“Masha will be your direct supervisor. And I don’t want to hear any objections about it,” Galina Petrovna said to Elena, her former daughter-in-law. “She assigns the tasks, and you execute them. If you’re unhappy with this, you can hand in your resignation.”
Elena glanced at her ex-husband’s new girlfriend. Masha sat confidently at her desk, scrolling through photos on her phone, clearly not bothered to join the conversation. Not so long ago, she could’ve ‘walked right under that table,’ Elena thought… Now that little ‘kid’ was about to lead people who knew far more about flowers and the shop than she did.
“And what exactly will Masha be doing?” Elena asked. “Purchasing, supplier management, corporate orders?”
“Everything she wants. She’s the boss,” her ex-mother-in-law declared firmly.
“Alright, then she can coordinate orders with the restaurants. We have three events next week, and two of them don’t even have confirmed deliveries yet. I’m stepping away from those responsibilities now.”
“She’ll figure it out as she goes,” Galina Petrovna replied. “You don’t think the shop can’t run without you, do you?”
“I’m just clarifying who’s now responsible for these orders.”
Masha finally put her phone down.
“Lenochka, I’m not going to ask for your permission or advice every time. I have my own ideas on how to make our flower shop thrive, I’m studying business, and I know a bit more about this than you do. If you choose to stay, you’ll be working with flowers—which is your specialty. You’re just a regular florist. I’m the manager now,” Masha announced, nose in the air.
“For twenty years I’ve handled much more than just flowers,” Elena replied. “And you know perfectly well I ran everything in this store.”
“Now you’ll work as part of a team instead of acting irreplaceable,” Galina Petrovna interrupted.
Elena closed the folder of orders she’d brought to the meeting. She realized she hadn’t been called in for a real discussion; the decision was already made, and now they just expected her to go along with it.
“So I’m supposed to hand everything over to Masha and just arrange the bouquets?”
“If you want to keep your job, yes.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
Galina Petrovna pushed the folder away from herself.
“Then you know where the door is.”
Elena grabbed her bag from the back of her chair. She could have reminded them how many times she’d saved the shop from delivery disasters, dealt with suppliers who couldn’t bring the right flowers on time, or kept major clients after staff mistakes. But her mother-in-law knew all that just as well. Now it was simply more convenient to reduce twenty years of work to a routine set of duties that could easily be handed over to someone else.
“Fine,” Elena said. “In that case, you can pass everything to Masha yourselves.”
“You’re supposed to—” Galina Petrovna shouted after her, but Elena was already out of earshot.
In the hallway, two florists were sorting through a fresh delivery. The senior florist, Olga, looked up and noticed the bag in Elena’s hand.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I don’t work here anymore. I wish you luck… and stay strong.”
Olga wanted to ask something, but Elena was already heading for the door. She didn’t feel like discussing what had happened with the girls. She appreciated them, but now it was time for everyone to work by new rules.
Galina Petrovna was sure that Elena would change her mind. Where would she go after so many years? To some other shop, where she’d have to start out as just a regular employee? She definitely wouldn’t get the kind of salary she was used to… Or maybe she’d try to start her own business, even though she didn’t have a space, staff, or capital? Her mother-in-law thought the former daughter-in-law was too proud to admit her mistake, but sooner or later, life would force her to come back.
Masha also had no doubts that she’d manage. She was already picturing how she’d update the shop’s décor, take care of advertising, and make her personal brand popular. She didn’t particularly want to dive into deliveries and orders—after all, that’s what employees are for. The manager’s job, as she saw it, was to organize the work of the staff.
Galina Petrovna opened the flower shop ‘White Rose’ just before her son’s wedding. Back then, it was a small stand with a fridge display and a limited selection of flowers. When she realized her daughter-in-law had a background in floristry and a real interest in flowers, Galina Petrovna quickly put Elena’s skills to use. The business grew bit by bit, built up loyal customers, got corporate orders, and started handling wedding and anniversary arrangements. Eventually, the shop was making enough that the owner could afford to step back from daily tasks.
Elena really did start out making bouquets, checking off deliveries, and prepping the flowers, but it didn’t take long to see she had a talent you rarely found—even among experienced florists. She had a knack for figuring out what a customer wanted, even when they couldn’t really put it into words themselves. She knew which varieties would last the longest, which arrangements suited business events, and which flowers regular customers came back for every single year for family celebrations.
