Trivial Matters

Ferdinand decisively chose to yield to his mother, Princess Clémentine. He knew better than to try and reason with her, or she would nag him for an entire day!

The result was that Ferdinand received a stern lecture and was forcibly dragged to several tedious aristocratic banquets before it was all over.

However, it was not without its rewards; at the very least, he gained a talent from his mother. Franz Kafka—the name might sound familiar, as it is the same as that of the Austrian-Jewish novelist.

Of course, this was not the same person. This Franz Kafka was a Hungarian in his forties who had been managing Princess Clémentine's personal assets for some time, and he possessed quite impressive capabilities.

Ferdinand was acquainted with him and knew of his competence. After some persistent coaxing, Princess Clémentine temporarily lent him out.

Ferdinand intended to appoint him as the manager of the department store. As the name suggests, although Ferdinand was running a supermarket, due to the limitations of the era, supermarkets of this time could not be entirely separated from department stores. Consequently, the requirements for the personal capabilities of senior management were extremely high.

In the 19th century, the market economy was not yet that developed; family businesses were the mainstream, and talent mobility was not very high. One could only hope to stumble upon high-level talent by chance.

In 1881, there were only about 13,000 university students in Austria. While that might seem like a lot at first glance, a closer calculation reveals that only two or three thousand students graduated successfully each year. Distributed across various majors, the number of those in management-specific fields was a pitiful hundred or so.

Once you subtract those who were already aristocrats or businessmen themselves, the number of people truly needing to find work was negligible.

University students at that time were truly the darlings of heaven. Government departments and major financial groups scrambled for them, and their placements were basically decided before they even graduated.

After comparing the prospects, Ferdinand had to temporarily extinguish the idea of going to schools to recruit, opting instead to train his own people honestly.

The first task Franz Kafka handled for Ferdinand was recruitment, but things did not proceed smoothly.

One day, Franz came over and performed an aristocratic salute to Ferdinand: "Respected Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, Franz Kafka pays his respects to you."

"Hmm, you can choose to call me Highness or Duke; the full title is truly too inconvenient. Franz, is there something you need to see me about today?" Ferdinand said casually.

"I am very sorry, Highness. I am unable to complete the task you assigned on schedule," Franz Kafka said, looking somewhat troubled.

"What? It's only recruiting a thousand people; how could you not finish it?" Ferdinand asked, somewhat puzzled.

In his heart, his assessment of Franz dropped a few notches. He had given him half a month to recruit, and now that less than half the time had passed, he was already reporting difficulties. Did he not know how to find a way to solve them?

"Highness, according to your requirements, I am afraid it cannot be done. So far, only 382 people have been recruited. Moreover, since yesterday morning, there have been very few applicants. I fear there aren't that many high-educated talents still looking for work in the Vienna area!" Franz Kafka explained.

After a pause, Franz suggested to Ferdinand: "Highness, regarding the remainder, do you think we could lower the standards? This would also allow us to reduce some wages, save on expenses, and it wouldn't affect the supermarket's operations!"

Ferdinand's requirement for recruitment was a minimum of a middle school education. Because the wages offered were quite high, the first batch of one hundred people was completed quickly, which led him to overlook the fact that in this era, middle school graduates were actually considered highly educated talent.

At this time, graduating from middle school meant one could easily find a decent job; its value was higher than that of 985 or 211 graduates in later generations.

Hearing Franz's reasoning, Ferdinand's anger dissipated; this was caused by his own oversight.

He secretly reminded himself to keep this lesson in mind and not to bring the concepts of later generations into this era. Making a fool of himself was a small matter, but if things went wrong and he capsized in the gutter, that would be miserable!

Correcting mistakes when one knows them is a virtue of Ferdinand's, and since Franz's suggestion was reasonable, there was naturally no reason to refuse.

"Mr. Franz, your suggestion is excellent. I will leave the rest to you; proceed boldly according to your ideas!" Ferdinand's tone was much more polite this time.

