Chapter 56: Capitalizing on the Situation

Alice looked the most content and raring to go that I’d ever seen her when we woke up. We had morning sex before getting out of bed and that just seemed to make the whole day start off on the right foot.

Carol and Crystal came into the bedroom separately. Carol had slept with Cory, and Crystal had used Tara’s bed with Russ and Deke. Tara was flying around the country. Everyone had that freshly fucked look.

Instead of breakfast at the house, the limo that had been waiting for me took Alice and I to her apartment after being sure we weren’t followed. She ran inside, did a quick change while I took a pad of paper and filled a page with ideas I had for capitalizing on my sudden fame and fortune.

Alice made a show of exiting the apartment and getting into the limo, unlike her arrival where she slinked into her abode trying not to be seen.

At work, I got Meg on the speaker phone. She was in her Atlanta office. I got Jean on the line, too, and Alice was in the room with all of my direct reports in Sarasota. I also got Kim Stanley, our venture capitalist, on a video call.

I started at the top of my list. “We have an opportunity because of what happened and how people are reacting. So, here’s my take, and I’ll save the most profound idea to last.”

“First, we keep signing up new clients. Be sure marketing is prioritizing them on some basis: size of engagement, length of commitment, likelihood of long-term relationship, and so on. See whether they can group the smaller and less important potential clients into some kind of multi-client partnership, so we can lump them together and treat them all like one mega client.

“Meg, I hear we’re swamped with job applications.”

Meg responded, “I’d say we have 2,000 valid resumes so far that we didn’t have a week ago. We are screening them now, and I hired some part-timers to help us do that. They have HR experience and know the business areas. These people are spread all over geographically. Right now, we’re focusing on talent near our existing offices so we wouldn’t incur relocations costs. For top-notch talent not near our offices, we’re evaluating their importance to their function, and the cost of relocating them. All that’s in process.”

“Good. Keep at it. Don’t let these people get away or change their minds. I say this without any touch of ego, but if any of these people want to see me personally for some reason, set it up with Alice. You know I like to know everyone in the company sooner or later anyway. If I help woo somebody we want into the company, so be it.”

“Kim, I guess we referred some businesses to you that might want to merge with us so they’re on our brain train. What’s up with that?”

Kim nodded, “Yes. We got about fifty offers to merge. Forty we categorically aren’t interested in. Ten we are. My people are talking with each of them today. I think we’ll have at least a few more small companies to bring into the Cyber Solutions fold. I’ll know more by the end of the day.”

“My fourth idea, already mentioned in part, is to quickly form a multi-client program and get our new and existing clients in it. Get erudite speakers, especially about communications, networking, business strategy and I.T., and so on to speak at this. Do it up at some great resort – Hilton Head or Pebble Beach kind of places. Woo the folks into spending more money with us. I want to see our small consulting arm explode with business. All the officers of Cyber Solutions will attend to schmooze and stimulate business – me included.”

“Lastly, and Kim this is in your bailiwick, what about doing our IPO right now while we have all this positive press and attention?”

Kim sat back visibly away from her computer. “Wow! What a great idea. Yes, this is perfect. Let me get my legal team on it. As they say, my people will talk to your people. You’re probably right.”

The meeting broke up after that. Alice and I went back to my office suite. Kurt, the young kid from the mail room, was pacing back and forth in front of Alice’s desk.

Alice asked, “What’s up?”

“I want to know what to do with it?”

“Do with what?”

“All the mail that’s come in. There are boxes and bags of it – small packages, letters, big envelopes, boxes, and everything you can imagine. I know that Mr. Toller did something great, but ... I mean what we have downstairs is insane. The hallways are filling up.”

Alice and I walked down to the mailroom with Kurt. He seemed awestruck with me, but I just treated him normally like the important man he was. There were mail bags everywhere, even in the hallways, and all appeared to be very full. A mail truck had just pulled up with more.

I pointed at Alice and Kurt and said, “Your department. Get help. You know what to do. Hire people to cope with this.” She nodded and looked amused, and I went back to my office.

I circulated through the desks of everyone in the office, being friendly and trying to show them that despite the hoo-ha in the media, I was still ‘friendly Dave’, the CEO, trying to build the business and have good quality work for everyone. While I got some new adoring looks from a few of the women, most people looked reassured that things would be relatively normal.

Later, I asked Alice, “What’s the feel out there in the trenches?”

“That their boss is a genius, on their side, and creating a very exciting place to work. Meg said that attrition is down from about six percent to less than one percent annualized. Some of that is a few retirements and pregnancies and such, so not even directly related to work.”

