On Monday, around half past nine, Andrei brought the accountant a payment order for a supplier and placed it on her desk.
“Lyudmila Petrovna, this one has to go through today. They won’t release the truck until we pay.”
The accountant read the first line, turned the page over for some reason, then set it back down.
“Take it to Svetlana.”
“Why?”
“It goes through her now.”
Andrei smiled, thinking he must have misunderstood.
“I’ve been signing these for eight years.”
“You used to.”
His smile vanished.
A printer hummed behind the wall. Someone in the warehouse dragged a cart across the concrete floor, and the phone on the next desk rang for the third time. An ordinary Monday, except Lyudmila Petrovna was refusing to take the document.
“Is she in her office?”
“Since this morning.”
Andrei picked up the page.
On Saturday, they had celebrated their mother’s sixty-fifth birthday. Svetlana had not called him on Sunday. He had not called her either, certain that the whole incident had ended when the last guests left.
Apparently, it had not.
Their father had started the company eleven years earlier. It was nothing big: a warehouse on the outskirts of town, two used trucks, and deliveries of packaging, containers, bags, and household supplies to small cafés and shops.
At the time, Svetlana worked as an accountant elsewhere. Their father asked her to help “for a month or two, until the business gets on its feet.”
That month turned into eleven years.
At first, she came by after her regular job. Then she quit and joined her father full-time. By forty-six, Svetlana could tell you from memory which supplier shipped only after payment, whom she could call to ask for a two-day extension, and which customer would inevitably lose an invoice and then insist it had never been delivered.
Their father used to say, “Our Sveta is the clever one. She’s good with numbers.”
That was meant as praise.
Andrei joined later. He was thirty-four, his previous workplace had closed, and their father suggested he try sales.
That was when it became clear that Andrei was genuinely good at something Svetlana could not stand doing.
He struck up conversations easily. He had no fear of walking into a café owner’s office without calling first. He remembered who needed heavy-duty bags, who wanted cheaper containers, and who was opening a second location next month. He could visit a customer over three missing boxes, spend twenty minutes chatting about renovations, and leave with a new order.
Within a couple of years, several of the company’s biggest customers were calling him directly.
Svetlana never denied his talent.
The problem lay elsewhere.
When their father finally stepped away from the company’s daily work, Svetlana became director. Andrei received authorization to sign certain documents and could cover for his sister when she was away, ill, or tied up in meetings all day.
For the first few years, that was exactly how it worked.
Then, somewhere along the way, “cover for her” disappeared from the arrangement.
“I gave the Leskovs a ten percent discount,” Andrei told her one day.
Svetlana looked up from her monitor.
“How much?”
“Ten percent. But they’re buying three months’ worth at once.”
“We barely make anything on that product as it is.”
“On one product.”
“Half their order consists of it.”
Andrei pulled up a chair and sat opposite her.
“Sveta, you count every box. The customer looks at the total he has to pay. If I let him walk, he’ll buy across the street.”
She recalculated the order. Even with the discount, it would still turn a profit, though considerably less than they had expected.
“Tell me first next time.”
“I will.”
He did not.
But there was no catastrophe, either. The Leskovs really did place two more orders, and Andrei later reminded his sister with some satisfaction:
“See? Sometimes you need to understand the customer instead of just opening a calculator.”
It was hard to argue with that.
Perhaps that was why Svetlana spent too long treating their disagreements as a simple difference in temperament.
She was cautious. Andrei took risks.
She checked the figures. He made the deals.
Until one day, the entire company had to make good on a promise he had made.
Two weeks before their mother’s birthday, Andrei brought in an order from a small chain of bakeries. For their company, it was a very good one: almost four hundred thousand rubles.
“If we handle this well, they’ve got two more locations opening,” he said at the morning meeting.
The warehouse began gathering the goods.
After lunch, Svetlana saw the payment terms.
“Andrei, come here.”
He arrived with his phone to his ear, finished the call in her office, and sat down.
“What?”
She turned her monitor toward him.
“A twenty-one-day payment extension?”
“Yes.”
“Why am I only finding out now?”
“Because the order only came in now.”
“Our supplier expects payment for this part of the goods on Thursday.”
“We’ll pay them.”
“With what?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Svetlana opened the payment schedule.
“Exactly what I said. The supplier is due Thursday, warehouse rent is due Friday, and then it’s payday. That money was supposed to come in earlier.”
Andrei rubbed his chin.
“If we turn down the order, we lose the customer.”
“I’m not saying we should turn it down. I’m asking why you promised them three weeks without checking with me.”
“Because they wouldn’t buy otherwise.”
“Then call me.”
“You were at the supplier’s.”
“I had my phone with me.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Sveta, if I have to run every little thing past you, I might as well stop selling altogether.”
She turned her monitor back.
“Fine. Then find a way to cover Thursday’s payment.”
“Here we go again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your favorite routine. I bring in almost four hundred thousand, and you explain why that’s a bad thing.”
