Chapter 100 - Three Years
Nova Polymer did not become healthy because I bought it.
That would have been a much better story.
Sign documents.
Change a few systems.
Buy one machine.
Congratulations.
Turnaround.
No.
Nova Polymer fought me for three years.
Not literally.
Although one injection molding machine came close.
The first six months were mostly discovery.
Which was offensive because I thought due diligence had already discovered everything.
Apparently businesses could hide entirely new categories of stupidity after acquisition.
Not fraud.
Not even deliberate concealment.
Just—
operational archaeology.
A mold listed as active had not been used in eighteen months.
Another mold supposedly belonged to us.
It did not.
Client-owned.
Documentation buried in old email.
One customer's pricing had been approved during a resin price dip four years earlier and never properly adjusted.
One machine had a recurring temperature-control issue everybody knew about but nobody had formally quantified.
Maintenance had three different spare-parts lists.
None matched.
Production schedules were technically made weekly.
Then destroyed daily by urgent jobs.
Scrap was recorded.
Not consistently enough to tell me why it happened.
Quality rejects were logged at final inspection.
Which meant we often discovered a problem after producing thousands of pieces.
Beautiful.
I loved manufacturing.
Engr. Paolo became indispensable almost immediately.
I hated that.
Not him.
The structure.
He knew too much.
Machine behavior.
Molds.
Clients.
Operators.
Which resin supplier caused trouble.
Which product had dimensional sensitivity during humid months.
Which machine liked to become dramatic after long runs.
Too much institutional knowledge inside one human being.
Danger.
So one of my first priorities was forcing information out of his head and into systems.
He resisted.
Politely.
"Ma'am, matagal po kasi i-document lahat."
"I know."
"Mas mabilis po minsan sabihin na lang."
"I know."
"Then—"
"You can get hit by a bus."
He stared at me.
Fair.
I had died in less predictable ways.
"You planning to?"
"No."
"Good. Document anyway."
He sighed.
But did it.
We built preventive maintenance schedules.
Real ones.
Daily.
Weekly.
Monthly.
Quarterly.
Hours-based where appropriate.
Parts replacement intervals.
Cooling systems.
Hydraulic systems.
Heaters.
Sensors.
Clamping mechanisms.
Lubrication.
Mold maintenance.
Calibration.
Electrical checks.
Not—
wait until something sounds expensive.
Production hated planned downtime at first.
Because shutting down a working machine felt wasteful.
Then unplanned downtime dropped.
People became converts very quickly when breakdowns stopped stealing entire shifts.
Quality came next.
I learned more about flash, short shots, sink marks, warpage, contamination, inconsistent color, gate problems, and dimensional tolerances than I had ever wanted to know.
Which was exactly zero.
Unfortunately, ownership had educational requirements.
We moved quality checks earlier.
First-piece approval after setup.
Defined sampling frequency during production.
Clear defect categories.
Machine operators trained to stop production earlier instead of producing until QC discovered a mountain of rejects.
Scrap reports by machine.
By mold.
By material.
By product.
By shift.
At first the numbers looked terrible.
Not because quality got worse.
Because we finally measured it.
Important difference.
Still emotionally unpleasant.
By Month Eight, I knew which products I hated.
Not personally.
Economically.
Tiny-volume custom components requiring long mold changes.
Products with narrow margins and aggressive rejection policies.
Old SKUs with fragile molds.
Clients who ordered unpredictably then demanded priority.
One account looked prestigious.
Large local brand.
Good name.
Terrible business.
They represented meaningful revenue.
Also consumed absurd engineering attention.
Changed forecasts constantly.
Negotiated everything.
Paid late enough to irritate finance but not late enough to trigger automatic escalation.
Every department hated them.
I asked for the fully loaded profitability.
Finance gave it to me.
I stared.
"That's it?"
"Yes."
"For all this?"
"Yes."
I laughed.
Not happily.
We repriced.
They resisted.
We reduced special accommodations.
They resisted harder.
Eventually they moved part of their business elsewhere.
Revenue fell.
Profit barely changed.
Engr. Paolo stared at the monthly numbers.
"Oh."
Exactly.
Then the expensive part.
The machine I already knew we would probably need to replace.
I delayed as long as responsible.
Not as long as physically possible.
Different.
Repair frequency climbed.
Energy usage ugly.
Cycle time worse than newer machines.
Quality consistency weaker.
Maintenance downtime increasing.
I had two options.
Keep feeding money into something aging.
Or replace it.
The capital request made my laser engraver look like loose change.
I stared at the quote.
Then at finance.
Then back at the quote.
"That's rude."
The CFO I had eventually hired for the holding company looked at me.
