Chapter 91: Ticking Clocks

Thursday, May 2, 1985

The Texas legislature was, at long last, perhaps looking to take some action on the blue law. It was well past the time they should have, in my opinion, and I hoped they would actually do something this time, not just talk about it. All of the restrictions on Sunday shopping were annoying and silly.

Now, if they could fix the drinking age...

Sadly, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not only that, but my kids would think twenty-one was a perfectly normal age. I was sure we would bring them up the way Jas had been brought up, with alcohol (in moderation!) a normal part of meals, but it was still silly.

We checked in with Elizabeth. She had heard nothing yet and was waiting for the deadline to expire before filing for a restraining order.

Since there wasn’t any particular urgency, Judge Collison would do this ‘by the book.’ That meant she would hold hearings on a schedule, with Joseph and Magnolia given the opportunity to appear and speak. Cammie would speak at a separate hearing from them.

The order, thus, might well not happen before June or even July. However, if there was additional contact, that could increase the urgency, depending on what the contact was.

For now, it was still: ‘wait and see.’

Cammie would be in Houston for a week in early May. That would likely be too early, but it was possible Judge Collison could schedule her early, thus saving Cammie another trip to Houston.

Tonight was a fun outing (the first of two) for everyone (including Katy, but also — this time — including Kay). We had dinner at the MSC cafeteria, then headed to The Grove for ‘Night of the Living Dead’.

I had a love-hate relationship with ‘Night of the Living Dead’. Not only was it gory and violent, it was also bleak. That was both a success (it’s what George Romero wanted, and he got it) and a failing (there’s no feeling good about the ending, really — and it was quite a shock for audiences of the time).

Still, it had spawned an entire film genre, including a number of (better, in my opinion) movies by Romero himself. It was also a significant film in many ways, and had earned its later cult status and critical appreciation. Not bad for a no-budget horror film!

Horror films are fun for dates. At one point, I had Jas, Claire, Kay, and Katy all clinging to me (and to each other). That’s pretty much three more women than had ever ‘clung to me’ during my first-life’s undergraduate career (counting my one dance with my blind-date dance partner, who had, in fact, clung to me a bit).

I doubted Kay or Katy would be doing much more clinging (to me, at least), but it was fun while it lasted!

Friday, May 3, 1985

Tonight was the second ‘fun movie night’ of the weekend, and it was a whopper. Aggie Cinema and Cepheid Variable, which often collaborated on movie nights, were holding ‘Piranhacon VI’, a celebration of bad movies.

As planned, Darla, along with Claire, Katy, Kay, Lindsay, Matt, John, plus a few other GSS people, joined us. Everyone wanted to blow off a bit of steam before finals by watching some (mostly not very good) movies.

Tonight’s lineup featured ‘The Lonely Lady’, which featured Pia Zadora (remember her?) as the titular lady. I’m not sure why she would be lonely, but her lack of acting skills might have been a factor. Who knows?

The second feature was ‘The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini’. Seldom has a movie title promised so much and yet delivered so little. It starred both Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, though. Not their finest work, but still. Both of them were better actors than Ms. Zadora! As was Nancy Sinatra, who turned up briefly as well.

The third feature was the one I’d actually heard of before this event: ‘Destroy All Monsters’. It was legitimately a classic (in the ‘cult’ sort of classic). Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan might all have out-acted Ms. Zadora, sadly for her but happily for us.

Much less clinging from the girls tonight, but some of the monster attacks worked out well in that regard!

It wasn’t much of a date with Darla, but it was exactly the sort of date we wanted right now. For Darla, though, the night still seemed to be, surprisingly, a big deal. As with ‘Rocky Horror’, this was just the right mix of safe and rebellious for who Darla was right now.

Saturday, May 4, 1985

We added the basement door extension to the fence, finishing everything but the gates. We also purchased everything we likely needed to complete the gates. Since we already had enough lumber, everything else fit in the car.

