Chapter 100 - Three Years #2
Fine.
Approved.
Another thing Jane would never know.
I had developed an internal category by then:
Amounts Jane Must Never Hear.
Very useful.
Laser engraver?
Already compromised.
First company?
Compromised.
Second?
Compromised.
Third?
Mostly hidden.
Nova?
Absolutely classified.
If Jane ever discovered the full capital expenditure over three years, she might stop using years and begin calculating in entire teaching careers.
Unacceptable.
Chloe, however, became suspicious.
We were eating at my condo one night.
Jane had gone to the bathroom.
Chloe looked at me.
"How much have you spent on the plastic company?"
"No."
She smiled.
"That much?"
"No."
"Millions?"
"Obviously. The acquisition itself was millions."
"How many?"
"No."
Jane came back.
"What are we saying no to?"
"Nothing."
Chloe immediately betrayed me.
"Nova."
Jane sat down.
"No."
I looked at her.
"What?"
"I don't want to know."
Good.
Then she pointed at me.
"But if it is more than all three companies before it combined, don't tell me."
I said nothing.
Her face changed.
"Oh my God."
"I said nothing."
She covered her ears.
"No."
Chloe started laughing.
I ate peacefully.
Excellent boundary.
By then, the condo had become properly lived in.
Not just mine.
Mine, obviously.
But traces.
Chloe left a phone charger.
Jane had two mugs now.
Not intentionally.
She kept forgetting them.
I accused her of colonization.
She said she was creating mug redundancy.
I hated that she had learned business language from me.
There were snacks they liked.
Extra slippers.
A blanket Chloe always stole.
No romance.
No ambiguity.
Just people I expected might show up.
That was nice.
More than nice.
It made the condo home differently from my family home.
One was roots.
One was privacy.
Both mine.
Year Two ended with Nova profitable.
Actually profitable.
Not turnaround accounting.
Not adjusted fantasy EBITDA where everybody removed every inconvenient expense.
Real operating profit.
Margins still below what I wanted.
Return on invested capital still mediocre.
But—
healthy enough.
Mr. Tan heard through someone that the company was doing well.
He messaged once.
Mr. Tan: Heard Nova is improving. Congratulations.
I replied—
Lia: Team is doing well. Thank you.
Then stared at the words.
Team.
Yes.
Because I had finally stopped being the turnaround itself.
That mattered.
Year Three should have been satisfying.
Instead—
I became irritated.
Not by performance.
Performance was good.
That was the problem.
Nova stabilized.
Scrap under control.
Maintenance improving.
New machine performing.
Managers stronger.
Production planning competent.
Margins improved.
Cash healthy.
Customer concentration lower.
Quality complaints reduced.
The company could operate without me.
Everything I wanted.
So why did I feel relief every time I left the site?
At first I blamed the commute.
Then the meetings.
Then manufacturing in general.
Maybe I just preferred printing.
But that was not exactly it.
I liked understanding Nova.
I liked solving Nova.
I liked watching the numbers improve.
I liked seeing Engr. Paolo become less essential because systems and managers carried more knowledge.
I liked the turnaround.
What I did not like—
was owning the company after the turnaround.
That was different.
And annoying.
The realization came during a capital allocation meeting.
Nova requested another machine.
Not urgent.
Expansion.
Demand justified consideration.
Return model acceptable.
I looked at the proposal.
Then felt—
tired.
Not physically.
Emotionally uninterested.
I had seen this movie.
More capacity.
More tooling.
More materials.
More working capital.
More sales.
More output.
More profit.
Good.
So?
That thought scared me.
Not because growth had to excite me.
Because I finally understood Mama's question.
Do you even like it?
Oh.
Fuck.
I pulled three years of capital history.
Acquisition price.
Immediate working capital.
Repairs.
Management hires.
Consultants.
Systems.
Replacement machine.
Cooling upgrades.
Mold rehabilitation.
Facility work.
Quality equipment.
Maintenance catch-up.
Then—
my time.
Harder to price.
But not zero.
Management attention was capital too.
People forgot that because it did not appear as a line item.
I had spent three years thinking about Nova.
Three years of high-level attention.
Three years of meetings.
Problems.
Travel.
Technical reviews.
Capital decisions.
Integration.
Three years when I could have allocated that attention somewhere else.
Then I compared return.
Healthy.
Profitable.
Fine.
Not amazing.
Not for the risk.
Not for the capital.
Not for the attention.
I stared at the analysis.
Then recalculated because maybe I was being dramatic.
Same answer.
Nova worked.
I still should not have bought it.
Fuck.
That night, Jane and Chloe came over.
No business reason.
Again.
I loved that.
They arrived carrying fried chicken and something sweet.
Jane looked at me once and said—
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
She stared.
"Company face."
Apparently permanent.
I opened the door wider.
"Come in."
We ate.
Talked about unrelated things.
Chloe's work.
Jane's work.
Family.
Some ridiculous old school story.
For forty minutes, I did not mention Nova.