Chapter 5

Over the next two weeks I managed to avoid falling into any of the traps that were being set for me. The eight of us became traveling nomads, pitching one tent at the office in Bolling, and the other one at Uncle Bunny's house.

I left the logistics of traveling to the girls every morning, and then again, every afternoon. We usually used three cars to get to and from work. Joyce and Brenda rode in one car, with the twins. Emily, Shirley and Derek rode in another. Dad stopped by most mornings, to drive me into work with him. Once, when he was out of town for two days during the week, I drove myself in.

Brenda did all of our cooking, and she really was quite an excellent cook. Soon, Dad was coming down to my office with me, every day at lunch time, to eat his lunch with us.

He and I worked better together once I was given space inside his office. Myra had put in a small desk, and my own phone lines, and Dad kept me filled in on everything he was working on, and thinking about. I began to get some understanding of the overall complexity of meshing the separate businesses into a single whole.

One of the advantages of our new shipping and warehousing methods was the seamless integration of our, heretofore, separate product lines. Everything was being shipped to the same hub points now, then repackaged, and shipped to final delivery rail yards.

Joyce had set everything up so that all hub deliveries were being coordinated by one department, based in Bolling. Corporate sales were increasing at more than twenty-five per cent per year, with net profits rising at an even higher rate, because of all the new efficiencies the rail shipping and warehousing made possible for us.

Dad's main job was ensuring that everything was working. He was constantly tweaking things, with an eye towards improving overall total performance. A large portion of his responsibility was finding the right mix of people to accomplish each task. He had successfully negotiated a satisfactory line of credit to cover the costs for our expansion, and he was making full use of those funds to increase the footprint of our national presence.

Dad and I had been talking about the importance of selecting the right people for different types of jobs, and he brought up, what he liked to call, my harem. He chose to treat it as Joyce's girls, rather than as mine though.

"What I like is the way Joyce knew she had to bring in more people to help her care for the twins, both at home, and here at the office. Otherwise, she would be too distracted with the twins to get much of her work here accomplished. You need to remind her that it's important that she get someone trained here in Bolling. It has to be someone who can follow through to make sure her daily instructions are being implemented. It needs to be someone who can report back to her in the evenings, to keep her updated on how things are running here. Joyce is handling a very critical component of our expansion program. There are constant daily changes needed, in order to keep our distribution operation running smoothly. It's very critical that everything needs to be coordinated precisely, or else, the products won't arrive on time to our retailers, If we aren't totally dependable, they'll find a supplier who will be."

"Dad, what would you think of my idea of having Joyce hire Ellen to be her assistant here, after we're gone?"

"I thought you and Ellen were still having that conflict with each other."

"We have a conflict, but I wouldn't be the one working with her. If she and Joyce could somehow manage to get along together, Ellen would be almost perfect for the job of coordinating with Joyce. She is very bright, and we never once had any problem with her work. I'll be here with you for the summer, and then, I'll be gone to school with Joyce in the fall. Ellen would almost be perfect for this sort of thing."

"You continue to impress me, Kenny. I had the same thought, but I wasn't going to suggest it to you. I didn't want to stir up old antagonisms between the two of you. How do you propose we proceed with getting into contact with her? We should make use of the time we have left, to get her in here, and used to working with Joyce."

"If we're going to do it, we should call her, to see if she and Joyce can make peace with each other. It was really Joyce who was being threatened by her. She might decide she can't work with Ellen. I think she'd be willing if we could get Ellen to accept that Joyce was her real boss, and she needed to keep her pleased. Give her a title that included the word assistant in it. Maybe assistant to the vice president of distributions."

"You think we should make Joyce a vice president at twenty two? We'll ask her today, at lunch. It's important that Joyce leave someone here that can help keep things on track for us. I hope Joyce is able to put Ellen's past behavior behind her. I can have a talk with Edith and Ellen if need be, Kenny."

