I almost threw out the business card last night along with my hair salon receipt. The only thing that stopped me was the time written on the back: “12:00.”
The woman who handed me that card had paid for my haircut—seventeen hundred rubles—and left before I could understand why she wanted me to visit a small home goods shop on the other side of town the next day.
I’d only been out of work for nine days but was already regretting leaving my old job. That night, I came up with a dozen explanations, and almost all of them made me uneasy. Maybe the elderly lady mistook me for someone else. Maybe she needed a sales assistant for a few shifts. Or maybe she just thought I was desperate enough to agree to anything.
Still, by morning, I slipped the card into my wallet and set off. After all, I owed her seventeen hundred rubles.
I kept quiet for much too long before I quit my job
I worked at “Cozy Home” for eleven years. Started as a sales assistant and eventually became a shift supervisor. The pay was average, but the team was familiar and it was just a twenty-minute bus ride from my apartment.
The shop owner, Andrei Stepanovich, used to be in the store almost every day. Later, he opened a second shop and made Daria—the daughter of his cousin—the administrator.
Daria wasn’t stupid or lazy. She quickly figured out the register, spoke well with customers, but she didn’t like being responsible for any negative consequences of her decisions.
During the first week, Andrei Stepanovich asked me to help her out. I showed her how we make the schedule, where the return documents are kept, and why it’s better to count the delivery boxes before signing the invoice.
Two weeks later, Daria started treating me like I was getting in her way as a manager.
One day, I looked at the schedule and asked why it was just the two of us scheduled on Sunday morning—even though we were expecting a big delivery and usually had lots of customers at that time.
Daria didn’t even look up from her phone.
“Because I scheduled it that way.”
“Two people aren’t enough.”
She sighed.
“Svetlana, if you wanted to be in charge, you should’ve become an administrator.”
No one had ever offered me that role, and she knew it.
On Sunday, a line formed at the register while I was taking stock of the delivery. Then a customer returned an item, followed by another who asked for her saved order. By lunchtime, Daria had to come in herself.
“Why didn’t you let me know you couldn’t manage?” she asked me right there in the store.
Lyuba, another saleswoman, turned from the counter:
“Svetlana warned you about this on Friday.”
Daria looked at her, then at me.
“Well, then you should have insisted.”
That evening, she changed the schedule for the next week. For a few days, she even asked for my advice, and I thought maybe we’d just gotten off to a rough start.
“Write down that you helped with the delivery”
At the end of the month, we got a big shipment of linens and towels. The truck was late and arrived almost at closing. My shift was over, I’d changed clothes, and was just about to leave.
Daria stood at the storage room door with the invoice.
“Go ahead, I’ll deal with it myself.”
“There are a lot of boxes.”
“Svetlana, I can count up to fifty on my own.”
In the morning, we discovered we were six boxes short in the warehouse. The paperwork said there should be forty-eight, but when Lyuba and I counted, there were only forty-two. The supplier confirmed that the truck left the warehouse with the full amount. What happened after that was still a mystery that needed to be solved.
Daria arrived closer to noon. She looked over the invoice several times and suggested that maybe some of the boxes had been moved out to the sales floor the previous evening. We checked, but there was nothing.
An hour later, Andrey Stepanovich called me into his office. Daria was already there, with a sheet of paper in front of her.
“Sveta, we need to document who was present during the receiving,” he said. “Write a statement that you helped count the boxes before you left.”
“But I left before the unloading.”
“No one is asking you to take responsibility for the missing boxes. Just write that you were there.”
“Why should I write something that didn’t happen?”
Daria put her pen down on the table.
“Making a scene over six boxes is silly. You were nearby.”
“I wasn’t.”
Andrey Stepanovich lowered his voice:
“You understand, if this all ends up on her, it’ll look like I put someone in charge who had something like this happen in their very first month. I really don’t need that right now. Just write it in a neutral way.”
“I won’t do it.”
Someone was moving boxes around the warehouse on the other side of the wall. Daria stood up first.
“Then, from now on, everyone is responsible for themselves. No more asking to swap shifts or ‘cover me for half an hour’.”
She opened the door and left.
