Chapter 14

We flew up to Omaha early the next morning. Mama had gotten up early too, to see us off, and she made it a point to tell me that she was having Brenda and Mrs. Connor come over for lunch later that day. I guess she wanted me to know that she was already working on taking care of what I had asked her to do, as far as changing Brenda's behavior. We got into the office up in Omaha right before nine o'clock. Dad told me that he had a full morning of meetings with production people, and he told me I could choose either to sit in on them, or to move around anywhere in the building, familiarizing myself with anything I chose. I told him I'd like to walk around looking at everything again. He told me I had probably made a good choice, and then advised me to take some kind of pad and pencil to write down my impressions, or any ideas or questions I might want to discuss with him, over lunch. I agreed to meet him back at Rob's old office at one o'clock.

I started on the first floor, partly because it smelled good, and I was getting a little hungry, and partly because I thought I'd start on the first floor and work myself up to the third floor by lunchtime. I got a memo pad and a ball point pen from Virginia, before I left. I moved around the ovens, and the people tending them, watching as baked rolls came out and were lifted onto the rolling racks to be taken over to the packaging area, for cooling and later wrapping.

I started talking to a huge black man named Milton. He had to weigh three hundred and fifty pounds, at least. His job was to take empty trays and racks out by the loading dock, and then put them in a power washing room for spray cleaning. Six of the racks, each with fifteen trays, fit in the room, and then he closed the door and pressed this big red button. He told me the approximate degrees of the water temperature they had to use, and it was really hot. When he went in later, to bring them out, after they were washed, he needed to use gloves because the metal was so hot when he went to roll everything back out. I asked Milton how he liked his job.

"It's a job, that's all. A man has to do something."

"What would you rather be doing, if you could pick your job?"

"That's easy. I applied here for a delivery driving job, six years ago. This is the onliest job they had open at the time. There haven't been any new openings, and I'm still third down on the list. Damn drivers got it too cushy to quit, and Mr. Rob, he don't never fire anyone."

"My Dad is going to triple the output here, when he gets some changes made, and puts in more ovens. We're going to need new drivers. I bet you're going to get one of the new routes."

"Too late for me now, boy. My license done got messed up by some tickets, and I'm too big and slow now to do the job. Too much getting in and out, and running around, making those deliveries."

I was confused by his answer. Maybe he hadn't heard, or understood, my original question. I decided to reword it, and ask him again.

"What other job, that you could do, would you rather have?"

"Why you keep asking me that same question? You be wanting my job? Go get your Daddy to give you another job, 'cause this one's already spoken for, it's mine."

"I can't take your job even if I wanted to. I live in Kansas."

"That so? Why ain't you back there in Kansas, bothering somebody else besides me? I got my own work to do, and I can't be wasting time jawboning with you no more." Milton closed the door on his second load of carts and trays and pushed the big red button to start the cleaning cycle. I walked away from him, feeling bad about making him mad at me. I decided to head up to the second floor to see the vending machine mechanics working. When I got there, all three of them were in the break room, smoking and drinking coffee. It didn't seem right to be bothering them when they were on their break, so I walked up to the third floor. I looked at my watch, and it was just after ten o'clock. Three more hours to go before lunchtime with Dad. I hadn't learned anything that he and I could talk about, and I had really wanted to learn something so that he would see I was better at being his intern than Grace had been.

"You back already, Kenny?" It was Virginia who said that to me. She was standing over by the copier, talking to her father, when she noticed me coming up the stairs.

"The people were all busy working, and I didn't want to get in their way, or disturb them. I told my Dad I'd meet him at one for lunch, but I thought there would be something here I could do to keep me busy until then." Mr. Lucas laughed, and spoke to me.

"I'm going across the river to Council Bluffs, you want to ride with me? We'll be back before one." I nodded my acceptance. It was a heck of a lot better than sitting around doing nothing for three hours. We went downstairs to his car, which turned out to be a green Dodge pick up truck. In the back, there were three big boxes of vending machine snack products. It didn't take us very long to get where we were going. On the drive, Mr. Lucas made small talk, staying away from saying anything about his business.

We just drove across the bridge and were in Council Bluffs. Mr. Lucas went inside three different businesses, each time taking a full box of vending snacks. I went with him and watched, as he filled up each machine with new product, and then emptied out the coin tray into a small white canvas sack. He put the coins in with the unused product and we left. We were at each location for fifteen minutes or so. At the second place, a heavy woman came up to Mr. Lucas and complained about putting her money in and not getting a snack. Mr. Lucas asked her what she had been ordering at the time, and offered her a choice between a refund, or two of the strawberry coconut rolls she had tried to buy before. She took the rolls, and left, looking happy.