"We'll talk to Joyce first, find out what she thinks. I think she'll be willing to give Ellen another chance, if we ask her to. I don't think Ellen could intimidate her now anyway. I'll talk to Shirley too. She and Ellen are friends. I'll explain to Shirley that Ellen's job depends on her not causing any problems around here."

Joyce seemed in favor of bringing Ellen on board. In fact, when I brought the subject up, she told me that Shirley had already spoken to her about Ellen. Joyce already knew that Ellen was a valuable resource, and a very capable worker.

What she didn't yet know was whether the two of them could make the kind of communications connection that would be necessary for them to work well over the telephone.

I told her that I had been impressed with Ellen's intelligence, enough so that I'd have been willing to let her have the job I gave to her. I would have given it to Ellen too, if she hadn't been so good at the more important sales order desk job she already had with us.

It was agreed that we'd invite her to come in the next day for an interview. Shirley informed us that Ellen was working in the customer service department for the J.C. Penny's store, in Bolling.

According to Shirley, she hated the work she did, which was dealing with unsatisfied and complaining customers all day. We told Shirley to call her, and invite her in for lunch, letting her know that we were interested in discussing a possible job offer.

I went back upstairs with Dad after lunch, and we spent the rest of the day working on a problem in our Delaware company. This company was the one weak link in our consolidation program. Dad said it was because all the executives were probably afraid to embrace the many changes we were implementing in our shipping and warehousing.

To be effective, the changes needed someone, on site, to champion them. In Delaware, it seemed there was no one that wanted to supervise implementing our newer distribution programs. They constantly lagged behind the other divisions, and as a result, their profitability was lagging behind all the other divisions.

"Kenny, I want you to go back there next week, you need to light a fire under those people. Find someone who will take responsibility for implementing all the necessary changes. This foot dragging needs to end, it isn't good that they're lagging behind like they are."

"I don't know anyone back there. It would take me at least two weeks to recognize where the problems were. I think I should stay here with Joyce too, at least until the twins are older."

"Don't kid yourself about whether you'll be able to recognize their problems, Kenny. It might take you two weeks before you find out everything that's wrong, but I'm willing to bet you'll see plenty of things that need correcting, and long before those two weeks are up. I'm giving you full authority to act while you're there, including hiring, firing and promoting. In effect, I'm going to let you run the division, until you have it running as well as the other divisions are."

"Dad, I can't operate a division by myself. It isn't something I've trained to do. I don't want to go there and fall flat on my face."

"You won't be by yourself. The division is being run right now, but it's being run poorly. I want it improved, and I can't afford to take the time to go there and see what needs to change. I'll send you out there, and you can either make the changes you think necessary, or else, if you are worried, you can call me every night, and we'll discuss making the changes together. I think you'll be able to recognize the problems there, just like you did here, and up in Omaha."

"If you send me like this, aren't you afraid it will undermine morale in Dover? Nobody likes having people come in and make wholesale changes to their way of doing things. Isn't there a less disruptive way to do this?"

"Why should I be afraid? I've waited over a year for them to straighten themselves out. I've spoken to every department manager in the division, asking them to look into the problems and get back to me with their ideas for improving the integration of their departments with our combined operations. The few that have responded at all, have complained there was simply no way to implement our changes into their current working environment. We're going to have to make enough changes to make it possible. I'm confident you'll identify the most obvious stumbling blocks."

"You want me to go there and fire the division president. You want me to be your hatchet man." Even as I said it, I felt a sense of satisfaction that my Dad would choose me for something like that. It meant I'd passed another test with him. Now, he wanted to find out if I had the stomach for going in and making the necessary wholesale changes. It was thrilling to me to have such an opportunity. I knew my Dad wouldn't send me if he didn't believe I was capable of doing what had to be done.

"I want you to go out there and fix the problems. If that means you end up firing everyone, I don't care. I want that division to stop under performing. I can't believe they're all that incompetent, so someone must be deliberately poisoning our attempts at making progress. It's possible it's only one person, but I'm betting the rot is a lot more widespread than that. If it were simply Gus or Tony, someone would have mentioned them by name."

