Monday March 6th, 2023
5am arrived early Monday morning and Alex went through his morning routine of showering, cleaning up, and having cereal for breakfast. After eating, he walked downstairs to turn on all of the electronic fitness equipment as well as the store lights.
Before opening the store at 6am, Alex spent some time at the reception desk scrolling through the FitTech social media accounts. He made a few posts that thanked everyone for a successful grand opening weekend. The posts included pictures of people working out on various machines, customers chatting enthusiastically with each other, and finally some pictures of Richard and his fledgling fan club while they surrounded him in the center of the gym.
He also posted reminders that the opening weekend promotion of 3-day free trial memberships was now being reduced to a 1-day trial membership for all new customers on their first visit. Alex was happy to see the amount of follows and likes growing steadily on the social media accounts as it was a sort of gratification that he had quality products that would be liked by others.
Alex opened up the gym at 6am and made his way back to reception to go over his plans for Sydney’s interview as well as how he intended to provide employee benefits in the future.
Alex had thought about his interview process with Sydney and to be honest, he was fairly certain that unless there was a glaring problem during the interview, he was going to hire her. Alex had grand aspirations to grow and expand the store in the future and would need capable employee’s to help him accomplish his goals in the future.
Most of the processes of the gym were automated, like the membership registration kiosk and Richard the AI Fitness Instructor. The main responsibilities that would need to be fulfilled would be greeting customers, handling the sales of supplements, answering any questions customers might have, and supervising store in case something went wrong with any of the customers or they needed help understanding how to use the equipment.
Since none of these things were particularly complicated, they could be easily taught to the new hire. What Alex was primarily looking for, in addition to having an outgoing personality and passion for fitness, were employee’s who would be loyal to the store and be promoted along with the growth of the store.
Alex firmly believed that if he treated his employee’s well and paid them well, they would grow loyal to the company. He despised people like Jeff Bezos who squeezed their employee’s dry while offering the minimum possible benefits to them. His company experienced high turnover and frequent calls for unionization due to exploiting his employees.
Alex wanted his employee’s to stay with him in the long-term and was willing to treat his employee’s well to keep them and avoid other companies poaching them in the future. Thinking about employee benefits and how to manage them, Alex decided to see if the system could be of any help in this situation.
‘Hey Zara, can the system help me to manage things like payroll and employee health benefits?’ Alex asks the system.
[Yes it can, Alex.] Zara replies. [The System is synced with the FitTech internal software. It’s the same software you’ve been using so far to manage sales, and keep track of customer information. There is a section of the software for payroll and employee benefits as well. Your employee’s will need to use this software to manage this information, but as you have the system, you can simply tell me what you want to do and I’ll help you do it automatically.]Alex had already done some research and had already mainly decided on the main points that he wanted to offer new full-time employee’s. The average salary of receptionists is about $55-60k a year while the average cost of living in Santa Monica is approximately $80k which should be considered criminal but isn’t because that’s how America works. Alex was planning to offer well over the average cost of living with $100k a year as a starting salary. This worked out to a little over $8,300 a month which Alex felt like he could readily afford at this point.
Alex also had the intention to cover the full cost of providing health care for his employee’s without taking any of the cost out of their salaries each month. Health care plans were divided into bronze, silver, gold, and platinum plans and Alex wanted to pay for his employee’s to have the best, platinum health plans where they only needed to incur 10% of costs.
In the US, healthcare isn’t a free service provided by the government so each individual needs to make sure they have coverage for themselves. Alex wanted his employee’s to be loyal to FitTech so he wanted to provide them with the best benefits he could. Alex, had also decided that FitTech employee’s would receive free T1 membership for themselves, one additional adult, and all of their children. For items like supplements and food if it was provided in the future, they could have access to 1 of each for free every day.
Alex described his thoughts to Zara and she assured him it could easily be completed by the system. He also had Zara draw up a basic contract on the store computer so that he could print it out once he’d finalized details with Sydney.
