Chapter 7: Road Trip

Friday morning I got a couple of minutes to look at the emails about my essay, but not much. I figured I could finish it during study hall, unless something else more important came up.

I got asked about the laptop on the bus and a couple of times in school, but the labels declaring it to be government property mostly answered them. Telling people “It’s for work. I’m not allowed to use it for school, but I can have it in case I need it.”

Cindy and Matt had different ways to say something. Margie’s email was more proofreading, fixing my spelling and grammar and missing words. All the changes were easy to make. I didn’t want to wait any longer, so I went ahead and sent it back to the Black Axe. I had a note at the bottom about updating it as we learned more, so I figured no one would be surprised if it got changed later.

Some time in the afternoon I was in class and something changed. I couldn’t tell what it was, though. Still, I felt more alert, like the coffee had suddenly kicked in.

I never heard back from Eric or George about the essay, so when we got to the bank I asked them about it. They both said they’d look it over when they got home. Note to self: My stuff is not important to other people. They need more warning than overnight, to do stuff that I want done.

Margie had stuff about the LLC for all of us to sign, since all six of us were on the board. That included a preliminary charter, governing how we did business and how we ran the company. Currently the board of directors was six people. All decisions required a full majority of four members to approve.

That ‘full majority’ meant that if we were deadlocked at 3:3, we could not vote a change in if one person was sick and the remaining board was 3:2. No, the ‘three’ had to convince one of the ‘two’ to change their mind and make it a four-person 2/3 majority of the full board.

All of the preliminary charter stuff was generic for LLCs, and we would have to sit down somewhere and talk about what we really wanted to do before we changed anything, but we could keep or throw out any of it that we wanted. We should at least READ the preliminary version first, though.

First, though, was depositing the company’s funds into the company’s account. I had to sign transferring that $55K from my personal account into the company account. The banker who helped us had to call my mother before she could do that. Something about being a minor. Apparently Mom had her look through Margie’s paperwork to be sure it was right before authorizing the transfer.

We probably should have brought Mom, but that would have also brought Elaine, and as nice as she was everything took longer with her involved. Once the banker was convinced that this was company money getting shifted to where it belonged, she took care of it. Then, Margie could sign six checks distributing $5K to each of us. Mine went right back into my account. Eric’s and Matt’s did, too. Well, their own Regions account, not mine. Margie said that once we were done she’d open a Regions account and deposit her check into it.

The important part for us was the paperwork to get a company credit card. The bank could hand us temporary ones that were only good for a month, but we would have to wait for permanent ones with our company and our names embossed on them to get mailed to us. I had to point out that we (I waved at Nell) were driving to Atlanta as soon as we were done here, to deliver my “Unidentified Tooth” to GEOPRA to be couriered to LA. Did gas for Nell’s truck count as a business expense?

Margie gave me a flat ‘no’ for that. If that fang was LLC property, yes, but it was her understanding that I had claimed it for myself. In fact, hadn’t I foregone any Silver from our first Dive because I was claiming it?

Well, yes. There you go. It’s not a ‘Team Newbie’ thing, it’s a ‘Sam McGowan’ thing. She did say that it was a good example for the future. If it’s for the team, use the card. If it’s for you, pay for it yourself.

That was fine. That, however, brought up another issue. GEOPRA, Georgia’s PRA, had asked if we could provide the same staff training for their New Class people as we’d provided for ALPRA. I had given them a provisional ‘yes’ pending schedule problems and telling them it would have to be on a Sunday. I hadn’t heard back from Mr. Jeffreys yet, but was everyone willing to do this? It might be just once, or we might end up going all over the country for this.

Nobody seemed upset at the thought of flying to Minneapolis in January for something like that. As long as Minnesota paid for the trip, of course. Okay, fine. If we had to drive to GEOPRA’s training, though, who pays for the gas?

Margie thought that was easy, too. If WE were getting paid for this, WE pay for the expenses. If Team Newbie was getting paid for this, then the LLC should pay for it.

I wasn’t sure. I was setting it up in my role as ALPRA’s training liaison, but Mr. Jeffreys had done his part an independent contractor, and we were all there as his assistants. For that matter, I had no idea if he had gotten paid anything for what we did in Birmingham. I’d have to check. I didn’t mind ME not getting paid, since it was part of my ALPRA job, but I certainly wanted Mr. Jeffreys to get paid!

Margie wasn’t sure, either. We could split it up, though, into setup and participation. It would raise questions if I got paid by Georgia for setting up something I had been paid by Alabama to set up. It would be better if ALPRA managed it, even if ALPRA’s training guy -Jim- delegated that to me. If ALPRA’s employee on the spot -me- chose to continue using the expert we’d hired for our own training before I even became an ALPRA employee, that wasn’t MY fault. I was merely using common sense, continuing to use a proven local expert.