Gus Trianos was the division president, and Tony Velpner was his right hand man. Tony ran all the production and plant operations, and he was twenty years younger than Gus. Gus was nearing retirement age, probably in his early sixties. I'd met Gus two or three times, when he flew into Bolling for meetings with Dad.

I had liked him a lot, because he was very funny, and seemed full of energy. The idea of firing him held very little appeal for me. Tony, I'd met only once, and he struck me as being quietly efficient, and very well organized.

I'd been impressed with the preparation he'd shown the one time I sat in on a production meeting, where all of the baking divisions were discussing switching over to an extended baking schedule for our expansion. It was Tony that had first suggested we go to staggered shifts, rather than going immediately to two separate shifts.

I told my father I'd discuss things with Joyce that night, and that I'd be ready to leave on Sunday. I wanted to leave early, so that I'd be in Delaware, at the plant, early Monday morning. I still had serious reservations about my ability to manage on my own, but I knew I could always call my Dad, to tell him what I'd been able to observe at first hand.

If nothing else, I'd be his eyes in Delaware, and then he and I could discuss what should be done. My Dad handed me about a foot high stack of reports and folders, telling me to read everything over, so I'd be familiar with the operation by the time I actually started working in Delaware.

It was almost all the information available for plant operations over the past year, including monthly reports, that contrasted unfavorably when compared with any of the other baking operations. I could see, almost immediately, why my Dad was so upset.

He had been busy, implementing our new sales and delivery expansions, for the combined operations. He was concentrating almost exclusively on our growth and the financing necessary to sustain it.

Going through the monthly sales and delivery reports, I could see how frustrating it must have been to him to have this one division doing so poorly, compared to our other three baking divisions. They were showing the same low level of profitability as they had before our acquisition. If anything, it looked like their domestic sales were beginning to trend downward.

They were losing market share in their own region, but this was being offset by the products they were shipping out to our new expansion areas. Their sales in the expansion areas now accounted for thirty per cent of their total sales, but their overall sales totals were flat.

On the drive home, Dad and I discussed what I'd read so far. He confirmed my understanding of what I'd read. How could the division lose thirty per cent of it's market share in their own region? Why wasn't every eye in the company turned to this hemorrhaging?

It didn't make any sense to me that something like this had been going on steadily, over the course of a whole year, without anyone in charge addressing the problem.

"Gus and Tony will both have to be let go, Dad. Didn't they notice what was happening to their bread sales? It's the bread deliveries that make all the other product sales possible."

"They both talk to me about it almost every day, Kenny. I never said they weren't noticing and reporting it. They just can't seem to pinpoint why it's happening. They say the only reason for it, other than some oven malfunctions they've experienced, malfunctions that aren't being repaired quickly enough, is the general market down turn in their region. They say they aren't losing any of their customers, its mostly that their bread business is way off in the area. They claim their competitors bread sales are off as well."

"You don't just slowly leak out thirty per cent of your core business, not unless there is a giant economic depression in their area. There isn't, or else we'd have heard about it on the news. Their bread sales are off thirty-seven per cent. There's nothing more basic and stable than bread sales. What are they saying about that?"

"Increased competition, and their customer buying habits are changing. They have good explanations for everything, Kenny, but none of them can be accurate. If I had the time, I'd have gone out there, and had a good look for myself. I can't afford to keep on delaying doing something about this though. Once you've lost it, it's very difficult to regain market share. We have to act now, and try to regain what we've lost."

I found myself intrigued by what I was starting to see as a fascinating puzzle. It was a real mystery, a challenge.

That night, after yet another great dinner, I had to delay talking to Joyce about my upcoming trip to Delaware, because she and the other three girls wanted to have another meeting with me. The twins were a month old now, and Joyce and I were back to doing more fooling around.

We hadn't resumed fucking yet, but we were doing just about everything else. I tried to get Joyce to give me a hint about what the girls wanted to talk about, but all she would tell me was it involved a change in plans that they all wanted to discuss with me.