Much to their surprise, I showed up in my gi at the dojo for my Wednesday martial arts class. Russ and Deke both stared at me for a minute to be sure it was really me. Nothing was said, we bowed to each other, and then Russ tossed me thirty feet in the air and made me recover so I was rapidly ready to reengage in combat. I was getting better. I was also eight pounds lighter than when I started and feeling better.

To leave the dojo, I went out their back door and right into the limo that CS now paid for. Alice called it a perquisite or perk, but I considered it necessary so that I didn’t get mugged by a dozen paparazzi. So far, they hadn’t taken to following the limo yet. When they did, they’d home in on the dojo and that would be another place I had to watch my back.

Alice had a team of a dozen clerical staff opening the envelopes and packages to me and scanning the contents. The volume of mail peaked about a week after I solved the Satanic Virus crisis.

About three-quarters of the mail was from women. Many stated they knew that I had two wives and two fiancées, and also a number of other women that I loved. Nonetheless, they were throwing themselves at my mercy and pleading for a relationship with me. Most sent photographs or incorporated the photo into the letter. My fans were all ages, too.

One kindergarten class did artwork for me, mostly showing me fighting the Satanic Virus with a sword and riding a horse. Interesting. I also heard from several great-grandmothers. Alice had a few of the more interesting and colorful kindergarten scenes framed and hung on my office wall.

I also got presents: pillows that had needle work (I Love You; I Want You; I Need You; Take Me; I’m Yours; etc.), specially scented homemade candles (even one was supposed to smell like someone’s pussy), artwork that my accomplishment inspired, trinkets, and more.

Alice also had a growing list of requests for one-on-one interviews from various media outlets. Those included newspapers from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, to The Times (London), Le Monde (France), Bild (Germany); magazines, including People in the U.S. and Hello from the U.K.; and television outlets, such as CNN Worldwide. The virus and its impact on all of society continued to be at the top of the news despite my team’s having defeated it.

People magazine indicated that they wanted to feature more the personal side of me, including what I’d called my extended intentional family. The request included mention of polyamory and how that was a favorite topic that they liked to portray favorably because of its racy nature.

I had a kind of ‘kitchen cabinet’ develop that I found I was using daily, usually in meetings over cocktails or dinner. The members seemed to be my father – Ross, Crystal, Carol, Trish, Kim, Jean, Elynn, Paul, Cory, and Alice. Others in our large group were informally added when they were around.

I got opinions from the ‘cabinet’ to pick a few and focus on those, and politely turn down the rest. I picked the New York Times (All the news that’s fit to print), People magazine, and CNN International. I also asked for an outline of the major questions their reporters wanted to ask me. That worked well, as it turned out.

The Times wanted to focus on the virus and the potential for other high-impact cyber threats hitting the world economy again. I was being asked to be a pundit and render opinions about worst case situations that might materialize in the future. I had an imagination and an engineering degree. I could go to town on that topic.

The Times interview was on a Monday in my Sarasota office. They were satisfied with a stock photo of me that Crystal had done the prior year – me wearing a suit and tie and looking very presidential in a business way. Two reporters showed up, stuck to the script they’d provided, and I pontificated away about cyber security and future threats. They recorded the session and did ask some important questions that I handled. We also talked about the privately held Cyber Solutions business and what its future was. I alluded to an IPO.

We did the CNN International interview on Wednesday in my Atlanta office, complete with lights, cameras, a media staff, and the head interviewer, Christiane Amanpour. She was superb, and an occasion all by herself. She commanded respect, and I willingly gave that to her.

We went through the script that she’d provided, a lot of it overlapping with what the Times had covered. We taped for two hours. I understood this well; they had an editing staff that would create a special, maybe two from the long interview.

We did the interview with People magazine at the house on Saturday, just after lunch. They sent two reports and two photographers. Crystal watched the photographers like a hawk. After all they were on her professional turf.

Like any good interviewer, the reporters would ask open-ended questions and then shut up, occasionally asking for clarification. After the ‘Tell us about your early life?’ question, the next was ‘Tell us about your intentional family?’

Crystal, Carol, and I sat together, but I was the lead responder. I did the short version of growing up under my dad’s firm hand after my mother’s premature death, and then shifted to talk about meeting Crystal when she was flight attendant, eventually asking her for lunch at the airport and how that morphed into a father-son dinner with two sisters. I deferred to Crystal about leaving the airline and starting Crystal Blue Photography, and then hiring Carol, who then also became like a family member.