Angie spent a while on the phone with a travel agent, resulting in our booking two adjoining cabins (complete with portholes) on the Carnival Tropicale (sailing from Miami). By the standards I’d become used to, the ship was small, cramped, and dated, but those were completely unrealistic standards for the 1980s. Taken for what it was, it looked to be a very nice ship, and I was sure we would have fun. I tried to keep my perspective to myself on this one. It wouldn’t help anyone (even me!) for me to go on about how amazing cruise ships of the future were compared to ones we could sail on now.

We declined their offer to book airfare. We would either drive or figure out our own transportation. Driving seemed likely.

I checked with Mom and Dad. They were, as expected, happy to join us for ‘Grease’. We would meet at Memorial. There was no point in our going by the house, but it would be fun to see a Memorial show with them again.

The last one we saw with them was ‘Oklahoma!’, which had been great fun. Angie and I hadn’t had the slightest idea we would be in the cast of the next three musicals, and Mom and Dad would have found the idea nearly as absurd as we would.

What a difference! So very much might be different if not for Cammie getting me to sing at the right time.

Camille and Francis and Tony and Jean were in, too. The Rileys were unknowns, as of now, as were Penelope and David. I had my fingers crossed, but it was their decision. None of them had the ties to Memorial Drama the rest of us did, after all.

Jane was going, too. She’d become a fan of Steffie Smith’s program. No surprise there.

No Candice or Sherry, though. Duschene was having their prom (I wasn’t sure if they actually called it prom, though) and Candice would be dancing with some random guys from the Catholic boys’ school. She was fine with it and thought she would have fun, but that was it. She had no official date, which was all to the good.

That meant she was going home after the dance. In this case, that ‘home’ was with Sherry, not with Erwin and Sandy. They’d all agreed.

It felt like a very nice compromise to me, anyway.

The biggest interruption to the fence work was Michael Dell’s quarterly update call. He opened it with the usual big news: P.C.’s Limited had finished the quarter with over $17 million in sales (a bit more than double) and over $2 million in profit (roughly doubling). They’d also doubled their employee count, to over 100, and added two more buildings. The engineering team was now over 10 people and they were starting to design systems from scratch with a focus on reliability and minimizing manufacturing costs.

Once he got through all of that, he said, “The next part is ... well, I want your go-ahead on it.”

“I’m the silent partner,” I said, chuckling.

“Yeah, but this concerns you, in a way.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“So,” he said. “We’ve been putting every dollar back into the business since it started.”

Before I could even say anything, he said, “Now, hear me out! I support that, but I also have people who jumped on blind a year ago, and people who took quite a leap a while ago. It’s not the end of our fiscal year — we’re standardizing on January 31st for that — which is maybe when we should do this, but I’m looking at giving bonuses to people. The rules will be that you have to have been here for a quarter to participate, and shares go up from that. I’m bending the one-quarter rule this time, though, because so many of our employees have been here less than a full quarter. Anyway, it’s based on salary and time with the company.”

“That all makes sense,” I said. “Not that I’m worried, but are you having trouble retaining people?”

He chuckled, and said, “Nope! Everyone seems happy. This is more ... proactive. Happy employees are good for business, and I don’t want a reputation as a Scrooge, hoarding all the money and making all of my Bob Cratchits work long hours — which they do! — for low wages. Not that our wages are low — they’re plenty competitive — but you know what I mean.”

“I do,” I said. “It makes sense to me. How much are you looking at?”

“10% of first-quarter profits, or $200,000. The smallest grant will be $250, going to the people who came on last quarter. Some people will do much better than that, of course.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said. “In the end, people are your biggest asset, I think. You’re starting to do things that are unique to P.C.’s Limited — I caught the intro of the Turbo PC! — but it’s pretty much ‘get an IBM compatible, cheap.’ The people are what’s making it cheap while still compatible and reliable.”

“That’s how I see it,” he said. “It all comes down to my team. I’m probably not the nicest boss in the world, but I want to be a good one.”