Gradually, Elena took over purchasing, talking to suppliers, and organizing the workflow. She scheduled deliveries, kept an eye on expenses, divided orders among the florists, and coordinated with event managers on venue décor. Whenever a big client wanted to decorate a restaurant or order arrangements for several offices, the conversation usually ended with: “Let Elena handle it.”
Galina Petrovna didn’t mind. She liked that the profit was rising and her own effort could stay minimal. Still, she continued to believe all the credit was hers, since she had once invested the money to start the shop.
But it was her daughter-in-law who could solve problems on the spot, and everything really depended on her. One day, a supplier warned that the usual batch of roses wouldn’t arrive on time. To a regular customer, that might seem like a small hiccup, but that weekend, the shop had several large orders to fill.
“So what do we do now?” Galina Petrovna asked when Elena told her about the problem. “People have already placed their orders.”
“I’ll work things out with another supplier. We’ll get some of the flowers from them, and we’ll swap the rest for varieties that are close in color and can handle the trip.”
“And if it ends up costing more?”
“Then we’ll recalculate the expenses. But we can’t cancel the orders. These people have been coming to us for years.”
By evening, the problem was solved. Elena called the clients, got their approval for a few small changes where needed, and arranged for delivery. Not a single order had to be canceled.
While Lena was running her mother-in-law’s shop, Andrei bounced between different projects, picking up new hobbies, and promising to take care of the family budget—then always going back to his mother for help. Their marriage had held together out of habit for the last few years. Then one day he started seeing Masha, a girl he met at a bar—30 years younger than him. A classic case of midlife crisis. For Lena, her husband’s betrayal was devastating. She tried to throw herself into work to cope, but things kept changing: Galina Petrovna welcomed her son’s new girlfriend like family, and before long Masha showed up at the shop and announced she’d always wanted to try her hand at managing.
“I think I could change a lot around here,” she said, eyeing the display. “These days it’s all about service and promotion. We could create a beautiful Instagram page, make videos, show off the bouquets. Clients would be lining up. Let’s open more shops around town!”
Elena could have stayed on, kept doing the work of two people, trained Masha, and hoped she’d eventually learn. But then any success would be credited to the new boss, and every failure would land on Elena, who no longer had the right to make her own decisions.
So she gathered her things, said goodbye to her coworkers, and left.
In the first few days, Elena tried to figure out how to fill her suddenly free time. She was used to starting her mornings by checking deliveries and orders, calling clients, discussing arrangements, and making sure everything was ready by the end of the day. Now, her phone was silent and the routine tasks were no longer hers to handle.
She opened job sites, but the offers were disappointing. Some required working in shifts with low pay, others wanted a florist but without direct contact with clients. Elena knew she could get hired at another flower shop, but she didn’t want to start all over again in a position that didn’t reflect her experience.
The first call came a week after she quit. Irina Viktorovna’s name appeared on the screen—a regular client for whom Elena had arranged family celebrations for years.
“Lenochka, I heard you’re not at ‘White Rose’ anymore. Is it true?” she asked. “I wanted to order some arrangements for my husband’s birthday, but they just told me to pick something from the catalog. You and I always talked everything through together.”
Elena explained that she was no longer working at the shop. Irina Viktorovna was quiet for a moment, then asked if Elena could take her order directly.
“I don’t have my own salon now,” Elena warned. “I can’t offer you everything that I could before.”
«I don’t need a fancy shop. I need someone who truly understands what I’m looking for. Can you help me?»
Elena agreed to think it over and called back in the evening. She suggested a few design options, calculated the cost of flowers and her work, and personally arranged with a supplier for a small batch just for her client, thanks to her connections. The order wasn’t very big, but the client was happy and paid in full.
A week later, Irina Viktorovna recommended Elena to a friend who was preparing for a family celebration. Then, a request came from an event organizer Elena had collaborated with for several years. He remembered her from past projects and didn’t want to take a risk with a new florist.
Elena only took on orders she knew she could deliver with quality. She didn’t rent a space or buy flowers in advance. Instead, she negotiated with suppliers for each specific project, calculated all expenses, and gradually built her own clientele.
At «White Rose», everything seemed fine at first glance during this time. Masha had really started working on the shop’s social media and came up with a few special promotions.
