Chapter 3 - Not Yet
I slept for eight hours.
Eight.
Whole.
Hours.
When I woke up, I stared at the clock.
Then checked my phone because surely the clock was wrong.
It wasn't.
I had slept from eleven to seven.
No alarms at three.
No emails at four.
No assistant calling because something exploded.
No operations problem in another city.
No emergency board meeting.
Nothing.
Just sleep.
I lay there for another minute.
"This is suspicious."
The printer beeped.
I looked over.
"Don't ruin this."
It beeped again.
Normal morning.
Apparently.
Production went faster now that I stopped doing everything in the stupidest possible order.
Print by batch.
Cut by batch.
Punch.
Bind.
Check.
Package.
The first fifty-piece notebook order was almost done.
The newer fifty-piece order was scheduled properly.
Materials were tracked.
Payments were tracked.
Waste was tracked.
For the first time in this version of the business, I could actually answer the question:
How much money did I make?
Without guessing.
Beautiful.
I picked up one finished notebook.
Checked the edges.
Slightly uneven.
Not enough to matter.
My old twenty-three-year-old instinct whispered:
Redo it.
Forty-five-year-old me looked at it again.
Customer wouldn't notice.
Quality was acceptable.
Functional.
Clean.
No visible defect unless someone inspected it like evidence in a murder case.
I placed it in the finished stack.
Then opened my notebook.
22. GOOD ENOUGH IS SOMETIMES ACTUALLY GOOD ENOUGH.
Underneath:
Good enough ≠ bad.
Good enough = meets quality without wasting three hours chasing microscopic perfection.
I nodded.
There.
Progress.
At nine-thirty, a customer messaged.
Ma'am pwede po less 20 pesos each? 100 pcs naman po kukunin ko.
I stared at the message.
Then at the price.
Then at my costing.
Twenty pesos less per piece.
Times one hundred.
Two thousand pesos.
Not a small discount.
Old Lia would have thought:
Sayang order.
Then:
Pwede siguro.
Then:
Bawi nalang sa next.
There was always a next.
Some future imaginary order where I would magically recover all the money I kept giving away.
I typed:
Hi po. That's already our best price for this quantity. If you need a lower total, I can suggest a simpler material or packaging option instead.
Send.
The customer replied almost immediately.
Wala na po talaga discount?
I looked at the screen.
No.
I typed:
For this specification, wala na po.
Sent.
My heart did the stupid thing again.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Then—
Okay po, pag-isipan ko muna.
I replied:
Sure po. Thank you.
Done.
No begging.
No extra freebies.
No sudden five-percent discount because someone sounded disappointed.
I put the phone down.
The world remained intact.
Amazing.
Around ten, Mama passed by carrying laundry.
"Lia."
"Hm?"
"May parcel ka sa baba."
"What?"
"Parcel."
"I didn't order anything."
"Eh pangalan mo."
I went downstairs.
It was materials.
Right.
Twenty-three-year-old Lia had ordered them before I died.
Before I—
Whatever.
I opened the package.
Sticker paper.
Binding rings.
Some packaging supplies.
Mama looked over my shoulder.
"Madami na naman."
"Yeah."
"Kasya pa ba sa kwarto mo?"
I looked toward the stairs.
"Barely."
"Edi wag ka bumili madami."
"I need them."
"Edi ayusin mo."
There it was again.
Ramos Management Consulting.
Free.
Unsolicited.
Usually correct.
"I'm working on it."
Mama nodded.
"Good."
Then walked away.
No presentation.
No follow-up.
Problem solved.
I carried everything upstairs.
And that's when I realized—
I needed help.
Not someday.
Now.
Not because I was drowning.
I wasn't.
That's exactly why now was the right time.
The current orders were enough to support part-time labor.
The tasks were repetitive.
Trainable.
Cutting.
Packing.
Basic assembly.
Simple inventory.
I could keep doing them myself.
I was faster.
Obviously.
But that was how the disease started.
I'm faster.
Ako na.
Mas madali kung ako.
Then ten years later nobody could do anything without asking me.
No.
I opened my notebook.
There were names I remembered.
Employees.
People who eventually became excellent.
Reliable.
Some stayed years.
Some became managers.
Some left.
Some grew into completely different careers.
One particular name immediately came to mind.
My old assistant.
I had already searched her.
Still a student.
Different life.
Not mine.
I stared at her profile again.
She had posted fifteen minutes ago:
Pag ako talaga gumawa ng buong group project tapos pare-pareho grade natin, mananakit ako.
I laughed.
Same energy.
Even young.
I knew exactly how competent she would become.
I knew what she was capable of.
I knew her strengths.
Her weaknesses.
How she handled pressure.
How fast she learned.
How loyal she could be.
Hiring her now would save me so much trouble.
Maybe.
I opened a message.
Typed:
Hi—
Stopped.
