By the time Ridley is done removing last night’s happenings from my room, I’m finally ready to pick myself up and stand fully, stretching with a full and quite lowd yell and groan as I stretchy my body fully, arms outstretched and reaching for the ceiling. Without fail, Ridley is always there, walking to me with my housecoat in hand. Never one to comment on how I look, she will simply quietly refill my glass of water, holding it in hand ready for me to accept as I put my arms in my robe’s sleeves and walk over to my desk, taking the glass as I head that way and sipping from it, eyes still squinted from my immense hangover. As I walk over to my desk, my hand at my temple as it still swims, she always tells me what I’m being served for breakfast. She’s gotten better at picking out what I like, and today is Dagger Soup. Just what I like at times like this.
No sooner do I sit down does Ridley launch into full secretarial mode. I never say a word, and simply focus my mind the best I know how as she unloads on me while I quietly enjoy my spoonfuls of soup, thankful that she knows the right people to make whatever she deems fit for me, and it always be safe and most importantly, well cooked. Holding her note block in one hand against her hip she doesn’t even look up to me while she starts going over everything she feels I need to hear and see and sign. She has a formula to it now, something we’ve quietly perfected over these last several weeks, going over things in such a way that I will most effectively remember them.
First, its always business paperwork. Over time I have grown to be so obscenely wealthy I don’t even bother accounting on my own expenditures anymore. The managers I’ve hired to run my stores are all personally vetted by me, half of them I sleep with and I’ve noticed a trend where this typically has their stores running a little better as they seem to think the more impressed I am with Ridley’s reports on their earnings, the higher they get on priority to spend time with me. They aren’t wrong. This is usually over pretty quickly, Ridley knows I don’t care anymore about any of this and sometime signs my name for me for the far less important paperwork, saving me valuable time and effort as I recoup from my hangover with my breakfast. Though today she does have some documentation I need to personally overlook and approve. Nothing too bad, I profited off of the days business, as usual. Apparently today I only profited about nine-hundred thousand gil. Lower than usual, but needless to say profit is profit. Who can even spend that much in a day except for me?
It would seem my attempts at aggressive expansion in Limsa are largely ineffective and I am at most breaking even. They’re requesting more capital from me, so I sign away and hand it back to Ridley and promptly get back to my soup, eager to drain this bowl so that I can stand and get dressed. One last thing Ridley slides onto my desk, stopping her words for a moment, is the all familiar seal of The Synidicate. I know what they want, money. They’re not wrong to ask, they’ve helped me get to where I am today in their own small way. Soon enough I’ll be dealing with the lesser in that organization and firmly resting my feet on their backs – but for now I will pay. They don’t ask for much anyways. A scant five million gil a month. Anyone can afford that. A quick and intentionally lazy signature and that's that for business dealings of the day.
People always ask why they never see me work too hard, what you just saw was a majority of the 'hard' work I do still perform.
The second thing Ridley always wants to review with me are the names of those who want to get in touch with me over business proposals or handouts. I’ve gotten a bit numb to it all, and generally ignore all of these requests, trashing them. I don’t care if someone can propose to me a way to save upwards of twenty-percent on my cost to acquire Rubies for my needs. Never. I will deal with my businesses, myself. I am not going to let third parties intervene and bog me down. I don’t want partners, and I don’t want to share. This is my Empire to run and maintain and I won’t be carving out Lordships to others for ‘benefit’. I don't give a damn about maximizing profit, the people that supplied me in the beginning are all I will ever need. I also have grown weary of constantly having organizations come to me to ask for handouts when we all know most of them are eternally useless and never ran well. I prefer my benefaction to be private and personal.
[To be continued...]
No sooner do I sit down does Ridley launch into full secretarial mode. I never say a word, and simply focus my mind the best I know how as she unloads on me while I quietly enjoy my spoonfuls of soup, thankful that she knows the right people to make whatever she deems fit for me, and it always be safe and most importantly, well cooked. Holding her note block in one hand against her hip she doesn’t even look up to me while she starts going over everything she feels I need to hear and see and sign. She has a formula to it now, something we’ve quietly perfected over these last several weeks, going over things in such a way that I will most effectively remember them.
First, its always business paperwork. Over time I have grown to be so obscenely wealthy I don’t even bother accounting on my own expenditures anymore. The managers I’ve hired to run my stores are all personally vetted by me, half of them I sleep with and I’ve noticed a trend where this typically has their stores running a little better as they seem to think the more impressed I am with Ridley’s reports on their earnings, the higher they get on priority to spend time with me. They aren’t wrong. This is usually over pretty quickly, Ridley knows I don’t care anymore about any of this and sometime signs my name for me for the far less important paperwork, saving me valuable time and effort as I recoup from my hangover with my breakfast. Though today she does have some documentation I need to personally overlook and approve. Nothing too bad, I profited off of the days business, as usual. Apparently today I only profited about nine-hundred thousand gil. Lower than usual, but needless to say profit is profit. Who can even spend that much in a day except for me?
It would seem my attempts at aggressive expansion in Limsa are largely ineffective and I am at most breaking even. They’re requesting more capital from me, so I sign away and hand it back to Ridley and promptly get back to my soup, eager to drain this bowl so that I can stand and get dressed. One last thing Ridley slides onto my desk, stopping her words for a moment, is the all familiar seal of The Synidicate. I know what they want, money. They’re not wrong to ask, they’ve helped me get to where I am today in their own small way. Soon enough I’ll be dealing with the lesser in that organization and firmly resting my feet on their backs – but for now I will pay. They don’t ask for much anyways. A scant five million gil a month. Anyone can afford that. A quick and intentionally lazy signature and that's that for business dealings of the day.
People always ask why they never see me work too hard, what you just saw was a majority of the 'hard' work I do still perform.
The second thing Ridley always wants to review with me are the names of those who want to get in touch with me over business proposals or handouts. I’ve gotten a bit numb to it all, and generally ignore all of these requests, trashing them. I don’t care if someone can propose to me a way to save upwards of twenty-percent on my cost to acquire Rubies for my needs. Never. I will deal with my businesses, myself. I am not going to let third parties intervene and bog me down. I don’t want partners, and I don’t want to share. This is my Empire to run and maintain and I won’t be carving out Lordships to others for ‘benefit’. I don't give a damn about maximizing profit, the people that supplied me in the beginning are all I will ever need. I also have grown weary of constantly having organizations come to me to ask for handouts when we all know most of them are eternally useless and never ran well. I prefer my benefaction to be private and personal.
[To be continued...]