“Scrooge thought he was a good boss,” I said, making sure it sounded joking.

He laughed, and I could nearly hear him nodding along.

“That’s something you, and a couple of others, are for. Making sure I don’t turn into Scrooge or ... well, anything lousy. Dad treats his staff well, and I want to learn from that. We’re growing as fast as we are because people are committed. I could pay a bit less and maybe do ‘better’ in the very short term, but production and quality would suffer.”

“It’s all clearly working well so far, and this can’t hurt.”

“I’m glad you agree,” he said. “Your share is $7,000, by the way.”

“Wait!” I said. “I’m not an employee.”

“You count!” he said, chuckling. “I already told you that. Jasmine, Angie, and Paige each get $1,000, and yes, you can tell them. I’m getting $10,000, which is below what the math says I should be getting. Including you feels right to me. You put your money on the line when it was a big risk. I did, too, plus took a pretty small salary. I can use a vacation!”

“And you’re staffed to where you can probably afford to take one,” I said. “I agree, though. You do. Burning out wouldn’t be good.”

“Burning out would be bad!” he said. “I’m not there, but ... yeah. Three of my senior advisers have told me I should get out of the office for a week or two, and you jumped right to supporting me.”

“It’s your company, which makes it your life, but I’m sure your dad takes vacations.”

“He does, and he always did. He shuts down for a week or two. I can’t do that, but I don’t have to. Speaking of, Dad is flabbergasted that I have 100 people working for me. The whole thing is nuts, and he knows it’s nuts, but he and Mom are cheering me on.”

“As they should be,” I said. “Gonna be in Houston?”

“Probably not anytime soon,” he said. “I’ll fly out of Austin, wherever it is I go. No plans yet. Gonna be in Austin?”

“We have no plans to be there, but we’re looking at the summer. We’ll have to come drop by. Might be late this month, might be August. June and July are getting busy already.”

“Either of those sound good,” he said. “We’re actually pretty disorganized right now. I’ve got some moves scheduled to make more sense out of our buildings. Right now, the earlier buildings are as they were, meaning we have three assembly lines mixed with other offices. It would make a lot more sense to consolidate the lines into two buildings and move the other staff. Half of my salespeople have to drive between buildings just to have a staff meeting!”

“Not good,” I said, “But it makes total sense. It fits with what we said earlier. You can do it the messy way, but doing it right should pay off in the end.”

“That’s the goal. I’ve got managers with more years of experience than I’ve been alive telling me that! Now we’ve got to do it!”

“All the best,” I said. “As always.”

“Man,” he said, and I could hear him shaking his head again, “It’s only been a bit over a year. I would have been happy with a tenth of the growth, back then. This is ... it’s crazy. We’re definitely not at the IPO level yet, but ... when you first said that, I was laughing inside. Now? A couple of years more hard work and growth and ... who knows? We’re consistently beating our competition, and my guys say they think our reliability numbers are higher. Customers are rewarding that. If we don’t backslide, and no one does something crazy like ridiculous loss-leader pricing ... it could happen.”

“We’re on board for the long haul, which you know,” I said. “On the sidelines, but happy to help.”

“I really value having you as a sounding board,” he said. “I’ve got guys with far more experience, but you see the big picture better than anyone else around here.”

“Hopefully, that continues,” I said.

“Hopefully!”

“Let me know where you’re heading,” I said. “I promise I won’t follow!”

He chuckled.

“One day, maybe. Our schedules are pretty different for now. You know, I’ve really never been on a real vacation by myself. It’s going to be interesting! Of course, you have company!”

“Speaking of...” I said, chuckling a bit.

“I’ve dated a couple of girls, but ... really, there’s nothing there so far. It’s going to take someone really special,” he said. “And, I mean, Jasmine counts, don’t get me wrong! It’s just that they’re not easy to meet. You seem to have a house full, but most of them are on the wrong team, and they’re not the ones I’m looking for, anyway.”

“She’s out there,” I said. “I’d bet on that!”