Chapter 06

Getting Organized

Wednesday morning Lee’s first task is to review his long materials list while he has his breakfast. After eating he types the list into an email he sends off to Bob. He includes his estimates for the insulation for all of the walls and the roof area plus all of the electrical and security gear as well as the pipes for the main water lines. He includes a note he’ll send a list for the bathrooms later when he’s had time to examine them better. At the end of the email he asks Bob to arrange a work crew to replace the roof, to also confirm the planned crews for the siding and new construction.

Lee’s next task is a detailed report on the condition of the building. He has some not nice things to say about the original builders, and he’s very scathing in his remarks about the maintenance people since then. Poor construction in the first place was then followed by a lack of proper care to leave the building in a very poor state. He ends with the comment, ’I’ve seen buildings over a century old in better condition than this, even after they were left unattended for twenty years.’ The one thing about the buildings Lee finds confusing is the building’s frame is top quality while the finish work is rubbish. He can’t understand how anyone could be so good at one aspect and so bad at the other one.

While there’s not much real fixing that can be done until the materials arrive there is a lot of preparation work that can be done. Lee spends a little time listing all of the work with estimates on how long each will take. Once he has a total he evaluates how to organize unskilled workers to do the bulk of the work under his direction, and how many he can use.

Lee is about to go out to buy some extra work gear when Bob calls about the email and the work. They discuss it at length, including Lee’s inability to work out why the solid structure with a terrible finish. Bob clears that up for Lee by saying, “The best builder in the area started the building and got the frame put in place before he died in a bar fight. Barry Kelly of Kelly Constructions was the only one available at that time, so we had to use him. No one else was available to finish the work on time, thus we had no choice in who finished the work for us.”

“Well, that explains the discrepancy,” is Lee’s answer.

After discussing the work some more Lee tells Bob the people he has coming to replace the siding and windows can also do the roofing work on the buildings for them if he lets them know to bring the materials. Then they hang up so they can both get on with getting things organized to get the work done. Bob isn’t happy about the extra costs involved, but he does accept Lee’s insistence it needs to be done now and done right.

Lunch

By the time Lee finishes securing the premises it’s almost lunch time. He decides to eat out, so he leaves. A few minutes later he’s near the uni as he walks into a major fast food franchise right behind a group of five young women who look to be late teens or early twenties. Just inside the door they stop, so he has to walk around them. While he passes them he hears one say, “Right, we don’t know how much driving we have to do to find jobs, so everyone hand over what you have. We’ll set aside twenty for fuel then we’ll see what we can afford to spend to buy our lunches.”

Lee stops, and he turns to the young woman nearest him to ask, “Do you know what they would want if they could have anything on the menu?” After she nods he adds, “Right, front the counter and order it all.” When she hesitates Lee takes the final steps to the counter, hands over his credit card, places his order, and says, “This young lady has the rest of the order,” while he waves to the young woman he spoke to.

The young woman gives him a half frown while she places the order for herself and her friends before turning to Lee to ask, “Why?”

He smiles as he replies, “Just casting my bread upon the waters.” Both the young women and the server frown at him. Lee sighs then adds, “As I walked in I heard one of you say something about looking for work. I’m looking for a number of people to do some unskilled and semi-skilled work for me for a few weeks. I thought if I feed you I’d stand a better chance of you listening to me and then accepting the work or pointing me to people who will.” Both members of his audience smile.

The young woman says, “Thank you,” then she tells the rest, “go sit.”

The others all turn to look at her, then their eyes go wide on seeing the trays on the counter in front of her while the staff put food on the trays. The money collector frowns and says, “We can’t afford all of that.”

The young woman at the counter says, “I know that, Mary!” Points at Lee, and adds, “But he can, and is paying for it. He wants us to consider doing a few weeks work for him, so he hopes to get on our good side by feeding us lunch first. So go sit down. We’ll bring the food over.” All of the others look at Lee, shrug, and go to find a table for them all. She turns back to Lee and says, “I’m Anna Schmidt and that’s my sister Mary.”