Svetlana said something she should not have.
“You haven’t brought it in yet. So far, all you’ve brought us are obligations.”
Andrei stood up.
“This is why it’s impossible to work with you. To you, every customer is a problem.”
He walked out, and five minutes later she could hear him laughing with someone in the hallway.
Svetlana had to call the supplier. They had worked together for years, so the supplier agreed to wait two days for payment on one shipment. Then the accountant moved another payment.
The order went out.
A week later, the bakeries sent a new inquiry.
Andrei had been at least half right.
Svetlana acknowledged it.
“You brought in a good customer.”
“Well, look at that,” he said with a smirk. “I’ll mark the date.”
That could have been the end of it.
But on Friday, the day before their mother’s birthday, the owner of those bakeries called Svetlana.
They began by discussing the next shipment. Then he asked, “Svetlana Sergeyevna, should we continue agreeing on terms with Andrei, or should we contact you directly?”
“You can speak to him about products and prices.”
“It’s just that he said he has the same authority you do, so we wouldn’t have to bother you unnecessarily.”
Svetlana pushed back from her desk.
“The same authority?”
“Yes. That’s why I wasn’t worried about the payment extension. I thought you both made those decisions.”
She did not answer immediately.
“Andrei makes sales decisions within the agreed terms. It would be better to confirm financial terms with me.”
The man sounded a little embarrassed.
“I understand. Perhaps I misunderstood him.”
It was entirely possible that he had.
Svetlana even intended to leave the matter until Monday. But that evening, her mother called to remind her to pick up the cake they had ordered. Then Svetlana had to collect a gift from relatives. At home, her son asked for help with his university paperwork.
An ordinary Friday quickly used up what was left of the day.
On Saturday, the family gathered.
Their mother had set the table in the living room, although Svetlana had suggested celebrating at a café. Relatives came, along with old family friends and the children. Their father sat beside the birthday woman and told the same story about their first warehouse several times.
“In winter, the door used to freeze shut,” he said. “We’d pour hot water from a kettle over it.”
“Dad, you’ve already told us,” Andrei laughed.
“Then you can listen again.”
Someone found an old photo album. In one picture, their father stood beside the first truck, while Svetlana held a box of documents next to him.
“Sveta carried everything back then,” their mother said. “She had her own job and still helped her father.”
“She’s been the responsible one since childhood,” Andrei replied.
Svetlana heard something in his tone but said nothing.
A little later, a cousin of their parents asked their father whether he regretted handing the business over to his children.
“What’s to regret? It’s still running.”
“Svetlana’s done well, of course. She is the director, after all.”
Andrei gave a short laugh.
“Here we go.”
“What?” their mother asked.
He raised his glass.
“To our useless little genius!”
Several people laughed simply because they expected it to be a joke.
Svetlana sat across from him.
“Very funny,” she said.
“Oh, come on. You know I say it with love.”
“Andrei, don’t,” their mother said.
But he was already explaining himself to their aunt.
“It’s just the family legend. Sveta holds everything together. Sveta makes all the decisions. Everyone forgets who brings in the customers.”
“No one forgets,” their father said.
“I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that if you got rid of me tomorrow, there’d be no one to sell anything.”
Their cousin reached for a napkin and knocked a fork onto the floor. She bent to retrieve it a little too quickly.
Svetlana asked, “And if you got rid of me?”
“We’d hire a proper accountant.”
The table grew noticeably quieter.
“Andrei, that’s enough,” their mother repeated.
“What’s wrong with everyone? Svetka knows I’m joking.”
He turned to his sister.
“You do know, don’t you?”
Svetlana remembered Friday’s phone call.
“I do now.”
Andrei did not seem to notice how she said it. A minute later, their father was arguing with someone about the old truck, their mother asked them to bring in the cake, and the children took pictures by the window.
The celebration went on.
Andrei helped clear the dishes, carried the folding table out to the balcony, and kissed their mother before leaving.
To his sister, he said, “Don’t sulk.”
She was buttoning her coat.
“I’m not sulking.”
“Good.”
On Sunday, Andrei sent her a photo of a supplier’s new price list.
Take a look tomorrow. We could make good money on this.
Svetlana plugged in her phone and took some documents out of her work bag.
Among them was a copy of the authorization they had given her brother several years earlier.
She read it for the first time in a long while.
Only then did she see something simple: the company had been operating under rules Andrei no longer accepted.
On Monday, Svetlana arrived at eight.
She and the accountant went through which documents her brother actually signed in his daily work, where his signature was needed for convenience, and where it had simply become a habit. Then Svetlana contacted the people responsible for arranging his banking and document-signing authority and began the process of changing it.
Nothing vanished instantly.
Some actions could be stopped within the company right away; others required paperwork. Svetlana had no interest in staging a dramatic takeover. She wanted Andrei to remain responsible for sales, while decisions affecting the entire company would no longer be his to make alone.
Around half past nine, he brought that payment order to Lyudmila Petrovna.
