Suddenly, I Am Rich

It didn't take long before Jet2's representative arrived.

It wasn't anyone from the higher-ups anymore. Instead, it was just a regular employee from their tech team, who was sent over to oversee the on-site testing and provide immediate fixes if anything went wrong.

The young man looked a little nervous when he introduced himself.

"Uh, good morning, Sir Gray. Ms. Mara. I'm Ron, from Jet2's backend team. I'll be here the whole day to monitor the system and… well, hopefully, make sure nothing breaks."

Gray shook his hand firmly.

"Good. Nice to meet you. Let's hope there won't be any errors. But if something does, I'll leave it to your care."

"Yes, Sir," Ron replied quickly, adjusting the strap of his laptop bag.

By 7:50 AM, the grocery store doors were unlocked. The service team made sure the booth near the entrance was ready. The table skirt was straightened, the banners stood tall, and the special promo codes were neatly stacked in small cards.

Two staff members stood at the booth, ready to greet incoming customers.

Joel also made his final round, checking with the booth staff and ensuring they had the QR code for the app download printed and displayed. When he was done, he went to the office and reported it to Gray.

"We're all set, Sir."

Gray gave him a nod before turning to Ron.

"Okay. Once the first customer tries to place an order, I want you to monitor the backend closely. Can you look for lag, errors, or any product mismatches?"

"Yes. It's already connected to the system, Sir," Ron confirmed, opening his laptop at one of the tables.

The first wave of customers came in around 8:15 AM.

As planned, Joel approached a friendly-looking older couple and explained the promo and asked if they could just give the app a try. They agreed on it, mostly because Joel assured them that they could use the discount for their grocery today.

The husband pulled out his phone, scanned the QR code, and downloaded the app. Mara also went out to quietly watch from a short distance. Her eyes narrowed slightly. She wasn't only observing the customers, but the process itself.

"Ron, how's it looking?" Gray asked as soon as Joel informed him that the first ones had successfully tried checking out.

"It's smooth so far," Ron replied, eyes fixed on his screen. "Order is logged, and it's already in the picking queue."

Gray leaned slightly over Ron's shoulder to see the backend dashboard. "Good. Now let's see the rest of the orders."

After getting an approval, Joel gave the couple the promo card that they could use in the store. The couple left him smiling as they walked away to start shopping.

"First one's a success," Joel reported with a grin.

But they didn't relax.

The point of today was not just to make a few orders go through the system but it was to stress-test the system.

In the middle of the morning, trial orders were coming in from both actual customers and their own staff pretending to be customers. Some were intentionally placing tricky orders: items from different categories, odd quantities, and even trying the last-minute changes.

Gray stood at his desk. He was coordinating directly with Joel and Mara, who were outside.

"Order #0027—someone cancel the milk and replace it with oat milk. I want to see how fast the system updates."

Ron's fingers flew over his keyboard.

"Update reflected in 2.3 seconds. It's pretty quick."

"Not bad," Gray admitted. "Now check if the stock count adjusts automatically."

"It does."

"Good."

By lunchtime, they had received over 60 trial orders. A few small bugs popped up, such as one item not deducting from stock after checkout, and a slow image load on the seafood category.

They were just small things that could be quickly fixed.

Each time, Ron worked silently and quickly, deploying small fixes without causing downtime.

Gray, however, was still not satisfied. He walked on the floor and watched both customers and staff interact with the app. If someone looked confused, he noted it. If a category seemed hard to find, he mentally flagged it for discussion later.

The afternoon rush brought even more orders. Some customers were intrigued by the booth's promo and downloaded the app on the spot. Others took the QR code card "for later," though Gray knew most of them wouldn't bother unless they had a reason.

Still, the booth staff kept smiling, demonstrating the app, and showing how it works. Joel checked in with them every half hour. He also had a few staff in rotation to check the booth.

By 3:00 PM, they had processed over 130 orders. The only notable problem came when one customer ordered fresh fish that had just sold out. The app allowed the order to go through before the stock updated.

"Ron," Gray said sharply, "that cannot happen. If it's out of stock, it needs to reflect instantly. Customers will not appreciate paying for something we can't give them."

"Yes, Sir. I'm on it," Ron replied, fingers already flying. "This will take five minutes to fix."

And it did. The next time someone tried to order a sold-out product, the app refused the order with a polite notification and an option for a replacement item.

As the sun began to lower, the store's lighting took on its late-afternoon warmth. Gray checked the backend one last time for the day's metrics.

The customers' feedback has been great so far.

At 5:30 PM, the last order for the day went through. The booth began packing up, the banners rolled down, and the QR code cards were stacked away for tomorrow.

Ron closed his laptop with a relieved sigh.

"That's it for today, Sir. Honestly, I'm impressed. The system held up way better than we expected."

"You did well," Gray said simply, then glanced at Mara. She was already gathering her notes. "Tomorrow, we review everything and finalize changes. I want the app to be perfect before it goes fully live."

"Understood," Mara replied, tucking her pen behind her ear.

Joel came by to give his final report, all smiles despite the long day.

"Staff says they actually enjoyed using the app, Sir. Said it makes things easier once you get the hang of it."

"That's good," Gray said with a faint smile. "We're getting there. I guess to be fully prepared, we can launch this officially by Friday."