Lee takes and shakes the hand she’s holding out while saying, “Hello, Anna, I’m Lee Taylor. I’ve been hired as the maintenance person for one of the private sorority houses. The place needs a major refurbishment and it’s too much for me to do it all by myself. I’ve been given a budget to hire locals to do the work under my direction so I’m looking for about twenty people to do the work for me. I’ll explain in detail while we eat.”

For the next few minutes they chat about many things while the food is placed on the trays. When it’s all there Lee enters the authorization code for the credit card charge while Anna calls another over to carry the third tray of food. There are two sets of meals per tray, so it needs three people to get the three trays to the table the others are sitting at.

They all start eating as soon as the food is on the table. Lee is a faster eater than the girls so he finishes his hamburger well before the young women finish theirs. Between sips of his drink and nibbling on his fries Lee says, “I need about eighteen to twenty workers to help me refurbish a large house. As long as they can carry about twenty-five pounds, can walk while chewing gum, and can quickly learn new tasks I don’t care if they’re male or female or what skin color they are. By state law I can’t employ anyone under fifteen.” He looks at them while they continue to eat, but he doesn’t get enough reaction to judge how they’re taking what he’s saying. “The main tasks will be to remove wall molding, pull up the carpets, remove drywall, pull cables, install insulation, put the drywall back, paint the walls, replace the moldings, lay the carpet tiles, and to move the stored furniture back into the rooms they belong in. To help with the carpet removal I’ll need one person who can carry more.”

Mary looks at Lee while she finishes the last of her burger, then she says, “So you don’t mind if the work crew are girls or boys or both?”

“No, I don’t. Nor will I mind if they talk to each other while they do the work. However, if they stop working to talk I’ll not be happy, and I’ll say so. I’ve about four weeks of work. The wages will be a dollar fifty more than the state minimum wage per hour, with one team leader being paid an extra dollar fifty per hour and the senior team leader being paid another dollar fifty per hour over that. I think two teams of eight workers in four pairs with a team leader for each team, and one leader senior to the other team leader, plus one or two general workers as my assistants and messengers. So that’s eighteen in the teams and two with me.”

A smiling Mary says, “I think we can supply all you need from within our Community. However, you’ll need to come out to speak to the Elders to get permission first.” Lee agrees, so they chat about general topics until they all finish eating. Then they leave for their cars to drive to a large communal farm that’s several miles south-east of the sorority.

Hiring Staff

When they reach what looks like a large farm with a lot of houses Mary stops, so Lee parks beside her. After getting out of his pickup Lee looks for the young women, but four of them are walking away in four directions. Mary smiles at Lee while saying, “I’ll get Brother Jacob, he’s our Community’s senior leader at the moment. The others are going to get the girls we think will be good for the work you mention. On the drive home we had a talk about the work and who to have do it.” Lee just nods to show he understands before he walks around to sit on the brush bar of his pickup with his feet on the bumper bar while he waits. Mary walks away after seeing Lee nod to her.

A few minutes later Mary is back with a man in his sixties wearing the usual type of farmer clothes Lee often sees farmers wear. After Mary introduces them Lee gives Brother Jacob the same description of the work he gave the girls over lunch. Then Mary goes on to list who she thinks should be on the work crew by naming sixteen girls, a boy, and herself.

Brother Jacob nods agreement at each name, then he says, “Who will we have replace Brother Mark on the grain harvesting crew?”

Mary smiles as she replies, “My sister Sarah isn’t old enough to do this outside work, but she’s been driving the tractor and trailer for the fruit harvests for two years. Put Sarah on the tractor with the trailer, move Joe to replace Mark on the combine, and you still have a full crew.”

Jacob smiles while saying, “I see that will work while having a few weeks of well paid outside work will justify the need to finally have one of the young women working on the grain harvesting crew. Despite it being the best thing to do you know we’ll both have some trouble with the few elders who think grain harvesting is for men only. But it’s time we dragged them into the nineteenth century so we can look to slowly move them up to modern times in the near future.”

