was making weird noises last time, too.”

He went down to check if everything was in order. The materials were weighed, destinations clear. He returned to the cabin and waited.

Then he took a breath and pressed the button.

The familiar rumble started. The conveyor started moving rhythmically.

He watched, holding his breath. Even after all these years, this moment always made his heart race.

Halfway through, the conveyor trembled slightly. His blood froze, eyes widened.

But the disruption passed, and the movement continued normally.

That spot needs checking, he thought.

Finally, it finished. He sat down, cracking his knees, stretching his aching back.

After lunch, they called him — consultants from Tbilisi had arrived, and wanted to interview him. “They’re asking everyone what they do, about salaries, motivation, and so on…” 

It’s all fine here, he thought. He had no complaints. They even got a good bonus at the end of the year.

He suddenly remembered the payment he had to make to his child’s tutor. Before forgetting again, he took out his phone and got that done, too.

The radio crackled again. Another load was coming in.

“Zura, when we’re done, come over, let’s have a quick backgammon match, huh?”

“Let’s!”

*

Eka was looking at the interview files again. She didn’t want to miss anything important, as if a lot depended on it; and in fact, it really did.

She opened the file listing vague and unnecessary roles. She had met some of these people personally. She remembered their faces, even their voices.

Her hands hovered over the keyboard.

“Still…” she cleared her throat and looked at Giorgi, “I’m not sure if it’s right… telling them to let these people go like this.”

“We’re not going to tell them who to fire.”

“Then what do we say? Isn’t that what they expect from us?”

Giorgi leaned back, gripping the edge of the desk, eyes narrowed at the screen.

“I think salaries aren’t the main problem,” he said, and paused.