Chapter 8

The next six months were hectic. When Roger officially opened the business he was swamped and immediately had to hire three more technicians in addition to the two that he had hired from his old company. The man that had given him the business card at the restaurant had kept him busy with work on his systems even before Roger was officially in business. The work on those systems mainly consisted of installing the encryption software and training people to use it. The business was profitable even before Roger officially opened the door.

Roger incorporated the business right away and gave his parents twenty-five percent of the business. He gave his sister ten percent of the business.

Ben had the loan papers drawn up. Actually there were two loan papers drawn up. The first loan agreement said that Ben would loan Roger three hundred thousand dollars at ten percent interest to be paid back after three years. This was to keep the banks from asking questions. The second loan agreement nullified the first agreement and said the money was loaned at no interest. Roger was told that he should only show the banks the first agreement but the second was the one between them.

The first person that Roger hired was Bart. He made Bart the operations manager and Bart was responsible, in a large part, for their early success. He was still the same old Bart.

After he had been in business for two months Roger ran across Ann as he was walking into the business of one of his customers. Ann told him that she was pregnant and Roger figured that it was the result of a revenge fuck to get back at him. She was having trouble getting a job because of her pregnancy and Roger hired her at a decent salary and pulled some strings to make her health insurance kick in right away. It turned out to be a good move because she really dove into the business and quickly became indispensable. She found an open source inventory program on the Internet and she modified it to where, if she said it was in stock, you could bet your life on it.

After the first week Roger had to hire a receptionist that spoke Chinese and knew software inside out. Many of the customers spoke only Chinese or their English was so accented that it was hard figuring out what they needed. Roger had told Ben of his problem and Ben had recommended the woman that he eventually hired. Roger soon had many of the Chinese shopkeepers checkouts automated and running more efficiently. He tied the cash registers into the system so that when an item was sold it was immediately taken off of the inventory. Once a week, an automatic printout told the shopkeepers what had been sold and what needed to be reordered.

Roger began working longer and longer hours. A couple of nights he had fallen asleep on the desk, only to wake up when Bart came in. He knew that he had to start delegating responsibility or he would burn out. He called Bart into the office and talked to him about taking more responsibility. Roger made Bart the Chief Operating Officer of the company.

Roger was getting the reputation of being the "Chinese" computer company. He began to advertise heavily in the surrounding counties and soon much more of his work was from other than the Chinese businesses. By the end of the second year Roger paid Chu back every penny that he had borrowed and the money that Roger's parents had lost on his previous venture was also fully repaid. The company was the premier systems company in the Bay Area. Roger had to move to bigger quarters twice in the first two years.

Roger and Ben had been having dinner together at least one night a week since Roger had opened the doors to his business. He and Ben had become best friends and Ben often told Roger that he should loosen up a bit and have a social life. One time Ben sent over two women when Roger was working late at the office.

One night, after they had finished eating, Ben produced a box of the best Cuban cigars. They sat talking and puffing on the cigars and drinking coffee and Baileys.

Ben got a serious look on his face, "Roger, I'd like you to go somewhere with me tomorrow night. I want to show you something that you've never seen before. I doubt if you would believe me if I told you what it is."