Deleted it.
No.
Not yet.
She was in college.
She had a life.
Friends.
Classes.
Experiences that might have shaped the person I eventually knew.
Maybe working for me early would help her.
Maybe it would derail her.
Maybe she would hate me.
Maybe this version never wanted that career.
I couldn't look at a twenty-year-old student and see only the executive assistant she became in a dead timeline.
That wasn't fair.
I closed the profile.
"Not yet."
I searched another old employee.
He was abroad.
Happy, apparently.
Family photos.
Different career.
Definitely not touching that.
Another—
still in senior high school.
"Oh, absolutely not."
Another hadn't even started the course that eventually led her toward my company.
One was already working somewhere else and seemed fine.
I sat back.
This was stranger than losing the businesses.
Companies were structures.
You could rebuild structures.
People were—
people.
They had roads before me.
Roads after me.
Roads that had nothing to do with me.
I opened the notebook.
23. PEOPLE ARE NOT BUSINESS ASSETS I GET TO RECREATE.
Then underneath:
Knowing someone's future doesn't mean I own it.
I stared at the line.
That applied beyond employees.
Friends.
Family.
Everyone.
Good.
Keep that one.
So I did something much less efficient.
I posted a hiring ad.
Nothing grand.
PART-TIME PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
Tasks:
basic cutting and assembly
packing
organizing materials
simple inventory assistance
No experience required.
Willing to train.
Flexible schedule for students.
Paid.
Actual paid.
Not:
experience muna.
Not:
allowance.
Not:
family business naman.
Paid.
Because labor was labor.
I posted it.
Then immediately got four messages.
One asked if work-from-home.
No.
One asked if they could bring their child.
Complicated.
One had experience but wanted full-time.
Not yet.
Then a student messaged.
Nearby.
Available several days a week.
No production experience.
Basic Canva.
Willing to learn.
I scheduled a short trial.
Sofia came home while I was preparing sample tasks.
She leaned against the door.
"Hiring ka?"
"Yeah."
"Wow."
"What?"
"May employee."
"Part-time."
"Still."
I looked at her.
"You want the job?"
"No."
"Exactly."
She laughed.
"May school ako."
"You're twenty-one."
"Exactly."
"Useful age."
"Slave labor?"
"Paid."
"How much?"
I told her.
She considered.
Then—
"Hindi."
I stared.
"Why did you ask?"
"Curious."
"You're useless."
She smiled.
"Good luck."
Then started leaving.
"Sofia."
She looked back.
"Hm?"
"You know anyone looking for part-time?"
"Maybe."
"Send them the post. No family shortcut. Same process."
She nodded.
"Okay."
Then—
"May commission?"
"No."
"Then bahala ka."
I laughed.
Ramos blood.
The student arrived the next day.
Nervous.
Very nervous.
"Good morning po."
"Hi."
I showed them the workspace.
Which sounded impressive until you remembered the workspace was my bedroom.
"Dito po?"
"For now."
They nodded.
To their credit, they didn't laugh.
I explained the tasks.
Cutting.
Simple assembly.
Packing.
Quality checks.
Then gave them a sample.
They were slow.
Painfully slow.
I watched them align one sheet.
Adjust.
Adjust again.
Move ruler.
Move it back.
I physically had to stop myself from reaching over.
I could have done it in ten seconds.
They took almost a minute.
My hands twitched.
No.
Training.
People started slow.
That's what training was for.
I sat on my own hands.
Metaphorically.
Barely.
They finished.
The cut was slightly off.
They looked at me.
"Okay po?"
"No."
Their face dropped.
I pointed.
"Here. Too much margin on this side."
"Ah."
"Try again."
"Opo."
Second attempt.
Better.
Third.
Better again.
After about forty minutes, they were moving faster.
Not fast.
But teachable.
Good enough.
I hired them for a paid trial week.
Their face brightened.
"Thank you po."
"School schedule first."
They looked surprised.
"Po?"
"If may class requirement, exam, whatever, tell me. Don't disappear. We adjust if possible."
"Opo."
"And ask if you don't know something. Don't guess."
"Opo."
"Especially customer names."
They laughed nervously.
"Okay po."
"Good."
I looked around.
One part-time assistant.
Tiny business.
Bedroom operations.
No empire.
Still—
something about not being alone in the work already felt different.
That afternoon, a new inquiry came in.
Two hundred personalized notebooks.
I stared.
There it was.
The kind of order that used to make me say yes before reading anything else.
Quantity.
Two hundred.
Deadline—
five days.
I laughed.
"No."
My assistant looked up.
"Po?"
"Nothing."
I messaged the customer.
Hi po. Kaya po namin 200 pieces, but for this specification our earliest completion is 8 working days after final design approval and down payment.
They replied:
Need po sana within 5 days.
I checked capacity.
Current assistant.
Current equipment.
Current orders.