When Lee frowns at the last comment Jacob turns to him and says, “We’re a Mennonite Community, and while we allow the use of modern machinery and things we still have a large number of members with the same ideas and views on work matters as our ancestors had centuries ago. Some of us are working to bring them more into the current world.”

Lee smiles as he says, “When you read the accounts of the middle ages you see many records of the farm women being involved in the fields in both the preparation of them and the harvesting. The manual collection of crops into sheaves and stacks was done by women and children back then. Plowing was often done by the woman while the man pulled on the plow if they didn’t have a work animal, sometimes it was the woman in the harness. So there’s plenty of precedence for women to work in the fields with the men.”

Jacob laughs as he says, “I know all that, but some people only know what they were told by those in authority above them while they were growing up, or what they saw while growing up. It’s these we seek to have change how they think. It will take time and much discussion with a lot of grudging acceptance, but it will happen. However, you’ve given us a perfect reason to start the process now. We need all of the paying work we can get to bring in more money to our Community to pay the taxes as well as buying fuel and things, so such work has a high priority.”

Mary says, “Brother Jacob, Mister Taylor also requires one or two people to work as his assistant under his direct control. I think this may be an opportunity for us to see how well Sister Faith will work outside of our Community.”

A nodding Jacob turns to Lee and says, “Sister Faith is twenty years old, she has no interest in going to college, yet she’s unable to find outside work. Also, many within our Community say she can’t stay on task. Yet, when I’ve had her off working by herself she has been able to stay on task. I wonder if the issue isn’t her attention to work, but her being ready to do whatever anyone else tells her to do. So I’d like to have her work with you to get your view of her attitudes and abilities. Her younger sister, Hope, is much the same, so this may be a good time to get your opinion on them both, if you don’t mind doing so.”

Lee slowly nods while listening to Brother Jacob, thinks for a moment, and says, “I’d like to meet them and have a few words with both of them about this, please.” Jacob nods his agreement while he tells Mary to go to get the two young women to join them as well as her brother Mark.

When Faith and Hope arrive Lee says to them, “I’m told by some people you can’t stay on task while others say you can. Can you explain why there’s a difference in their opinions?”

Both young women look at the ground for a moment before Faith says, “We have no trouble concentrating on an assigned task. However, we often have people come along and tell us to do something else so we have to go and do that as they’re higher in the Community than we are.”

Lee asks, “What is the Community’s hierarchy, Hope?”

Hope appears a little flustered to be addressed directly as she says, “It varies a lot. In general the men are higher than the women and they both have an internal order. In some duties a specific person is higher than the others due to their knowledge and experience in the work. In the kitchen the senior cook is higher than the other women and all of the women are higher than any men in the kitchen. In a family the father, then mother then the boys and the girls according to their ages.”

When Hope stops speaking Faith says, “Those who’ve reached the Age of Decision are higher than those who’ve not reached it. Hope and I are the two lowest members of the Community who have reached the Age of Decision.”

Lee sees Brother Jacob frowns at this last statement so he asks, “Why are you two the lowest?”

“Mother explained that because she’s a widow our family is lower in the Community than those with a living father. Father was an unskilled worker so our family is the lowest of the fatherless families. Within our family mother is senior to us and when our younger brother, Charity, is of an Age he’ll be senior to us. At the moment he’s junior to us as he’s still a child. Thus only the children are below us in authority.”

A slowly nodding Lee glances at Brother Jacob, and sees he’s not happy with what he just heard. Lee asks them, “Do you understand the concept of derived authority?”

Hope replies with, “Yes. That’s when you are given an order to deliver by someone with authority over another and you deliver the order, the person then obeys the authority of the person who sent you with the order. It’s also when someone who is higher in the work team assigns you to lead a specific task and instructs others to do as you tell them.”

