In the early 2000s, an important local businessman I had been serving for a couple of years but had never met in person—the esteemed Mr. Joseph Feghali—dropped by the office. I was utterly surprised. He brought along a Scandinavian gentleman.

He introduced me to Mr. Ake Viktorsson of Swedish Match. Mr. Viktorsson had just moved to Bulgaria and frequently traveled on short return trips almost twice every week. It was still the age of paper tickets, and I would bring them to his place on Vishneva Street, less than 10 minutes from where I lived. Sometimes, while playing football with my friends, he would call me. When my friends heard me mention his name, they were amused: Victor worked for Viktorsson. One or two of them even started calling me "Viktorsson" :)

I continued working with Mr. Ake Viktorsson for many years. I learned a great deal from him about how to work with VIP clients, more than any other single client had taught me. When he finally decided to move abroad, he imparted the biggest lesson of all. He said that their block on Vishneva Street was amazing, with a beautiful location and great views. Only people of significant net worth lived there, yet most of them would ignore the gardener and not pay him for months. Mr. Viktorsson said, probably in different words, "There are 5,000 employees in the company I work for, and I respect all of them. If I do not respect one, then he would be fired. But I would never keep an employee just to humiliate them. I want my son Viktor to grow up in another country."