Chapter 34

My phone beeped and I sleepily got up. I patted bottoms, telling everyone that it was time to get up for exercise. Katie turned to me and said, "Please let us sleep in. Willy has the day off, so she isn't going in this morning. Jules and I will work out later."

I supposed they would figure it out, but they needed to remain in a routine and be regular. I slipped a jock, shorts, T-shirt, socks, and running shoes on in the closet's dressing area. Willy was standing there waiting for me in workout clothes when I came out. She told me, "The girls said they usually exercised every morning, so I wanted to do it with them. I guess it will be just you and me."

We stretched and then began with the treadmill. We ran for almost thirty minutes before I told her that I used the free weights instead of the Nautilus. Willy said, "I use free weights too. I do some stretching with the Nautilus, but everything else is with weights."

She used lighter weights, but I was surprised at the amount of weight she did use. We were both done after about twenty-five minutes. I told Willy, "I like to run outside for an hour or more on the weekends. Donte will run with me up to the park and make the circuit a couple of times. It's a lot more fun to run outside than it is on the treadmill or around the neighborhood."

On the way upstairs, I asked Willy, "It's unusual for someone to take a day off during their first week of Assistant training. Why are you doing that?"

"Jules, Katie, and I need to dig up some of my ancestry. Some of it will be difficult to do since I was adopted. My folks are still alive, but don't want to talk to me about it. I try to tell them that they will always be my parents and that I will love them forever, but that I need to know where I came from. They'll come around, but it's a difficult discussion with them."

We stopped in the kitchen for some breakfast where I asked, "What do you know about the girls' friend who was killed?"

"Jules and Katie know Cindy's parents who are still ashamed that Cindy liked girls more than guys. They also know that Cindy was also adopted, so we need to dig a little deeper. We never met, but I do know that many people used to think I was her and often took pictures of me thinking they were taking a picture of Cindy. She actually was the reason I got out of the business. I figured that someone would accuse her of doing porn if I kept making shorts and movies. I was lucky that Matt hired me because I was willing to work cheap while I learned the business. I was smart and hung onto every penny I earned while doing porn. I make sure I still get any residuals due me, and have an attorney who audits the sales of the companies I worked for. It's worked out. Most of my movies are sold overseas and in South America. They love blue-eyed blondes."

We went upstairs where it was natural for me to get ready for work by taking a shower. Willy got in the huge shower room with me and did a good job of teasing me. I wanted to ravish her, but held back and enjoyed washing her and then her washing me. I didn't lose any fingers in openings, and she didn't wrap my appendage up, so we did pretty well considering that there was some lust smoldering between us.

I shaved and dressed. I kissed both girls and told them to be sure to exercise. Brindle raised her head and smiled at me before sending an air kiss.

The office parking area was empty at seven twenty-five, but several people were parking in the lot by the time I had my key in the door. I did notice that the exterior of the new building was complete and the interior was being framed. I would have to check it out to see how far along they were and what their estimated date of completion was.

Sandy was excited because she would be the only Assistant today and would get all my attention. We did the tour together, and I asked her, "What did you notice today that was different from usual?" when back in the office.

The tiny woman said, "I felt like there was some tension among the Sales secretaries. I also noticed that the new girl in Title was trying to hide."

I looked at Sandy and asked, "Well?"

She was stumped and didn't know what I was looking for. I told her, "The new Title Office girl was chatting with Matt when we were saying good morning to the sales people. His harem there in front of him are uptight because he might have chosen someone other than one of the girls there. They know that Matt can't date any of them but they also know he and they might break that rule if he showed interest. The Title Office girl is just far enough removed to be okay as long as they don't make eyes at each other during business hours."

Sandy said, "Damn, I should have caught that, but that's what happens when you mess around with any kind of engineering degree. We can figure any formula under the sun, but not auto air conditioning controls or human relations."

Sandy asked, "What are you going to do about it?"

I smiled at the tiny person and said, "Nothing."

She was confused and asked, "You have to do something."

"Why? Matt and the Title girl are doing nothing wrong. The secretaries are being unreasonable because they think Matt should choose from them because they are better looking and work closer to him. Maybe the chemistry between Matt and the girl is better than even what exists between him and Kelly. Are you willing to fool with someone else's chemistry?"

Sandy grinned, and said, "Who would believe I almost have to be an Ann Landers to manage people? You're right, though; you have to let nature take its course and let the secretaries figure it out for themselves. They'll still do their work, but they will have chips on their shoulders until they realize that they are much better looking than the Title clerk and that Matt still wants to associate with her over them."

"Yep, it'll work out. There was another bump that's getting bigger. What is it?"

