Four Minutes

At 9:53 a.m., Nika Beridze checked the company's address on his phone for the third time. The previous night's rain had washed the streets of Tbilisi, and the autumn sun was breaking through the clouds. A small sign by the entrance read: NetCity.

It was his first day at work. He had come for an interview the week before, but he was still surprised by desks holding both laptops and electronic circuit boards. The place looked more like a cross between a software office and an inventor's workshop than the company he had imagined.

A device beeped briefly in a room at the back. Nika muttered, “I hope that isn't the school bell!”

The door opened. A brown-haired young woman holding a mug recognized him.

“Nika? Welcome! I'm Mari.”
“Hi. I thought I'd better arrive early on my first day.”
“Seven minutes early! We'll make a note of that. It'll come in handy at the end of the month!”

Nika laughed. Mari showed him an empty desk beside hers. In another corner of the office, a salt-and-pepper-haired man sat at a laptop, inspecting a small electronic board beside him. Nika offered a brief hello; the man smiled back and returned to his work.

The first call — 10:12 a.m.

Nika had not even learned his computer password when Mari's desk phone rang. She picked up, and her expression immediately turned serious.

“Good morning, NetCity support. How can I help?”
“Mari? It's Davit Metruli, from the restaurant. I really don't know what's happened this time.”
“Go ahead, Mr. Metruli.”
“Sandro says he was at work at eight. The camera shows him entering at 8:02. He tapped his chip on the device, but today's report doesn't match his shift. The floor manager says he's absent!”

Mari asked whether the device had shown a successful check-in. Davit said yes, adding that Sandro had been late before and he was considering disciplinary action.

“Please don't change the report or the shift yet. Let's check the recorded event first.”
“How long will that take? Everyone here is waiting for an answer.”
“We're starting right now. But we shouldn't rush a decision about an employee.”

After the call, Nika came closer. He wanted to save his first day with a clever guess.

“Maybe the chip is broken?”
“Maybe. But we start with the data. Guesswork comes later.”

Mari opened the restaurant's HR system. Beside “Sandro Karselidze” was a recorded event: check-in at 08:02. The online device had a connection, and the event had reached the employee's record.

“So the device worked!” Nika said. “Why is the report wrong?”

Mari pointed to two parts of the screen: the raw check-in/check-out log, and the shift schedule that determined the employee's calculated status. A recorded arrival, she explained, did not necessarily mean the employee's hours matched the shift the manager expected.

To make the process clearer, she briefly described the attendance options. At this restaurant, employees checked in with a chip or RFID card; some devices also accepted a code. Some businesses skipped the hardware altogether, using a mobile app within an authorized location instead.

Four minutes

Mari opened Sandro's schedule for that day. His current shift began at 18:00, although the restaurant manager had expected him on the morning shift. The change history showed that his schedule had been altered at 07:58.

Nika looked at the time on the screen, then at the check-in record. Four minutes apart.

“So someone changed Sandro's shift four minutes before he arrived?”
“Yes. Now the real question isn't ‘Did the device fail?’ It's ‘Who changed the shift, and why?’”

The account that recorded the change belonged to Levan Gogobridze, one of the restaurant supervisors. But Levan was on leave in Batumi that day.

“Then someone hacked his account!” Nika said excitedly.

“It's too early to say that. Using someone's account isn't necessarily the same as stealing it.”

The newcomer meets Nana

To summarize the information she was authorized to access, Mari opened the HR AI assistant.

“This is Nana. You can ask her in ordinary language what the reports show.”
“Do I need to know a special command?”
“No. Just ask a clear question.”

Mari typed: “Nana, please summarize Sandro's check-in and shift schedule today and tell us what needs investigating.”

Using the information available to Mari, Nana replied: “A check-in was recorded at 08:02. The work schedule was changed at 07:58, and the current shift starts at 18:00. The reason for the shift change and the permissions of the account that made it should be reviewed. This discrepancy alone does not establish deliberate absence.”

Nika asked whether Nana could also write an official report. Mari explained that she could help draft summaries and reports, but changes to employee data and management decisions still required authorized procedures and approval by the person responsible.

“So can I ask, ‘Nana, write me a really professional excuse for being late tomorrow’?”
“Of course. But Nana's first report to the manager might be about you!”

Nika laughed. For the first time, he realized that AI in business software was not merely a chat window. Sometimes it helped people find the right question sooner.

An account whose owner was in Batumi

Mari called Levan. He confirmed that he had not changed the schedule, but had shared his management password with a shift supervisor for emergencies.

With Davit's cooperation, the restaurant checked who had been using the shared computer. It turned out that an employee had been rearranging shifts to cover a sick colleague. The browser had remained signed in to Levan's account, and the employee had inadvertently moved Sandro to the evening shift.

There had been no attack. Nobody had deliberately harmed Sandro. One hasty decision, a shared account, and four minutes had been enough to create a misleading report.

Mari wrote in the internal support notes: “Check-in is recorded. After verifying the facts, an authorized manager should correct the shift with a documented reason. Shared use of management accounts must stop.”

A person behind every row

Davit called again. This time he no longer sounded angry.

“So Sandro wasn't lying?”
“His check-in is on record, and it matches what you saw on camera. The shift was changed incorrectly.”
“I told him in front of everyone that I couldn't trust him anymore…”

Mari paused. No button in the software could take back those words.

“You should review the full report and speak with him.”
“Yes. I owe him an apology.”

Nika looked at the screen. That morning he had thought a software company's job was simply to display numbers correctly. Now he saw that understanding a number correctly could affect someone's job, reputation, and peace of mind.

A few minutes later, a device beeped again from a corner of the office. Nika looked toward the man who had been working on electronics since morning. The man did not even look up; he seemed absorbed in testing a component.

“Mari, who is that man?”
“Morteza Miri.”
“That's not a Georgian name.”
“Because he's not Georgian. He's Iranian.”
“What's he doing here?”
“For now, just know that if you don't understand something about our work, that's normal. It's only your first day!”

Nika glanced at the board on Morteza's desk. Apparently, this company had more mysteries than an attendance table.

The second call — 12:06 p.m.

The support phone rang again. This time, a woman from a school in Tbilisi was calling.

“Hello, I'm Tamar Gabunia from the school. We need help activating parents' access in SkolaPlus.”
“Of course, Ms. Tamar.”
“A student's mother contacted the school. She's just discovered her son missed several days of class last week. She wants to set up the parent app so she can check attendance and homework herself.”

Mari said she would guide them through setup and the appropriate access permissions. Tamar had more to say.

“The problem isn't just installing the app. His mother says the boy left home with his backpack every day and came back at the usual time… but the class attendance list shows him absent for several days.”
“What does he say?”
“He says he was at school on those days.”

Nika, who had learned to ask questions before making guesses, opened his notebook.

At the top of the page he wrote: “Find out what really happened first.”

Underneath, in smaller letters: “This one isn't just four minutes.”

What we learned:
Device check-ins and shift schedules are separate records.
Schedules and access permissions need verification.
Nana supports analysis and report drafting within authorized access.
The school remains primarily responsible for student attendance records.