After we were finished with the third location, Mr. Lucas offered to buy me a Coke from the drink machine next to the one he had just finished filling. We both sat down, and I asked him if he delivered like that all the time. He laughed, and told me old habits die hard. He said it kept him informed about what was selling, and whether the machines were performing well. He told me he didn't have a regular route, but picked three machines each day, from different sales routes, to do a check on how things were going. Virginia would check the product it took to fill each machine, against the money collected. It was sort of an informal audit, to keep the route people honest, and to check on any problems at the locations. The same thing was being done daily, by three other salesmen who had been with Mr. Lucas for a long time. He said it was just insurance. I made a note of it on my memo pad.

"So, did your father tell you his plans for the company?" Mr. Lucas said it casually, but I could tell he was trying to pump me for information. The smartest thing for me to do would be to just answer no to his question. My father liked keeping his own counsel about business plans. The thing was, I liked Mr. Lucas and Virginia, and I didn't think they were looking to take advantage of my father. I was also pretty sure that my father was going to be telling Mr. Lucas his plans pretty soon anyway. Dad hadn't told me not to discuss things with Mr. Lucas. I didn't see any harm in it. I didn't have any specific information anyway.

"He says he's going to triple the vending machine products made, and put machines in all our existing distribution territories."

"Is he thinking of moving the plant then?"

"No, he is going to move out the vending machines, and the machine repair people to a different building, and put all the packaging and order sorting on the second floor. He says he needs more room for the new ovens downstairs."

"That's going to cost him a bundle. Does he already have a market for this increased new output?"

"I think he wants you to head up the sales and marketing operation for him, but he thinks you won't want to do it. He thinks you would feel like it's a demotion."

"Why would he want me?"

"You know all the current sales people, Virginia says you're strong in sales, and everyone knows you here at the company. My mother and I both think the employees would feel better about their future, if you and Virginia stayed involved with the company."

"Your father doesn't think that too?"

"I don't know what he thinks. What he said was it would be hard for him to go back to sales after running the whole company. He thinks everyone likes being in charge of everything." Mr. Lucas laughed.

"Maybe you shouldn't be telling me all of this. Aren't you afraid it will undermine your father's bargaining position with me?"

I thought about what he had said. It sounded like something my father would worry about. I had to answer him though. "I'm not worried about that. Mama and I both think you're happy having sold out to us. We think you care about your employees, and want what's best for them. I figured if you knew what Dad was worried about, and you did want the sales job, you'd find a way to let him know you were interested. If you didn't want it, you could just tell him no, if he asks."

"You mentioned Virginia staying involved with the company. Has that been decided upon?"

"Not yet. Dad says he has to bring up some of his own accounting people to find out about putting in a different system first. He said there is something wrong with the system you used, and he doesn't know if it was Virginia's fault or not."

"It wasn't her fault, it was mine, for not listening to her when she brought the problems to me. I was more concerned with other things. We would have all been better off if I'd just listened to her, instead of relying on people who didn't know what they were doing. People like my idiot son in law. If I did decide to stay on, to head up sales and marketing, it would only be because Virginia was kept on too."

"Do you want me to tell my father that?"

"I'd have to have some say in how the marketing strategy was decided on. I'm too set in my ways to try to fit in with someone else's idea of how to get the job done."

"My dad's a numbers guy. If you two could agree on sales projections and you met your quotas, he wouldn't care much how you did it. He likes aggressive growth though, and so do my mother, and Uncle Bunny."

"How many owners are there?"

"Just those three. I think I might own ten per cent, but I'm not sure how that works."

"Ten per cent of Lucas Company?"

"Ten per cent of all of it, I think. Don't worry though, Dad has voting control of all the stock for ten more years. He's the only one whose opinion counts."

"I'm very interested in the marketing job, as long as Virginia stays on here too."

"Does she have to stay on as head of accounting? My Dad likes her, he just isn't able to tell yet how she is at accounting. Does she just want to stay in accounting?"

"No, she wanted to run the whole company, and I should have let her."

"Dad always has people who head the different divisions. Do you think Virginia is qualified to head up the company?"

"There isn't anything going on in this company that she doesn't know about, or anything she isn't qualified to do. She has an MBA, from the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business."

"Dad doesn't like excuses for not reaching what he sets up as goals. He won't accept failure, or listen to reasons why things weren't done. He expects his managers to perform."

"If his goals are reachable, Virginia won't fail. He can't expect people to do the impossible."