Sandy had not picked up on it again. "Ken and Alec are extremely tight as brother and sister working for the same company, and may even experiment more than some siblings. However, Ken has been showing a lot of attention to one of the saleswomen who has been selling custom homes. He even chose another decorator to work with him on a couple of custom homes that she sold. Alec is upset that she doesn't get to work with Ken on all his custom homes. I think that she's jealous. How would you handle it?"

"Would it be right to get the two together and talk about what had become obvious?"

"You could do that, but you have to be careful to not upset their relationship. Alec has taken care of Ken since his accident and I'm sure that she's very protective of him. He's just being a guy and reacting to a woman, the salesperson, who is showing him some attention. The salesperson thinks she can get more out of Ken than his sister and convinced Ken to assign another decorator to the job. I think the best way to handle this is to send this woman's next sale to another architect and decorator. Suggest to Ken to make sure that he works with Alec on some of the customs because their homes always come out the nicest."

"Suggest to Ken that the other salesgirl was trying to make a fool of him when you have a chance to talk to him alone. Ken is smart; take him to the chart desk and explain it when he asks you to show him. You can even bullshit him because he can't read charts. Just plant the seed and lead him toward what he already likes."

Sandy grinned at me, and said, "I've really got to begin seeing everything the way you do. It may take a while."

With Joan at her desk, I asked Sandy, "You could take Joan's place and be my secretary for a while to see if you can learn while doing that job. I can begin Joan's more intensive training while you learn from a different vantage point."

Sandy asked, "Is that a step back? Would I be losing my place?"

"You haven't been with the company a month yet, and you've gone from almost being a receptionist, to an architect, and to Assistant now, Sandy. Rather than see you struggle to learn as an Assistant, you should be learning from the inside, and then become an Assistant to be sent to an office to learn how to be a Manager. I'll include you on all my tours and conversations with Construction. You'll constantly be getting me numbers from all the offices I take care of. You'll travel with me as my secretary and learn as we go. I'll transfer you if I see a place where you'll fit, and let you begin an Assistant's life right away."

"You do make it sound good, Brad. I'm very confused by all the different departments, and have only an inkling of what Finance and Title even do. I don't have that big picture yet, so I'll do it your way and be your secretary. Should I forget the panties if I'm your sexretary?"

I wagged a finger at Sandy, and told her, "Don't even joke about that. You're the employee and I'm the employer. We will do nothing that is improper." Sandy walked next door to the break room and came back with a mug of coffee for us.

The tiny woman said, "You don't treat me like a kid, or that I need to grow up to get the job. I would be out of here by now if you didn't do that. I watched how you pushed Rebecca, Yori, and Kelly and realize that Rebecca and Kelly had an advantage. Kelly was your secretary for a good while and learned from you as she interacted with the other offices and even the home office. Rebecca knew the company from having been employed here for almost a year. I know most Assistants are trained for at least a year, but I think you'll push harder than others. I'm ready, push me."

Joan was funny when she stood and told Sandy, "Let's swap panties and you begin learning how to be the secretary. First things first; look at the three monitors and check out what I have up. Those are the screens that you'll need to have up in order to do your job. There is the 'Word' screen that has each office in a separate file. Insert notes in each file when you talk to or about them, so that you'll be able to bring Brad up to date when you travel to each office. The e-mail screen mirrors Brad's so you constantly know whether Brad has an e-mail that he needs to answer. The third screen is a constant stream of the dollar activity at each of the offices. Brad always wants to know each office's sales numbers, the breakdown of sales between inventory, custom, and listings, status and number of active listings, listings older than fifteen and thirty days, number of out of company title closings, and out of company finance deals. The offices send the numbers to the home office and they are forwarded to our server and stream on that screen. You can pull up an office by their account number and print all that information out at once. You'll get a report on payroll amount and number of employees by department once a week. All those numbers are what Brad wants to look at."

Sandy was sitting with her mouth open at how much there was to learn. She said, "You've only been secretary for a couple of weeks. How did you already learn all this?"

"Kelly taught me what she learned from Brad, Connie, and Dorothy from the home office. Make sure you call Dorothy and tell her you're Brad's secretary of the week. She'll remember you if you tell her that you were the tiny woman at the office party."

Joan pulled up a different screen on the numbers screen that showed all the telephone numbers for each office, the names, cell numbers, and e-mail addresses of the Managers and Assistants. "Keep this file current and send it to Brad as a '.PDF' file via e-mail so that he has it when there are changes. Save it as a new file 'Personnel' with the date as the name."