The management talent for the supermarket was settled, but the financial staff remained a headache. There were no computers in this era, and bookkeeping relied entirely on manual labor.

The workload was immense, and every supermarket had to be equipped with reliable financial personnel. It was difficult for Ferdinand to find so many people in such a short time.

For the previous five supermarkets, the financial staff were all temporarily trained on the job; they could barely keep accounts, and it had nothing to do with being professional.

Thinking about it was quite distressing. It seemed that if he wanted to spread Volvo across the globe, he still had a long and arduous road ahead!

However, thinking of the supermarket's profits, Ferdinand's spirits lifted again. The first Volvo supermarket broke even in its first month of operation, and the other four had not been open long, but their returns were also quite good.

Especially the two aristocratic supermarkets; after all, the consumption power of aristocrats was much higher, the goods inside were all high-end, and the service was top-notch, so the prices were naturally a bit higher than those on the market!

"As expected, the easiest business to make money in is a monopoly!" Ferdinand thought to himself.

However, he also knew that these good days would likely last at most half a year. Once others joined in, the profits would surely drop.

After continuing to monitor for another two months, the supermarket operations were on the right track, so Ferdinand handed over the daily management of the department stores to Franz.

Of course, he did not forget to promote two people from the earliest employees to serve as Franz's assistants. The supermarkets would certainly continue to expand, so how could he not prepare talent in advance?

The supermarket matter was temporarily settled, but Ferdinand did not remain idle. The profits from the supermarkets were good, but compared to what he intended to do in the future, it was still a drop in the bucket.

Thinking of Bulgaria, Ferdinand felt that he was still not working hard enough! He was a transmigrator, after all, someone who had seen the big picture; how could he be satisfied with a mere monthly income of over ten thousand pounds?

Of course, if it were before he transmigrated, he would certainly have been very satisfied with a monthly income of over ten thousand pounds.

Now everything was different. He was, at the very least, a prince, a duke, and the future King of Bulgaria; how could his vision be so narrow?

Ferdinand greatly envied those transmigrator predecessors who could casually come up with some inventions and amass tens or hundreds of millions in assets, while it was his turn to only do small business.

Although the Kohary Family also had tens of millions of pounds in assets, those were only nominal—vast stretches of territory and castles that could not be liquidated unless he intended to stop mixing in aristocratic circles!

Oh, the Kohary Family's assets were also only nominally vast. In reality, the family's various investments plus land income only amounted to a mere annual income of a little over one million pounds!

After deducting expenses, there was a surplus of about two or three hundred thousand pounds each year, which still counted as a first-class family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Ferdinand couldn't manage inventions. He knew things like adding an eraser to a pencil, but Hyman had already registered the patent in 1867, so there was nothing left for him to do.

Stockings were even more absurd. Given the chemical level of the time, even if they could be manufactured, the price would likely not be much lower than gold, and whether they could even be worn was another matter!

Moreover, were patent fees in this era really so easy to collect? Did he think capitalists were vegetarians? Didn't the sending of "peanuts" and "flying earth" happen in this era?

Even if Ferdinand was a high-ranking aristocrat, so what? They might not dare to take action against him, but they could certainly steal his patents, and he couldn't stop that, could he?

Piracy could not be eradicated even in the 21st century, let alone the 19th!

Since the patent route was a dead end, Ferdinand finally decided to continue focusing on the basics of life—food, clothing, housing, and transportation. For instance, a grain processing plant would be quite good.

Although the profit margin was not high, even the smallest mosquito has meat! The grain was produced on his own land, and after processing, it could be sold directly in the supermarkets, forming a small industrial chain and increasing his ability to resist risks.

The previous data was incorrect and has now been revised (changed from elementary school graduate to middle school graduate). Austria's elementary school was a four-year system and middle school was an eight-year system; I automatically substituted the six-year elementary school system, my apologies.

Thanks to Mantou and Aizen for the information, and to ms-cd for the timely reminder!