As it approached 8am, Sydney arrived in a classy black, single-button pantsuit which really accentuated her blonde hair which was currently pulled back into a pony-tail as well as her blue eyes. She looked a bit nervous but was clearly excited as she walked into the gym. She spotted Alex and walked over to him in greeting.
“Good morning Sydney,” said Alex warmly. “Come here and take a seat. Since it’s only me working here now, I need to man the front desk while we talk.” Alex had already pulled over a second chair to the front desk in preparation for this meeting.
“Sure thing,” replied Sydney as she walked behind the desk and sat down, still looking at bit nervous.
“Here’s my plan for this morning,” explains Alex. “While we are talking this morning, I’m going to have you work here at the reception desk. Greet customers as they arrive, help them with the membership kiosk, and answer any questions they might have. If there is anything you don’t know or understand, you can ask me and I’ll help you so don’t worry if you don’t know something. What I’m mainly interested in is seeing how you interact with customers, how does that sound?”
Summoning her resolve, Sydney replies confidently, “I can do it!”
“I appreciate the confidence,” replies Alex. “I know a bit about you from the last couple of days so I’ll tell you about the job and what I’m looking for in employee’s….” Alex tells Sydney about his aspirations to grow the company as well as growing with the employee’s who work at the company. As they talk, customers are flowing in and out of the gym, and they periodically pause their conversation while Sydney greets and helps customers at the reception desk.
‘She really does seem to be a great fit for this job,’ Alex thinks to himself while congratulating himself internally on his eye for talent.
Sydney tells Alex that she’s studying public health and nutrition at UCLA and plans to further study kinesiology and physical therapy after she finishes her undergraduate program. She is clearly passionate about health and fitness and they spend some time talking about it.
Alex starts to talk about the employee benefits he’s offering and Sydney’s mouth hangs open for a few moments before she gathers herself.
“$100k?!” exclaims a clearly shocked Sydney, “I came in this morning expecting about half that amount.”
“If I am going to hire someone, I’m doing so with the intention to develop them. Especially at this early stage, I’m looking for people who can be trained into future managers as the scope of the company grows. If I’m going to spend time and effort developing people, I want them to stay with the company. Offering high salary and benefits is one of the ways I plan to earn your loyalty.” Alex tells her. “Just to be clear though, this is all under the expectation that you will work hard and not slack off. I won’t continue to employ people who continually perform poorly.”
Sydney nods her head quickly like a chicken pecking, “I totally understand. For that much money I wouldn’t dream of leaving. You’d have to kick me out!” she says.
Smiling, Alex proceeds to tell Sydney about the other benefits and she is continually shocked as he goes over the health benefits and free access to FitTech amenities.
At this point it’s been about an hour and Alex is quite happy with what he’s seen in Sydney’s interactions with customers during this period of time. “So what do you think?” Alex asks. “Do you want to come and work for me here at FitTech?”
Without hesitating, Sydney shouts “Of course! I can start immediately. I told you my class schedule so I’m basically available any time after noon each day.”
“That’s great!” replies a relieved Alex.
Alex prints out the contract and other forms he had Zara prepare earlier and went through them with Sydney. He had her fill out her personal information and bank information so that her salary could be automatically deposited into her account. He also promised Sydney he would pay half of her first month’s salary in advance so that she could get things settled if needed.
Once all the formalities were settled, they talked for a while longer. Alex gave her is cell-phone number for emergencies or if she needed to get a hold of him and he wasn’t in the shop. He also gave her a spare key so that she could open/close the store by herself if needed. Alex planned to be present often until she settled into her work and gained more confidence.
Alex didn’t feel great about the idea of leaving a young woman working by herself so he needed to spend some time thinking about security solutions. While Alex knew that the store created by the system was completely safe and nothing would happen to it or anyone inside, he wanted his employee’s and customers to feel a sense of security without exposing the magical nature of the system.
‘Zara, please transfer half the monthly salary into Sydney’s account. While you’re at it, go ahead and pay this months mortgage as well’ Alex thinks internally.