"The machine?"
"The price."
"You approved the acquisition."
"I was younger then."
"You were twenty-six."
"Exactly."
Very naive.
The replacement machine alone cost several million.
Not Jane information.
Absolutely not.
We negotiated financing.
Supplier support.
Installation.
Training.
Electrical requirements.
Cooling.
Material handling.
Commissioning.
Downtime planning.
Then bought it.
Correct decision.
Still hurt.
When it started running properly, output quality improved.
Cycle times dropped.
Energy efficiency improved.
Scrap improved.
Maintenance emergencies dropped.
Capacity increased.
Beautiful.
I hated how expensive competence was.
Year One ended with Nova no longer bleeding.
That was the victory.
Not profit.
Not growth.
Survival without stupidity.
Cash conversion improved.
Inventory lower.
Receivables healthier.
Maintenance predictable.
Scrap moving down.
Clients repriced.
Management stronger.
Still not healthy.
But no longer actively trying to die.
Excellent.
Meanwhile, my actual life continued.
Important.
Because if I let Nova consume all of it, I would simply recreate Original Life with better financial terminology.
So when Jane and Chloe asked me to dinner—
I went.
Not every time.
Often enough.
Sometimes at my condo.
Sometimes somewhere outside.
Sometimes Chloe brought food.
Sometimes Jane brought absolutely nothing and somehow still ate the most.
Friendship.
One evening, I came home later than planned.
Not absurdly late.
Nine-thirty.
Jane and Chloe were already in my condo.
I had given Chloe access because apparently I enjoyed danger.
They were sitting on the couch with takeout.
I entered.
Stopped.
"How did you get in?"
Chloe raised my spare access card.
"You gave this to me."
"That was for emergencies."
Jane looked around.
"We were hungry."
"That is not an emergency."
"Debatable."
I dropped my bag.
Then noticed—
they had ordered my usual.
No questions.
No favor.
No business pitch.
Nothing.
Just food.
I smiled before I could stop myself.
Jane saw.
"Oh."
"What?"
"You're happy."
"I own a face."
"Apparently several."
I sat.
Good.
Halfway through dinner, Chloe asked—
"Are you dating anyone?"
I almost choked.
"No."
Jane looked offended.
"Why did that question almost kill you?"
"Because it was sudden."
"You're twenty-eight."
"So?"
"So nothing."
"Good."
Chloe continued—
"Do you want to date?"
"No."
Immediate.
Jane laughed.
Again.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You both keep asking."
"Because it's interesting."
"My romantic inactivity is interesting?"
"A little."
I stared.
"I had enough heartbreak last life."
Silence.
Fuck.
My fork stopped.
Current Jane.
Current Chloe.
No context.
Both stared.
I recovered badly.
"I mean—college. Mara. Whatever."
Jane narrowed her eyes.
"That was years ago."
"Yes."
"That's not enough heartbreak to retire."
"I am not retired."
"You sound retired."
"I'm twenty-eight."
"Exactly."
Chloe smiled.
"Would you marry?"
"Who?"
"In general."
"No current candidate."
"Hypothetically."
"I have companies."
Jane put her food down.
"That is not a spouse."
"I know."
"You said it like it replaces one."
"I did not."
"You did."
I sighed.
"I don't want a relationship right now."
There.
Plain.
Current.
True.
They accepted it.
Mostly.
Then Jane said—
"Okay. Ask again next year."
"Rude."
They did.
The following year.
Exactly.
On purpose.
I hated them.
Year Two of Nova was the expensive optimization year.
Because after you stop a company from dying, you discover everything keeping it mediocre.
The tooling room needed better tracking.
We implemented mold lifecycle records.
Location.
Ownership.
Maintenance.
Last run.
Cycle count where possible.
Common defects.
Next maintenance.
Parts.
Customer association.
Storage conditions.
Finally.
No more—
"I think Mold 118 is behind Mold 76."
Civilization.
We changed production planning.
Previously—
urgent jobs won.
Now—
mold changes mattered.
Material changes mattered.
Color changes mattered.
Machine size mattered.
Cycle time mattered.
Delivery date mattered.
We started sequencing intelligently.
Similar resin.
Similar colors.
Same machine family.
Fewer unnecessary cleanouts and changeovers.
Nothing revolutionary.
Just discipline.
Output rose without adding equivalent hours.
That was my favorite kind of improvement.
Free-ish capacity.
Then the cooling system became the bottleneck.
Of course.
Better machine utilization increased load.
Peak afternoon conditions exposed weaknesses.
Temperature variation affected consistency.
Engineering proposed upgrades.
I stared at the proposal.
"How much?"
They told me.
I closed my eyes.