Mrs. Drummel was usually pretty unconcerned about the market. Why? She had a whole house to run, with cooking and cleaning to do, and, when Damien was young, a child to take care of, and, when her parents had been alive, take care of them. She did not need anything more to do, plus Mr. Drummel could never be told what to do anyways.
So when, going over the books, Mrs. Drummel became concerned, concerned enough to tell her husband to be concerned, he listened well. Sales were down. Profit was down. Costs were up. If Mr. Drummel was not careful, the business would start losing money every month, as it did generally the first three months of the year anyway. April was not a month to be losing money, but without a strong end to the month, it would be.
The main drivers of declining profit were waste, which was not being tracked well, and labor, which was plain enough to see. There were too many people working for the amount of business they were doing, and it was time to rein back hours until business picked up again.
"Santos and Rafael make too much money," Mrs. Drummel said finally. "I hate to put it like that, but that's the truth of the matter. We pay them about $4,000 a month to work here, but we only make $3,000 a month ourselves, after all expenses. Those two work hard, but no one works harder than you, dear. So, we got to find a way to even that out. Slowly, at first, but we need to make it happen by the end of the next month, change their expectations to 25-30 hours a week instead of 35-40."
"How would that look?" Mr. Drummel said, looking at the schedule.
"Well, we're going to have to make some tough decisions. Truth of the matter is, we need Santos right when the load arrives until basically two, when everything's been stocked and put away. Rafael is nice to have as a back-up, but I'd say, we can have him work one or even two fewer days a week. I mean, the load picks up on Thursday, and is heavy Friday and Saturday, but we could skip having him on Tuesday and Wednesday, or have him work Tuesday or Wednesday by himself, if you want to even out their hours."
"Rafael could handle the Tuesday load by himself."
"So we can have Santos come a little earlier, and leave earlier, and Rafael come a little later and leave about the same time, and have Tuesday Rafael by himself and Wednesday Santos by himself."
"It'll be pretty thin."
"May be, but it's better than our pantry being thin."
"True."
"Or us not be able to put Damien through college."
"Yeah."
"You just bought him a car."
"Yeah."
Mrs. Drummel knew that, as gruff as he was with "his boys"--that was, not his boy, but Santos and Rafael--he was very protective of them, and he was painfully aware that they had families. But Mrs. Drummel didn't feel much sympathy. They'd been paid a fortune over the years. If they hadn't stashed anything away for times like these, then they would have to learn sooner or later to save as much of what you make as you can. Going broke to protect them from the facts of life was foolhardy, to say the least.
But, Mrs. Drummel thought, more than anything, it was her husband's pride in the whole thing. His pride in them, but he didn't realize that they only cared for him because he had a job for them. If he didn't have a business, they wouldn't even pretend to care about him. So, if he thought he was going to save their relationship, but not save his business, well, he'd have neither, in the end.
So, instead of press him, Mrs. Drummel just closed the books and walked away, to leave her husband with his thoughts.
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