At that point, any change in plans would present problems for me. I felt like I'd already given in to Joyce as much as I possibly could.

Things had been relatively calm and placid for the past two weeks. It seemed to be working out better than I thought it might. We had settled into a routine that was comfortable for me.

We all went back into the family room, and this time, everyone chose the same seating as we had the prior time that we had met for the other discussion. Shirley and Joyce, with Derek, and Little Bertie, all on the one couch, Brenda, sitting in the easy chair, with Bunny, and then Emily, sitting on the same sofa as me. It was Emily who started talking to me this time.

"Shirley and I decided we want to go to KU too. Your mother told us she can arrange for us to be admitted there."

"I thought everything was all arranged for you to attend Columbia. Didn't you tell me their journalism department was one of the top programs in the country? I'm not sure they even have a school of journalism up in Lawrence."

"They have a journalism department there, but I was never locked into journalism school. That was more my father's idea than mine. One of the problems I'm having, is that he says he won't pay for me to go to KU. Your mother says she'll help me, if I'll work summers, for the girl's group homes."

"She says she'll help me too, Kenny. I want to stay with you guys when you leave. Derek and I both like living with all of you." Shirley was definitely worried about something. I could see tension on the faces of all of them. There was something else going on, something in addition to what they were telling me. I needed to just stay quiet until they told me what it was. I didn't want to announce anything, not until after they told me everything.

"What else is there, Joyce?" I looked over at her, waiting for her to tell me what else was going on. Instead, it was Brenda who spoke up.

"None of us want Emily going off to school by herself, Kenny. She'd be lonely if she had to do that." I saw everyone looking at Emily. She had a nervous smile on her face, but she was looking only at Brenda.

I was pretty sure that she had managed to convince Brenda to go to New York with her, at the end of the summer, if I refused to let her stay with us up in Lawrence. As for Shirley, I had no real objection to her coming with us. She hadn't tried to cause me one minute's worth of trouble since she'd moved in. She and Joyce got along well together, and she was good at taking turns watching the kids at work, with Brenda and Emily.

"I think you have to make a decision, Brenda. If you decide to go to Lawrence, with us, after the summer, you can't still be carrying on with Emily. You can go to Lawrence with Emily, separately though, so you would need to find yourself your own place to live, if you choose to live with her. Shirley, as long as you stay within the rules I've set, you're welcome to come to Lawrence with us, but only if it's the same way things are right now."

"Kenny, if Brenda decides to stay with Emily, we'll still need someone to look after the twins, and to cook our meals after classes start up. I've told you, I trust Brenda with the twins. I'm not leaving my babies with a stranger."

Joyce could see that I wasn't reacting like she had hoped I would. I was willing to bet this wasn't how Mama was hoping I'd react either. I was guessing that Brenda had said something to Joyce about feeling like she might need to stay with Emily in the Fall.

This meeting was probably Mama's idea, attempting some sort of damage control. She probably figured it was better to have Emily staying with us, than to take any chance of us losing Brenda permanently.

Her offering help to Shirley with her college expenses was probably just a case of her natural generosity towards people that she knew.

"What is it you're suggesting we do, Joyce? I'm not going to be changing my mind about what I said was necessary for Brenda to do, if she was joining us. She has to make a choice, and I won't make any changes or exceptions to that requirement. I won't agree to do anything with Brenda, not as long as she's doing things with Emily."

"Why are you being that way, Kenny? What difference does it make whether I do things with Emily, or with Joyce? Before, when we talked about you not wanting to have Emily and Shirley join us, you said it was because they were going to leave in September. If they decide to go to school with us, why won't you want to do things with them too?"

Brenda was upset. Brenda was always going to be upset when she didn't get what she wanted. I thought she was upset now, because she thought she was going to get out of the necessity of choosing either Emily, or Joyce and me.

I didn't believe Emily would be able to be close to all of us. She seemed interested in having sex with me, with Brenda, and in having sex with Brenda and me together. That seemed to be the full extent of her interest in our group.