A few minutes later, Svetlana’s office door opened.
Andrei walked in with the page in his hand.
“Explain.”
“Explain what?”
He dropped the document on the edge of her desk.
“This.”
“The payment?”
“Don’t play games. Lyudmila says I can’t sign these anymore.”
Svetlana pulled the page toward her.
“I’m revoking some of your authority. The paperwork is already underway.”
“Because of Saturday?”
“Saturday helped.”
“So you decided to get back at me through work?”
“No.”
“What else am I supposed to call it?”
She gestured toward a chair, but Andrei remained standing.
“The bakeries called me on Friday.”
He knew immediately whom she meant.
“And?”
“They believe you have the same authority as the director.”
“Good Lord. I just told them they could deal with me.”
“About what?”
“Work.”
“Including a twenty-one-day payment extension?”
Andrei looked toward the window.
“That extension again. We made money on that deal.”
“We did.”
He turned back to her.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I called the supplier. Lyudmila Petrovna moved the payments. And you told the customer you could decide the financial terms yourself.”
“I never said that.”
“Then he made it up.”
“He could have misunderstood.”
“He could have.”
Svetlana did not argue.
For some reason, that angered her brother even more.
“Have you been planning to push me out for a long time?”
“I’m not pushing you out.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Leaving sales to you.”
He laughed.
“Thank you so much. You’re letting me keep my own sales.”
“Your salary stays the same. So do your customers and your usual responsibilities.”
“And my signature?”
“No.”
“My authorization?”
“I’m revoking it.”
Andrei picked up the payment order.
“You do realize you’ve just given yourself more work?”
“I do.”
And she meant it.
He left.
Svetlana felt the first consequences on Tuesday.
Andrei had previously handled some matters without her. Now documents piled up on her desk. She had to reorganize the approval process, and that evening she personally called two customers back.
On Wednesday, her brother brought in a new order and pointedly laid the calculations in front of her.
“Check it.”
“I will.”
“The customer’s waiting.”
“He can wait ten minutes.”
“I used to decide this myself.”
“Now you don’t decide it alone.”
He walked out.
Fifteen minutes later, Svetlana called him back.
“The price is fine. But don’t promise delivery on Friday. The truck’s booked.”
“I already promised.”
She looked up.
Andrei paused, then added, “I’d check.”
Svetlana signed.
“Then it’s fine.”
It was not fine.
That evening, their mother called Svetlana at home and said Andrei had come by.
“Did you two fight again?”
“Mom, this is work.”
“He says you humiliated him in front of the employees.”
“I didn’t discuss it with him in front of the employees at all.”
“Sveta, he’s your brother.”
Svetlana sat in her kitchen, looking at her open laptop. Two contracts she had brought home were still on the screen.
“That’s exactly why this went on for so long.”
“He said something stupid at the party.”
“It isn’t about one stupid remark.”
Their mother sighed.
“Just don’t tear the company apart.”
That struck closest to home.
Svetlana was afraid of the same thing.
A week later, one of their longtime customers called her instead of Andrei. Her brother had apparently complained that he could no longer decide anything without the director.
“What’s going on over there?” the customer asked.
“Nothing. Andrei is still handling your account.”
“Can I discuss a discount with him?”
“You can discuss it. We’ll confirm it after checking the figures.”
“It used to be simpler.”
“Perhaps.”
The customer grumbled but placed the order.
Another customer really did go away to think it over and returned only two weeks later.
Svetlana did not feel victorious. She had more work, her mother spoke to her more cautiously at home, and her father tried to avoid mentioning the company altogether.
She and Andrei kept their conversations brief.
At the end of the month, though, the accountant brought her the three latest contracts.
“Have a look.”
Each had a sheet on top with Andrei’s notes: quantity, discount, requested delivery date, and, on a separate line, Fourteen-day payment extension needed. Please confirm.
Svetlana reviewed the first.
Then the second.
The price in the third was too low.
She called her brother in.
He entered and stopped by the door.
“What?”
“We can’t give this customer seven percent. Five is the maximum.”
“The competitors are cheaper.”
“Then show me their price. Maybe we can negotiate with the supplier.”
Andrei took out his phone, found the customer’s message, and handed it to her.
Svetlana looked.
“At that price, we can offer five. Seven would leave us with almost no profit.”
“Five won’t be enough for them.”
“Then work out how to make up the difference: more volume or another product.”
He took back his phone.
“I’ll talk to them.”
He paused at the door.
“By the way, the bakeries are opening another location.”
“When?”
“Next month. I already told them we’d agree on the terms separately.”
Svetlana nodded.
“Good.”
Her brother went back to his office.
The next day, he brought in a new order from the bakeries—the largest of the three.
The calculations were on top.
At the bottom, Andrei had written by hand: Payment in fourteen days. If you approve, I’ll send it to the customer.
Svetlana checked the upcoming payments, called the accountant, and signed.
She wrote nothing else on the page.