“Good. So when placed in a position to represent the authority of one higher than the rest you can act in that position and give orders to the others as required, even though they would normally be above you within the Community. Can you do that?” Lee asks them.

They both nod their head then Hope says, “I’m sure we can. Although we’ve not been placed in such a position. The closest we’ve come to that is when Brother Jacob assigned us to a task with orders to complete it as fast as we can then to see him when it’s done and others have come to us to help them with another task we’ve been able to tell them we can’t as we have orders from Brother Jacob. Then they nod and leave us to the work while they look for someone else to help them.”

Lee says, “Well, that explains the conflicting reports quite well.”

Brother Jacob says, “Yes, it does. I also see what the subject will be for the next few Sunday Service Talks will be about. So, do you think the girls will be able to do what you wish of them, Mister Taylor?”

“Naturally, I’ll have to see how everyone fits when we first start work. However, I think they can do the work I’ll need them to do,” answers Lee before he looks about at the crowd of youths around him. He asks, “Is there a blackboard or similar I can write on to explain something to the proposed work crew?”

Brother Jacob nods to him, turns, and leads the way to what is obviously a classroom. The group of twenty teens take seats at the desks while Lee walks to the front of the room and Brother Jacob stands at the back to hear what Lee has to say.

Lee walks up to the whiteboard and selects a colored marker before he starts to write on the board while he very loudly says, “I’ve a few weeks of work for a number of unskilled people. All I care about is their ability to do the work. As most of the work doesn’t require great strength girls can do the work just as easily as boys. I have asked for one boy as a Team Leader to help me with the few heavy carry tasks we’ll do.” He finishes talking at the same time as he finishes drawing on the whiteboard. He turns to the group and points to the top box with ’Project Leader’ in it, as he says, “That’s me. I’m in charge of the job.” He points at the four boxes below that labeled as ’PL Assistant A, PL Assistant B, Team Leader A, Team Leader B’ and says, “As you can see, in the project hierarchy there are two Project Leader Assistants who are just below me at the same level as each other, then Team Leader A is just below them with Team Leader B below them. At the bottom are the eight Work Units which have two workers in each of them. This is our Table of Organization and shows each person’s position and level of authority in relationship to everyone else. What is very important to note is the lines between the boxes as that shows the line of command called a Chain of Command and it’s different to that of authority. Team Leader A is of a higher authority than the sixteen people in the eight Work Units, but that person has no authority to give orders to the members of the Team B Work Units unless specifically authorized by the Project Leader for a task I’ve just assigned them to carry out. Do you all understand that?”

They all nod their heads while Lee looks at them to be sure they all understand the difference between authority and chain of command. He continues with, “Good. In general, I’ll give the work orders to the Team Leaders either directly or through one of my Assistants. Problems will usually go through the Chain of Command. However, Team Leader A is in a higher authority to Team Leader B so that if an issue comes up when I’m not available to deal with it and it needs to be dealt with right then the matter will be dealt with by Team Leader A. Understand?” He looks over the group to see them all nod to show they understand. “The main duties of my Assistants will be to go around checking on the status of the work for me and to carry instructions from me to the Team Leaders. Also, there will be times when I assign them to carry out tasks and either a Team or a number of Work Units will be assigned to them to help them with those tasks. At those times my Assistants will be in the position of a Temporary Team Leader of the people assigned to the task. I expect all of the people working on this project to keep all of this in mind and to obey those they’re assigned to work for on their tasks. Authority of the persons working in the project only applies to the work of the project and not to anything outside of the project. Conversely, authorities outside of the project have no effect on the project or those working on it. Understood?”