One morning, the new florist discovered there were too few roses left in the cooler to fill weekend orders. Elena used to check stock and submit orders early, keeping in mind the season, demand, and delivery times. Masha decided it was fine to call the supplier on Friday once she knew exactly how many flowers were needed. By then, popular varieties were already sold out, and rush deliveries cost much more.
«Why didn’t you let me know we were running out of roses?» Masha asked the senior florist.
«I told you on Tuesday we needed to place an order. You said to wait.»
«You should have reminded me again.»
The florist didn’t reply. She didn’t want to argue, but she knew perfectly well that responsibility for purchasing had shifted to the new manager.
A few days later, Masha took an order from a long-time customer who had been buying arrangements for family events for years. The order form included specific flower preferences, but Masha didn’t bother to open it. She picked a bright bouquet from what was left in stock and sent the courier to the address.
The client called almost immediately after delivery. He had asked for a calm arrangement in white and cream tones, but received a bouquet with bold red and yellow flowers. For him, it wasn’t just a mismatch—he’d spent weeks preparing for a very special family event.
Masha offered him a discount on his next order, but the man replied that next time he’d go to a place where they actually read the instructions before making the bouquet.
Galina Petrovna dismissed the story. She told Masha that sometimes clients are just picky, and advised her not to take every complaint to heart. Masha decided the issue really was minor. After all, the shop was still making money, and one unhappy customer didn’t change much.
However, within a month it became clear that there were already several such customers. A corporate client asked for a quote on decorating their offices for a holiday, but Masha didn’t reply to his emails for several days because she thought the calculations were too complicated. Another client was promised floral arrangements by a certain hour, but the courier got the wrong instructions. Yet another order had to be redone because they didn’t have enough flowers in the right shade.
In the past, Elena would spot these kinds of risks early. She’d double-check the details, make sure the flowers were in stock, and never made promises the shop couldn’t keep. Now, the team was trying to handle things on their own, and Masha blamed every mistake on someone else’s lack of attention.
Meanwhile, Elena registered as an individual entrepreneur. She wanted to work officially, sign contracts for event decorations, and not depend on random agreements. She created a price list, negotiated with several suppliers, and started accepting bigger orders.
But with all this work came a new problem. In the morning, Elena might be discussing restaurant decor, during the day she answered questions about bouquets, and in the evening she’d be confirming a delivery address and working out replacements for flowers her supplier didn’t have. Her phone kept distracting her from the core work. Sometimes she’d reply to the same message several times because she lost track of the conversation among so many other chats.
One evening, Elena opened her list of unread messages and realized that things couldn’t go on like this. If she kept getting more orders, she’d start losing clients – not because of the quality of her work, but simply because she couldn’t physically manage to answer everyone.
Looking for a solution, she found out about business chatbots in MAKS. Elena registered through her confirmed entrepreneur profile, opened the ‘Chatbots’ section, and clicked ‘Create’. She filled out the required details, submitted it for moderation, and after approval, set up some simple request handling scenarios.
Now clients could select exactly what they needed: a bouquet, decor for a family event, or a corporate order. The bot collected the date, their preferences, budget, and contact info, and Elena would personally call the client whenever details needed to be discussed. She didn’t hand over complicated decisions to the software – her flower expertise, understanding the task, and taking responsibility for the results were still her job.
Step by step, Elena learned how to plan her workload and accept orders so she never promised clients more than she could deliver. She didn’t spend money on a big shop, but instead invested in better tools, packaging, and developing partnerships with event organizers. By the end of the third month, she even had clients booking their dates with her weeks in advance.
Galina Petrovna heard about all this from a friend who used to order flowers from “White Rose” and now turned to Elena. Then it turned out that two more regular customers had found Elena, her former daughter-in-law, and one of the corporate clients announced they wouldn’t be renewing their contract with the store.
That evening, Galina Petrovna called Elena.
«I’ve been told you’re now taking orders from our clients. Do you understand that these are people our shop has worked with for years? We’ve invested money in advertising, we’ve built this business, and now you’re just taking everything we created! Aren’t you ashamed?!»
«I haven’t taken anyone away from ‘White Rose,'» Elena replied. «People call me themselves and ask if I can fulfill their orders because you no longer have professionals. I’m not going to turn down work just because they used to be your customers.»
«You know all their preferences, you know exactly what to offer them. You’re taking advantage of everything you learned while working for me!»