She went to her 'Word' screen and opened an Excel file that listed the names of the offices for the entire company, the Office Managers, and any Assistants. It also had the dates when they began their current position and any other details for every one of those persons. Joan said, "It isn't complete yet, and I'll help you work to finish it. This is part of Brad's new job tracking Assistants throughout the company, and finding Managers who could be Regional Managers. Kelly started this and she'll help too when she gets back. Do yourself a favor and go back to the 'Word' app and read everything about each office. There's a separate file for each office. There is a file that's titled 'Legend' which contains the city name and the account number so you can quickly look up the correct file if one of them calls."

Sandy said, "No wonder that you know what's going on. How does Willy know this stuff?"

"She doesn't know it all, but she has been reading the offices' files and learning about the numbers. She knows the business though, because she's been working as a real estate secretary for almost two years." Joan felt proud to have given Sandy her introduction to what the secretary's job entailed.

I told them both; "I know that I've been to the offices where we recently replaced Managers, and I should go back through them again next week. I'll travel Monday night and work the three offices Tuesday and we'll end the day in Reno. We'll do the Reno office, travel to San Francisco, and then home on Wednesday. We'll be busy, but it shouldn't be bad. We'll need reservations for cars at all four offices and hotel reservations in Seattle on Monday night and Reno on Tuesday. Try to get reservations between the airport and the office, and remember that we travel with a pilot and hostess, so they also need rooms. Get the numbers for each of those offices along with the previous two weeks' numbers together on Monday. We'll be rolling in and out of the offices very quickly."

Sandy asked, "Do you mean that we will fly up to Seattle late Monday night?"

"That's the way I do it because I play pool in a league on Monday night, and we'll leave from there to fly up. We'll leave early if I get to play early. Remember to make reservations for Donte because he will be with us everywhere we go."

"There is a lot to do in this job, isn't there, Joan? An architect's job is a whole lot easier," Sandy said, as she made another note on her pad.

I asked Sandy, "Joan will help you, but I want you to make reservations for three at Johnny's for lunch right now. I'll go tell Georgia what to do about lunch for the office."

Georgia was dug in well at her new position as receptionist. She seemed to be a little slimmer than when she started a couple of weeks before. I commented to her, "You're looking slimmer. Are you trying to lose weight?"

Georgia grinned, and said, "The other girls said your two women had lost a lot of weight, so I talked to both of them and listened to how they had been losing weight. I had to learn to work out, but I'm doing it daily now and really watching my weight. They both said to just watch the portion size and to eat healthy food. It's working."

This woman was going to be a slimmer knockout. She was already very attractive, but she was going to be even more so.

I made sure that she had my company credit card and told her to organize and get Subways for the office.

I did a quick tour of the office with Joan to make sure that everyone was set for the afternoon. I asked Racine and the male architect with an MBA to join me for lunch today. This was a sneaky way to have a first interview, but it was a gentle way to do it. We rode to Johnnie's in the BMW and were warmly greeted by the hostess. After receiving our drinks and menus, I asked them both, "You have both indicated you might be interested in progressing with the company. The only upward position would be to become an Assistant in training, and then an Office Manager. Some Managers will become Regional Managers, so there are a few steps to go through. From Assistant to Manager is usually about two years, depending on available openings."

I looked at the guy, and asked, "You make decent money as an architect, and really wouldn't make much more as an Assistant; why would you want to go that route? Remember that you will probably have to relocate after some initial training here. You might even have to work as my secretary for a month or so to get the feel for the business."

The guy said, "It's like being an intern, but at least you get paid for this. All the jobs are important in learning how a business operates. I don't have a problem as far as relocating. I still live at home and need to get out on my own."

That was a great reply.

Racine said, "I didn't expect the opportunity to come up so fast. I haven't been with the company very long, but Willy and Sandy weren't either. Sandy just told me she is going to be your secretary for a couple of months to learn more about the business from that position. As far as relocating, I think you know about all our situations, and I could probably do it without a problem. I'll miss being here with my friends, but it looks like we're going to be on a new employment path. When would you want me to start?"

"We'll talk again and go over some things. I wanted to hear how you both felt about taking the step."

We were back in the office on time, so I asked Joan, "How do you feel about handling the office for a few days next week. Bring Georgia back here if you think you need a backup as in secretary, and find the next person as part time receptionist to take care of the front. Georgia can run back and forth as necessary, and you know how to work the screens at the secretarial desk."

Joan said, "You do push, don't you? You scared me when you said you wanted me to be in charge, but you've really taught me what to look for and what to do. The tour before lunch was good because I knew what to look for and didn't see anything out of order except the insurance office was being pretty loud, but I understand that's fairly common. Jimmy just smiles about it. It also looked like the title office could use another clerk because there were too many files on all their desks. How do I ask the Manager in there if she needs another person?"

"Just like that. Tell her that you see that everyone seems to have more than a reasonable amount of files on their desks and she might want another clerk. Their business would justify another person or two, but she's running out of space and doesn't have any room to expand or closing rooms."