Again he stops to check they all understand before he says, “The bulk of the work will be, initially, to remove wall molding, pull up the carpets, remove drywall, pull cables, install insulation, put the drywall back, paint the walls, replace the moldings, lay the carpet tiles, and to move the stored furniture back into the rooms they belong in. I’m sure there will be other tasks as we progress with the work. Faith and Hope will be my Assistants. I believe it’s already been decided Mary Schmidt will be Team Leader A with Mark Schmidt as Team Leader B. I’ll leave Mary and Mark to work out who will be in each of the work units. I’ll need a list of who is in each Work Unit with their full name, date of birth, hat size, glove size, shoe size, and the size of coveralls they wear so I can order the right protective gear for them. I’ll also need bank information to pay their wages into each week as well as their Social Security Numbers. Faith, I want you and Hope to get pens and paper then collect all of that information for me once Mary and Mark have people assigned to all of the Work Units.” The two girls nod as they head to a cupboard, and they soon have pens and paper in hand while they write it all down.

Lee turns to Brother Jacob and asks, “When are your services, and are there any special observances I have to take into consideration?” They talk about the church services and Lee agrees to not work on Sundays as well as to not work on any special service days he’s advised of later.

Twenty minutes later Lee is leaving with Faith and Hope so he can see about ordering the personal protective equipment and extra tools they need for the work. The girls are with him as their first day of work as his assistants so they can learn of the sort of tasks they’ll being doing later.

Buying Supplies

There are two building supply stores in the city on the other side of the river: Riverside Supplies and Kelly Construction Supplies. The Boyes Trust has an account with Kelly Construction Supplies so Lee drives to their store to place an order for the equipment and materials he’ll need. At the store they enter and go to the Trade Counter to place the large order to save time as their staff will get the items from stock or tell him where they are in the warehouse, then they’ll order the rest for delivery. The man behind the counter takes a long look at the girls behind Lee then asks Lee, “You one of them Mennonites?”

Lee replies, “No, I’m not. However, I’ve hired some of the Mennonite teens to work for me as unskilled labor.”

“The owners don’t like the Mennonites and we’re not allowed to sell them anything or sell to anyone who employs them. Sorry.”

He has his body-cam on so Lee now turns it on as he also gets out his phone, turns on its camera mode, and puts it in his shirt pocket in a way to record what’s in front of him as he says, “I see you have cameras and notices about the area being recorded, so I see no reason why I can’t do the same.” The counterman shrugs in reply. “Refusing to serve people due to their religion is bigotry and that’s against the policies of the national distributor you’re an agent of. If you’re going to still refuse me service I’d like it confirmed by a manager.”

The counterman picks up a phone and says, “Can I have a manager at the Trade Counter Please to speak with a client about the Mennonites.” He hangs up. “The manager is on the way.”

A man in his late forties or early fifties walks up to the counter and says, “I’m Brian Kelly the owner and manager. What do you want?”

Lee responds, “I’m Lee Taylor. I’ve been hired to do some renovations on a large building and need a lot of supplies. However, when I went to give your man the list he saw my assistants and told me he’s not allowed to serve Mennonites or people who employ them. I wish to report his bigotry in refusing me service.”

“I don’t want them people around here. If we make it too hard for them to stay they’ll leave. So it’s company policy to not serve them or those who employ them. Fire them and we can serve you.”

“You do know religious or racial bigotry is a violation of the policies of the national chain you’re a distributor for and they can cancel their support when I report you for bigotry. Don’t you?”

“I think they’ll believe me more than you, so go away.” He turns and walks away. Lee looks at the staff member who simply shrugs at Lee who turns and walks out.

A few minutes later he’s in the building for Riverside Supplies. He introduces himself and hands over his list. The man running the store says, “I can do about a third of this from stock and will need to order the rest in.” Lee nods as that’s about what he expected.

A few minutes later what can be supplied from stock is on the counter and Lee pays for it with the Boyes Trust credit card after he opens a trade account with the store in the Trust’s name. Then the man places the order on his main supplier, the same national chain the other store is an agent for. Lee looks up when the man’s voice rises on the phone. The man looks at Lee and says, “They want payment in advance, despite my account being up to date they’ve canceled my account for some reason.”

Lee frowns, then says, “Tell them you want a faxed advice as to when they canceled your account and why. By law they have to notify you in writing before they can refuse your orders on it.” The man does so, and a few minutes later his fax machine prints a fax stating the account was canceled last week due to them being told he had financial problems.