«I know my profession. I spent twenty years learning how to work with flowers, clients, and suppliers. You could have let me manage what I’d been doing all these years, but instead, you offered me bouquet assembly and told me to report to Masha, who doesn’t understand any of this. And now you want me to refuse orders, too?»
Galina Petrovna reminded Elena that she had been part of the family and should have considered that before starting her own business. Elena listened and answered that family ties ended with the marriage, and it was her mother-in-law who made the work-related decisions.
After their talk, Galina Petrovna kept complaining for a long time that her former daughter-in-law had acted unfairly. It seemed to her that if only she could restore the old ways, everything would go back to normal. But the shop kept losing orders, and new clients drawn in by advertising rarely came back after their first visit.
Galina Petrovna started interfering more often in the shop’s daily operations, but it didn’t help. She didn’t know all the order details, couldn’t quickly check the calculations, and didn’t understand why certain flowers couldn’t just be swapped for others. Finally, she decided that a big corporate order—which would provide work for several weeks—could save the shop.
Masha agreed to handle the arrangements for a large company event. The order was lucrative but required strict deadlines and a specific color palette. Instead of checking in advance that all the right flowers were available and confirming the delivery, Masha thought everything could be ordered closer to the event. She also didn’t confirm some suggested substitutions with the client, assuming the differences were minor.
A few days before the event, it turned out that the required flowers were missing. The supplier couldn’t deliver the whole batch in time, and the proposed alternatives didn’t match the approved design. The client demanded an explanation and warned that they would stop working with the shop if the order fell through.
Galina Petrovna tried to find suppliers herself but quickly realized that all the previous arrangements were based on Elena’s personal connections. Some companies couldn’t handle a last-minute delivery, others agreed to help only for much higher prices. In the end, the costs went up, deadlines were at risk, and the staff had no confidence they’d actually be able to fulfill what was promised.
That’s when Galina Petrovna called Elena.
«We need to talk. We’re facing a tough situation with an important order. You know these suppliers and you understand how to organize everything. Come over, help us finish the job, and then we can calmly discuss your terms.»
Elena looked at her calendar. She already had her own orders lined up for the week, with agreed deadlines and clients she had promised to deliver to.
«I can’t come. I have my own work.»
«Elena, this is about a serious contract. If we lose it, the entire shop will suffer. Because of that… Masha… soon we won’t have any clients left! All your florists have left! I have no idea what to do!» her former mother-in-law complained.
«I understand. But it was your decision to put ‘Masha’ in charge. I can’t keep coming back every time things get hard, only to be told what to do by someone who can’t organize the work.»
«You could at least try to understand our situation!» Galina Petrovna raised her voice. «We were a family for so many years!»
«When I worked for you, you thought I should just be grateful for the salary. When I left, you decided I shouldn’t work with people who trust me. Now you need my help, but I can’t give it. We’re not family anymore. This isn’t how you treat people you care about.»
Elena didn’t continue the conversation. She returned to her own order, checked the list of materials, and confirmed the delivery time. A few minutes later, a client whom she was decorating a hall for a birthday contacted her. He sent a photo of the venue and asked if she could add some arrangements at the entrance. Elena suggested a few options and calculated the additional charge.
At ‘White Rose,’ the corporate order was completed, but with delays and extra costs. The client paid for the work, but said they would choose another contractor next time. For Galina Petrovna, this was a major blow: the company had provided the shop with regular orders, and now she would have to look for new partners.
Galina Petrovna tried several more times to convince her former daughter-in-law that they could come to an agreement, but Elena no longer saw any point in discussing it. She didn’t wish bankruptcy on her former mother-in-law. She just had her own work now, built on her own terms.
A few months later, Elena had built a circle of loyal customers. She continued to work without a large salon, but could give each project as much attention as it needed. A chatbot helped gather requests, suppliers knew her schedule, and clients understood that she never promised what she couldn’t deliver.
Sometimes Elena remembered the conversation in the office, when she was offered to stay as just a regular florist and follow Masha’s instructions. Back then, it felt like she was losing the work of her life, something she’d devoted twenty years to. Now she realized: all she really lost was a familiar workplace. Her experience, connections, and ability to build relationships had never left her.
Galina Petrovna was still the owner of ‘White Rose,’ but she now had to find a new manager and learn to handle all the issues that Elena used to manage. Masha kept running the social media accounts, but they no longer trusted her to be in charge of the shop.
