Sevela would have written a more interesting piece 4

Continued, started here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Andre came to Odessa a few more times and always visited the restaurant. His female companions kept changing, but only seasonally. Andre also dropped by with his new friends quite often, in which case a modest dinner was complemented with decent wines and other gastronomic superfluities. As for ladies... they were invited only for or instead of dessert.

Administrator Maria, despite her background, adapted quite fast and even started calling her kids 'kinder'. However, changes in her vocabulary had no significant effect on everything else and she got pregnant by another employee, who already had family and children. Pregnancy suited Masha quite well and had no impact on her work. Masha decided to deliver in her home city Tiraspol. After childbirth, Maria became a rather successful consultant of Moldovan restaurateurs, together with our former waiter, who was fired for overbilling and hysterical addiction to white socks.  The city was changing meanwhile. Someone became fond of orange colour [so-called Orange Revolution of 2004 is meant] and expected changes, someone replaced icons with a flag of a football team Donetsk Shakhtar and learnt by heart quotes of the mastermind of the team and the region. In any case, it had little to do with restaurants. Customers kept eating and having fun, if there were food and amusements to enjoy. They kept asking about discounts and checking back with astonishment after learning that discounts were out of date.

The agreement on expanding the restaurant, was, of course, the main development, and a year later the restaurant got the Wine Room. Discussions alone took several months. Then consultations and a pile of conceptual designs followed. After that — again disputes and searches for contractors, then arguments with then-director, and development of the concept and the menu. At that time, the director position was occupied by rather mature gentleman Yakov Emilievich Rejnkert, who had started as a waiter at a Soviet restaurant.  Rejnkert's experience was fully based on stereotypes of '70s, multiplied by an ability to echo opinion leaders, and impressed with competence. In the beginning of our cooperation, his experience and tired maturity were regarded as a business position. Well, that was hard... But, thanks to knowing Yakov, first employees and then I learnt, in just a few weeks after he started working, that sex is not only possible at 72, but could be frequent and almost non-stopping.

Here I should specify that we knew about that solely from his stories. Later on, his girlfriend, a waitress/specialist in neuro-linguistic programming, started giving her recommendations to everyone, including us, on the world macroeconomics and management, and after reading a few NLP brochures on modern hospitality as well. They got married in a while — love and NLP do wonders. They have been consulting credulous residents of Kiev and the Crimea exclusively since then, avoiding Tiraspol — territory under Maria’s jurisdiction. Their consultations are always of a short duration. Judging by some restaurants that closed, they, as other consultants, have no employment issues. Business (and not only business) consulting often attracts charlatans pretending to be gurus that deceive everyone and give hope to those looking for elusive chances or recipes.  Consultants were multiplying and pullulating with a particular success that year. Every time I meet yet another consultant, I can't but think about Maria and other employees, who decided they had more than enough knowledge and experience to share them for a price.

After Yakov Rejnkert, the upper age limit for new employees was somehow naturally established in the company; besides, we add the following sentence to opportunists' letters of recommendation: ‘prefers to give recommendations and advice on strategy and other issues’.

To be continued on Saturdays at 22:00.

• Part 5