Chapter 378
I’ll Help
“Thank you for getting through the first day safely yesterday, and good work. Though I imagine today will be just as tough.”
The manager and the others already looked exhausted.
Would they even last through the whole day?
“This morning, we’ll hand out the numbered tickets first thing to reduce your workload as much as possible. Anyone without this ticket cannot make a purchase. Please confirm the ticket during ordering and collect it at checkout.”
I showed the employees the numbered tickets.
“These were developed by my family. No one else can imitate them. If anyone complains, just state firmly that it is our family’s policy.”
“Is it really all right to refuse them?”
The manager asked, a bit tense.
“It’s fine. For now, we’ll be handling things with these numbered tickets. Once customer traffic settles, we plan to remove the system.”
We would improve things as we tried them.
I told them that today’s lunch would be provided as a treat from our family’s cooks, hoping it would encourage them.
“To think we’ll get to eat food from the Westland family…”
“I’m glad I applied,” I heard someone say.
It seemed everyone’s spirits had lifted. Good.
Even though there was still an hour until opening, a fairly large crowd had already formed.
Using the loudspeaker, I repeated the explanation of the numbered tickets three times.
“How many can each person buy?”
“What varieties are there?”
Questions flew in.
Right… It was their first time encountering this treat, so explaining individually must have taken too long yesterday, which only made the crowd worse.
For us, it was a standard family sweet, so I hadn’t considered it.
“There’s just one type of sweet, but it comes in two flavors. The limit per flavor is six. If you buy both flavors up to the limit, that’s twelve total.”
I told them to specify how many red bean and how many white bean they wanted.
Buying twelve meant six red bean and six white bean.
“How much does one cost?”
Right, I hadn’t mentioned the price.
“Four iron coins each. Twelve would be four copper coins and eight iron coins.”
The box cost extra.
If they brought their own wooden containers, we explained we would place the dorayaki directly into them.
“These numbered tickets use special paper, so they can’t be forged. You cannot purchase outside the time slot written on the ticket.”
“So we don’t have to stand in line the whole time?”
“Correct. After receiving your ticket, come back and line up only when your time slot begins. Without the ticket, you cannot purchase.”
After explaining twice more, we began handing out the tickets.
Some asked for afternoon tickets instead of morning ones, so I gave those out too.
Those who received afternoon tickets stopped lining up and left.
But even before opening, we had only about a hundred tickets left.
“Even after you finish handing out tickets, stay here to continue explaining.”
Telling them I’d return in the afternoon, I left the shop.
Back at the estate, I grabbed Tom the gardener and asked him to help me urgently make placards, splitting the work between us.
I cut the paper for the placards and made three each of:
[End of Line] [Ticket Distribution Finished]After Tom finished the boards, I pasted the labels on both sides, rushed one set to Georges at the Third Shop, another to Floria at the Second Shop, and then returned to the main shop.
Using the loudspeaker, I explained the situation to people angrily confronting the guards about “What do you mean sales are over for today?”
Maybe because it was me speaking, they reluctantly dispersed.
“You saved us. Thank you.”
One of the guards, his clothes wrinkled from being grabbed, exhaled in relief.
“I won’t be here tomorrow. I know it’s hard, but I need you to stand firm.”
“I’ll… try.”
His voice wobbled, but he’d have to manage.
I explained things to the guards and gave them the placards, then instructed them to head to the end of the line.
“Today was busy too, but we were able to sell more smoothly than yesterday.”
This was the meeting with the manager after closing. It seemed the chaos on the first day came from explaining the product to each person individually.
“You sold nearly five thousand today. How long will the stock last?”
“We’ve been making them since two months ago, so we should manage for a while.”
All thanks to the time-stop Magic Bag.
I really hoped the crowds would calm down while we still had stock.
When they sorted the tickets in numerical order, a few numbers were missing. They would fill those gaps with the reserves, and it was decided we would proceed with a limit of four hundred customers a day.