The man frowns, then he rings his bank. He learns they’ve been told he has financial security issues and have canceled his overdraft limit. A letter is in the mail to him as it was posted last night. He checks his mail which he hasn’t gone through yet this morning. The letter from the bank is there, along with one from his landlord telling him of an intended big increase in rent in three months time. He swears.

Lee asks, “Can I see your bank accounts for the last year, please?”

“Why?”

“I wish to see if you really do have financial issues. If you don’t and your books look good I can contact some people to help sort this out. I’ve a feeling someone is trying to force you out of business.”

The man’s eyes go wide and he says, “Three weeks ago I refused a bad offer to sell out my business to Alan Kelly. I wonder if all this is related to that?” He goes to get his bank statements and his last few months of financial record print outs.

While he does that Lee goes out to his pickup and gets his laptop computer. When he returns to the counter he opens his computer and attaches his cell phone to it. He downloads the recording he made at the other store then he prepares an email as a formal complaint about the bigotry to the national chain. He’s about to send the email when the man returns and places a lot of printed records in front of Lee.

Lee looks at the records of several months of operations, statements of the account with the national supplier, and the bank statements. Lee sees the business is financially sound, although trade has dropped in the last three months. Changing his mind about the email Lee uses his phone to phone the accounts department of the national supplier. In a few minutes he’s talking to the accounts manager, Dave Rice, and lodging a complaint about the bigotry of the owner of Kelly Construction Supplies.

However, Dave says, “I know Brian Kelly well, he is not a bigot. So there’s no point in lodging a complaint about him as I don’t believe you.”

“I’m accessing your website while we speak. I’ll complete the formal complaint and I expect a full investigation of the matter,” is Lee’s reply as he types in the information into the formal complaint, but he doesn’t include the video. He does say, “The matter is easy to confirm as they have cameras all over the store and you can confirm the encounter from the recording of the camera at the Trade Counter.” He completes the form and submits it.

The man running the store holds out his hand as he says, “Ralph Whistler, I own the store. Do you think you can really help me with this. Without the account or an overdraft I can’t order stocks and I’ll soon be out of business.”

Lee is about to answer when his computer signals a new email, so he checks it. He finds he has two emails: one is an auto-confirmation of his complaint and the other is from Dave Rice rejecting the complaint and telling him not to make false complaints. Lee isn’t happy about it while he wonders why Rice is supporting Kelly. He sighs and returns to his original email, attaches copies of his complaint and the reply in a way to show the date and time of transmission, adds about his talk with Dave Rice, changes the addressee, then he uses his phone to take photos of the order Ralph has and the fax he received about his canceled account, attaches them to the email, adds the details of his interactions with Ralph as well as a note saying he suspects Brian Kelly is improperly pressuring Dave Rice to put Ralph out of business to buy it cheap. While he types Lee also tells the others what he’s doing, then he sends the email off with markers to show it’s urgent and he wants confirmation of receipt. He turns to Ralph and says, “A few people are about to have a major shock as I just sent that email to the Personal Assistant of the President of the supply company you both deal with. I know her and she’ll look into it. I now need to look at available land on the other side of the river. Who is the best person to talk to about that?”

Hope says, “Mister Schneider owns all of the land around the uni that isn’t built on, and he wants to sell his whole farm. The Community want to buy what’s on the other side of the ridge but not the university side of the ridge, and Mister Schneider won’t split up the land. His property covers the area between the two ridges running from the river, so it also includes land north and south of the university as well as land on both sides of the state road. The Community doesn’t have enough money to buy it all, and the bank wants an outrageous interest rate to loan us any money.” Lee looks at her while he raises one eyebrow. She blushes and adds, “I was helping to clean the Community Business Office while Brothers Jacob, William, and Michael were discussing about where we could put houses for the young couples to be married soon. They want to buy the land to expand the farm and place the houses along the base of the ridge, but they can’t afford it.”