Nothing happened for two days, and I thought the issue was over. Then a new schedule was posted: almost all of my convenient morning shifts were gone, and instead, I had to close up shop more often than anyone else.
“Why is that?” I asked.
Daria answered in front of the other sales staff:
“I make the schedule in a way that’s best for the store.”
It was something I could tolerate, and I did. But then Andrey Stepanovich told me my monthly bonus would be less.
“That’s based on your performance,” he said and didn’t bother to explain further.
That same evening, I updated my resume. The next day, I handed in my resignation.
Andrey Stepanovich read it and asked:
“And where are you going to go? You’re forty-three, Sveta. Every place already has their own people.”
“I’ll find something.”
I said it confidently, even though I hadn’t found anything yet.
I worked the full two weeks of my notice. Daria barely spoke to me, although twice she did ask me how to fill out basic forms. I helped her each time. Maybe that was my weakness: for too long, I kept my work strictly separate from how people treated me.
On my last day, I handed over the key to the staff entrance, said goodbye to the girls, and left.
Nine days later, I ended up at the hair salon.
Standing at the payment terminal, my job interview was the last thing on my mind.
The next day was my first proper job interview. I decided to get a haircut, since for the past few months I’d just been tying my hair back and putting off going to a salon.
The stylist, Irina, asked why she hadn’t seen me in so long.
“I changed jobs. Well, I’m trying to, at least. I have an interview tomorrow.”
I didn’t notice when the elderly woman in the next chair briefly looked up from her magazine.
After the haircut, the receptionist told me the total was 1,700 rubles. I tapped my card on the terminal.
Declined.
I opened my banking app and saw that an automatic payment for utilities had gone through this morning—I had completely forgotten about it. Now I had just over 600 rubles left on my card, and the transfer from my savings account was still waiting for confirmation.
“Just a minute,” I said to the receptionist. “I’ll call my sister, she’ll send me the money.”
She nodded calmly.
I had just opened my contacts when suddenly a bank card appeared next to me.
“Use mine,” said the woman in the neighboring chair.
“No, wait. I’ll sort it out myself.”
“You can sort it out tomorrow.”
“We don’t even know each other.”
“Not exactly.”
She tapped her card on the terminal. There was a short beep, and the receptionist handed her a receipt.
Instead of feeling grateful, I felt annoyed. I can’t stand owing anyone anything.
“Give me your phone number. I’ll pay you back today.”
“You can pay me back tomorrow.”
She pulled a business card out of her bag. It had a store name, address, and phone number. On the back, the woman wrote “12:00.”
“I don’t understand.”
She put on her coat and looked at me closely.
“Come tomorrow. It’s important.”
“And if I don’t come?”
“Then you’ll owe me 1,700 rubles. I don’t think you’ll like that.”
And suddenly, I burst out laughing.
No one was waiting for me in the shop with a gift
The next day, I arrived at ten minutes to noon.
“Sever” turned out to be an ordinary store: bed linen, towels, and bedspreads. At the register, a customer was picking out a set, and at the far wall, a man was assembling a shelving unit.
I asked for Antonina Pavlovna. The shop assistant pointed me to the staff door.
Inside, an elderly woman sat at a desk next to a woman in her fifties. There were several printed resumes and a notebook in front of them.
“She’s here,” Antonina Pavlovna said.
I placed 2,000 rubles on the table.
“First, the debt.”
She pushed the money back to me.
“First, we talk. This is my daughter Nadezhda. She runs the store.”
Nadezhda reached out her hand to me.
“My mother said you worked at ‘Uyutny Dom’ for eleven years?”
“How did you know that?”
Antonina Pavlovna glanced at her daughter.
“I told you not to start with that.”
“Mom, otherwise it looks like we tricked her into coming here.”
“Didn’t you?” I asked.
Nadezhda smiled:
“A little bit.”
It turned out they really were looking for an administrator. Their previous employee was about to move away, so Nadezhda had been reviewing applications and interviewing people all week.
They offered to talk with me as well.
There was no sudden “you’re hired” after three questions. Nadezhda asked about schedules, returns, supplies, and difficult customers. I answered everything, but I still didn’t understand why the elderly woman thought I was suited for the role.