[No problem, Alex] [Company Funds: $19,422.90 – $4,167.00(half-salary) – $4,600.00(mortgage) = $10,655.90]After that, Alex talked with Sydney and they developed a work schedule for her. She had classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but her classes ended earlier on Mondays. Alex decided to have her work from 2-9pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and have her work morning shifts during the weekend so that she could have her weekend evenings free for now. This might change in the future as he adds more employee’s to maintain fairness but for now it was a working plan.
Since he was having Sydney work in the mornings during the weekend, he decided to extend the open hours of the gym on those days. On Saturday and Sunday he would have Sydney work from 6am to 2pm and then he would work from 2pm to 10pm. In this way he could extend the store hours on the weekends, when more customers would be available to come work out.
Having worked out a plan, he told Sydney she could start tomorrow on Tuesday and he’d be here to assist her at that time. He walked her out and then returned to the reception desk. Alex then asked Zara to update the signage outside the store with the new weekend gym hours and then went through the FitTech social media accounts to adjust the store hours and made a couple posts to alert the customers to the changes.
The rest of the day went quite smoothly. Alex had lunch with his mother and told her about hiring Sydney. After his lunch break he reopened the gym and got back to work. His mother made an appearance that afternoon and Richard put her through her paces. While working out she was happy to see a good number of customers throughout the gym.
‘Alan, I hope you’re able to see what our son has accomplished from up there,’ she thought to herself. ‘I’m so proud of what he’s been able to accomplish in such a short time and I know you’d be proud of him too.’
After closing up the gym at 9pm, Alex returned to the reception desk and sat down. ‘Zara, can you show me the revenue for today, just the totals are good enough for now.’
[Total revenue for today: $5,460.00] [Personal Funds: $5,158.10 + $546.00 = $5,704.10] [Company Funds: $15,255.90 + $4, 914.00 = $20,169.90]‘Also before I forget, let’s complete the receptionist quest’ Alex thinks to himself.
[Hire a Receptionist]Stipulations: Hire a qualified receptionist to manage customer inquiries and handle administrative tasks. The receptionist should be friendly, knowledgeable, and able to handle a high volume of calls and emails.
Time Limit: 5 days
Experience Gained: 20 points
Ability Score Improved: Wisdom (+10%)
Penalty for Failure: Loss of experience (40 points)
[Alex has hired Sydney Freeman as a receptionist… Quest Completed]With that completed Alex’s Store Level experience was raised to 95/100, only 5 points away from reaching level 2. His wisdom ability score also raised from 4 (16%) to (26%). Feeling a sense of accomplishment, Alex checked the currently available quests and didn’t see anything that called out to him so he decided to wait until tomorrow to check again after the quest reset at midnight.
At this point, all of his business for today was handled so he turned off all the electronics in the gym, turned off the lights, and headed upstairs to relax. He watched some TV in the living room while scrolling through the social media accounts.
He was surprised when he saw on the FitTech twitter account that one user had posted a picture of him and Sydney smiling and chatting behind the reception desk. The post was questioning the identity of Sydney. Apparently it appeared to others that Sydney and him chatting like this made her appear to be his girlfriend.
Freaking out for a moment, Alex decided to send a quick text to Kaitlyn, his actual girlfriend, and let her know that everything was going well on his end and he managed to hire a new receptionist today. Nodding to himself thinking that should be enough to avoid an impending disaster smoothly, he decided to ignore the twitter post. People would see Sydney working at FitTech tomorrow afternoon and then the whole issue would be resolved. Until then, he would just let it remain a mystery.
After dealing with this issue, Alex suddenly felt very tired and decided to call it a night. He washed up and brushed his teeth before climbing into bed. His phone suddenly vibrated and he saw it was a text from Kaitlyn. She was happy that he managed to hire someone to help out at the gym. She knew he was working extremely hard the last few days and was glad he wouldn’t have to work as many hours in the future. They chatted for a few minutes before saying good night. Alex finally relaxed knowing his plan to avoid his girlfriend misunderstanding the twitter post was successful and fell asleep.