That made me think about checking on the new building's progress. I called Julio and found out he was at the building in back. I told him that I'd meet him back there in a minute. I told Joan, "Come with me and meet Julio, if you haven't met him before."

We found Julio talking to one of the building foremen, and joined him as he pointed out a few of the things he was concerned about. He turned to me, and said, "Sixty days max should do it. I have all the steel work and the exterior done. The elevator company will be here Monday to begin doing their work. The roof should be done by next Friday, and then it's all interior work except for windows."

"You're not going to like what I want and realistically need Julio, but what would it take to finish this in three weeks to a month?"

Julio grinned and told me, "I knew you were going to have a problem with our progress when I heard from Matt how cramped all the departments were. He was bugging me about a completion and move in date. We could do this job like we did the addition to the existing building, but it's going to be more difficult because there's so much interior work to be done. We're really farther along than we should be, but everything is going the way it should. Do you really want me to get enough men to work three shifts?"

"The real question is that if we were to bring that many men on, Julio, could you use them when this is done? Some will have skills that really won't work in building homes, but most would. I'm going to open two more developments; another high dollar, and one average price like we build now. We'll need construction people for those, and custom homes are a little delayed as it is with the sales volume we're having lately."

"Yeah, they are, Brad, but I have so many people working that it's scary. I have four supervisors and more foremen than a union railroad yard. You're talking about almost sixty more men. You know that most are going to be Latinos, don't you?" He took a deep breath and said, "If we have good crews with knowledge of office and commercial construction and can't put all of them to work on homes, how about if we bid on commercial building and remodeling jobs in addition to the residential real estate we do now?"

I had a sudden vision of a whole new way to generate revenue for the company. "Let's revisit that idea once the new building is finished out, but that's really good thinking, Julio. As for the men being Latinos, that's not a problem, but the same rules apply. They must be legal and be able to prove it. They must be excellent craftsmen and show it with their work. See if we can ramp this job up if you think you can do it, and get it done. I'll have the engineering company begin the infrastructure on the two developments so that we'll have work for the sixty men when the building is complete."

I told Joan as we walked back to the office. "The answer to justify all that payroll is sales. Matt needs the space for more people, and is ready to add another desk to each row, really making the desks too close. His new office will easily hold sixty, and that has to be about the max he can handle.

Joan asked, "What will you do when you run out of space if business continues to grow?"

"Cry."

We both laughed at my flippant answer, but it was a truthful one. After I finished crying, though, I would look into establishing a second branch office for LA and just carving up the metro area between the new and old offices.

Sandy said that the Las Vegas office called and wanted me to return the call. I asked who had called and said she thought that it was the Manager.

I called the Las Vegas office. Anita Kenner, the receptionist answered. I said, "This is Brad Johnson, the Regional Manager. What's going on, Anita?"

In a hushed voice, she said, "I think the person who called was the Sales Manager, but I need to tell you that you need to come. Not one of your Assistants, but you. I think Don is trying to be a good guy, but a man has been here for the last two days talking to Don, and he can't get rid of him. This man was here with the former Manager and is trying to influence Don to do some things. Please come here as fast as you can."

"I'll be there in a couple of hours. Spread the word to those who need to know."

I ended the call and called the pilot to ask if he could quickly get me to Las Vegas. He said that he could meet me at Bob Hope in less than thirty minutes and would have the plane pulled out and ready. I went into the office and told Donte that we needed to go to Las Vegas now. I looked at Sandy, and then at Joan, "I'm sorry to do this to you, but you two are in charge. You both know what to do and I'll have my phone if you get into trouble. One of you get me a car with a GPS in Vegas so that I can get to the office."

I grabbed my laptop and headed toward the door, with Donte following. I told Donte what I knew from the call and said that we had to be careful about what we did and that I had to make sure my Manager wasn't corrupted. The pilot was ready for us with the plane making the noise it made when it was cooling off before the engines were started. We were on the way to Las Vegas in less than ten minutes. It is all up and down. This airport has a huge private aircraft area with some nice services. A golf cart came out to ferry us to the operations terminal where I was able to get a car and be on the way to the office. It was almost three o'clock, exactly two hours later, when we stepped into the office.

Anita said, "That man is still in there and his secretary was told to leave right after lunch. Help him and us, Brad. This is bad."

I walked straight to the Manager's office and opened the doors that had been closed. Thank goodness that double doors are easy to push in. Don jumped up, as did the heavyset visitor. Donte and I were quicker and each had a gun pointed at him as his hand went for something under his coat. I walked up to him and pushed him back in this seat and pulled a gun from a shoulder holster. "You won't need this. Now tell me what your business here is and why you're even talking to my Manager."