Finally, I asked directly:
“Antonina Pavlovna, have you seen me before?”
“Three years ago. In your store.”
I couldn’t remember.
“I bought curtains and a bedspread. I paid in cash. Two bills had stuck together, and I gave you 5,000 rubles extra.”
And then I suddenly remembered the register. Not the face, but the moment. I had counted the money and returned the extra bill to the customer.
“That was you?”
— Yes, that was me. And a week later, I received a bedspread in the wrong size. The manager explained why an exchange would take several days. But you went to the warehouse, found my order, and solved the problem.
— I was just doing my job.
— That’s exactly why I remembered you.
Nadezhda closed the resume lying in front of her.
— My mom saw you a couple more times after that. When we started looking for an administrator, she mentioned that a woman who worked at the competition once was someone she would invite to join us. She didn’t remember your name.
Antonina Pavlovna nodded:
— And yesterday, the stylist called you Svetlana, and then you talked about quitting and coming in for the interview. That’s when I remembered.
I glanced at the money on the table.
— Why did you pay for the haircut?
— You were in an awkward situation. I needed a reason to ask you to come by, without having to explain everything in the middle of the salon.
— You could have just given me a business card.
— I could have, but you might have thought it was just another ad.
I didn’t get the job offer that day. Nadezhda said she would meet with two more candidates and call me in the evening. We discussed salary, schedule, and the standard employment contract with a probation period.
I took my two thousand back—Antonina Pavlovna said to return it later, once everything was decided.
An hour later, I got a call from the interview I’d gotten the haircut for. They offered me a position as a sales associate, but the salary was less than I used to earn. I asked for time to think until morning.
At seven in the evening, Nadezhda sent a message in the chat: “We’re ready to offer you the administrator position. If you agree, let’s get the paperwork started on Monday.”
I read the message twice and replied, “I agree. I’ll be there Monday.”
Three months later, Andrey Stepanovich called.
The first weeks at “Sever” turned out to be quite ordinary.
One of the saleswomen thought she deserved the job and spoke to me only when necessary. Once, I scheduled two employees incorrectly and later asked one of them to swap shifts.
Nadezhda didn’t fix it for me.
— You’re the administrator. Sort it out yourself.
I actually liked this approach a lot more than the old “we’re one team” line, which always meant one person just handled everything.
Antonina Pavlovna would stop by two or three times a week, but she never interfered with my work. I paid her back 1,700 after my first paycheck, just by transferring to her phone number. A minute later, she replied: “Got it. Now everything’s fair.”
All I knew from Lyuba was that Daria didn’t last long at the old place.
And then three months later, Andrey Stepanovich called.
— Sveta, hello. How are you?
He spoke as if there had never been the written explanation, the schedule issue, or the talk about my age.
— I’m fine. Working.
— That’s actually why I’m calling. Daria left. Come back. I need someone who knows the store.
I was standing at my desk, holding the new schedule in my hand.
— For which position?
He paused for a second.
— Same as before. Senior shift supervisor. We’ll add five thousand to the pay.
Three months ago, I probably would have been happy just to get the call. After all, I spent eleven years of my life there.
— No, Andrey Stepanovich.
— Don’t rush your answer. Everything’s familiar here and everyone knows you.
In the store, Nadezhda was showing the new sales assistant where to check the size of a set before handing it to a customer. Two women waited by the register. Just another ordinary workday.
“I’m already a manager at another store.”
“I see. If you change your mind, give me a call.”
“Alright.”
I put my phone back in my pocket and returned to the table.
Nadezhda asked:
“Anything urgent?”
“No. My old workplace wanted me back.”
“And?”
I set the work schedule down in front of me.
“Nothing. Two people want to take the morning shift on Wednesday. I’ll try to rearrange the shifts so nobody ends up closing three days in a row.”
She nodded and went back out to the sales floor.
A few minutes later, Antonina Pavlovna walked into the shop. She took off her coat, hung it up by the staff room door, and as she passed by, she asked:
“You aren’t in debt anymore, are you?”
“Not to you, no.”
“Good.”
She disappeared into the back room, leaving me alone with the schedule—one I was now making completely on my own.