"He doesn't expect people to do more than he could, or even as much, but he doesn't expect half hearted effort either."

"That's the thing I feel worst about. Virginia was counting on me to keep things going, so she could take over someday. Instead of doing that, I let my ego get in the way. I should have been content to stay the way we were. I had no business doing what I did. You can't grow a company without capital or adequate credit, and I had neither. Ginny warned me, but I thought I knew better than she did."

"How much is it going to cost to triple this part of your business? Dad didn't talk to us about that part of it."

"Most of the cost will be in ovens and vending machines. A rule of thumb is that these machines take two years to pay for themselves. He'll need at least another twenty million dollars, and probably at least five million more in operating reserves."

"Good. He told me he's going to have a hundred fifty million dollar open operating line, and he'd only need one hundred twenty million of it. Even using twenty five million, that still leaves five million he doesn't need."

"Five million isn't much of a cushion when you're talking one hundred forty five million in encumbrances. One wrong move, and he's toast. Maybe he should scale back his growth plans, do half right away, and the other half in two years, when those first machines are paid for."

"He doesn't need to. My mother and my uncle have a whole lot of money, more than he would ever need. If he needed to, he could get money from them." Mr. Lucas just shook his head, but he was smiling. I think he felt better after we talked. He had told me that he got in trouble trying to grow without capital or credit behind him. Now that he knew this wasn't anything he needed to worry about with Dad, he probably felt a lot better.

"We better start heading back again. Don't want to make you late for lunch. I'm glad we had this talk. I'm feeling better about the sale, and about the people who now own my company. If your dad asks you, tell him I said I'd be very interested in running the marketing for the vending division." We got back in his pick up and drove back across the bridge to Omaha. He parked at the loading dock and sounded his horn. A minute later, Milton came out with a rolling table, and put the three boxes on it. When they were loaded, he went over to one of the three elevators, and took everything upstairs. We rode up with him.

Mr. Lucas asked, "How you doing, Milt? Still eating good, I see."

"Doing good, Mr. Rob, real good. Has this boy been telling stories about me?"

Mr. Lucas looked over at Milton, asking, "No, what kind of stories? You been doing something wrong?"

Milton looked down at the floor of the elevator, saying, "No sir, not me. I been minding my own business. It was him, coming over and asking me a bunch of fool questions. I didn't do nothing."

I said, "I asked him what job he'd like to have if he had his choice of any here." Mr. Lucas laughed, slapping Milton on his shoulder.

Mr. Lucas asked, "You told him you wanted to be a delivery driver, I bet?" Milton looked a little uncomfortable, but he looked up at Mr. Lucas.

Defensively, he said, "He asked me, so I told him."

Mr. Lucas said, "Did you tell him about your suspended license too? Milt, you know you could have been a driver anytime you brought me a clean license. I don't know why you like to make people think it's us keeping you from driving?"

Now it was Milt's turn to laugh, saying, "I had me a license when I first applied."

"Yes you did. When we had our insurance carrier run it, it turned up three tickets in the preceding year, and a recent accident that was your fault. I hired you anyway, and gave you the job down on the baking floor, didn't I? Do you remember what I told you then?"

"You said I could drive for you when I got my license straightened out."

"Is it straightened out yet?"

"No sir. I don't even have no license right now."

"You know I sold the company, right Milt?"

"I know that, Mr. Rob."

"Kenny here is the new owner, least he will be by the time the State of Nebraska is ready to give you your driver's license back. Kenny, are you willing to make Milt a route driver when he has a clean license for you?"

"If I let him be a driver, could I have his old job? It looked pretty easy, and I've always liked easy jobs. How much does that job pay, Milt?"

"Damn, Mr. Rob, why is this boy after my little job? It ain't as easy as it looks either. All you saw was me cleaning off those racks and trays. That's not even half the work I do. Who you think loads all them delivery trucks? Them lazy drivers? No sir, it's Milton Q. Hightower, that's who. You better think some more on it before you go trying to do this man's job."

We were all laughing hard by the time the elevator came to a stop on the third floor. It was twelve thirty, and I saw the door was open on my Dad's new office. I thanked Mr. Lucas for taking me with him, and I told Milt that I'd be down later to learn more about the rest of his job. When I went in my Dad's door, he was just hanging up the phone. He looked pretty happy about something.

He asked me, "Ready for lunch, Kenny?" I shut his office door behind me, and went over to take a seat in front of his desk. I was trying to think of a good way to tell him all the things I needed to. I didn't want him reacting bad to the way I'd spoken to Mr. Lucas, but I wanted to tell him about it before Mr. Lucas said something to him.