Chapter 23

I woke at five thirty with an intense need to use the pot. Since I was on the outside of Sue, I easily slid from bed to use the bathroom.

I started coffee and jumped in the shower. When I was finished, I gently woke Mickey to see if she had to go to work. I didn't know her schedule yet. She asked if this was Monday, and when I said yes, she slid her legs out from the covers and sat up. I gave her a kiss and sent her toward the bathroom.

As soon as the patio light was turned on, Nelda came in the back door. Glenda came walking through the grass to join us as well. Once again, Nelda had coffee over tea saying she really did enjoy a good cup of coffee in the morning. When Martin came to the patio, he told Nelda that he and Glenda were going to one of his senior Elks club meetings that afternoon. He told her they have a great time and that there are many widows and widowers there to have fun with. She wanted to go, of course.

Mickey came out in regular clothes today, saying she was going to be on the lab staff all day and if she went to the field, she would be wearing a white coat with HCSO on the back. (Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office) She had coffee and some fruit, saying she might get something heavier at break time. By the time Mickey left, the patio was full. People were eating the sandwiches Phil had brought, and some were snacking on donuts.

Susan and Kevin were sitting in the glider, fascinated with all the people there in the morning. Merlin and Missy came out of their room and were welcomed by all. Merlin said, "I just love this place in the morning. I want to wake up first and just watch all of you come. It's so hard to believe so many migrate over here every morning.

Sandy said something that was so true, "Merlin, we've all become a family. Most big families start their day at the breakfast table. This is our way of saying good morning, and our way to make our day go well. Who knows when we'll run out of space? I'm sure when we do, that Steve will come up with a way for the patio to just get bigger.

"What do you do when it rains?" Merlin asked.

Ruth had the answer to that one, "Umbrellas, raincoats, ponchos, plastic bags, swimsuits, or once, someone just came naked. Steve usually has towels, so it's no big deal. It's just another day or evening."

Ryan said, "You know, you could not have this type of close neighborhood in a subdivision. Even in a condo it wouldn't, or couldn't, happen. Only in an old fashioned trailer park could this gel. Every one of you was ready for this to happen, and Steve was the catalyst. Michelle and I will hate to leave when the time comes."

Glenda was sitting next to Merlin and said, "When Steve first came here, I came over one morning and had coffee with him. Martin came over next. Steve met Charlie and Shawna, and shortly after that, they began eating supper together and sat around drinking beer in the evenings. Steve's second girlfriend wanted more people to have a party every morning, so I invited Ruth and Tiny. The girlfriend found a new guy that same day, and the next morning, Sue appeared in the rain."

Ruth interjected, "In a tiny, tiny swimsuit. It was a sight."

"Anyway," Glenda continued, "as soon as Sue and Steve got together, the place grew quickly. When they got married and bought this bigger place, Steve decided we needed a bigger patio, so he had this built and screened. When it started to get too hot to be out here, even in the mornings and evenings, he came up with the air conditioning trick. Just like you're here and are enjoying yourself, new people show up all the time. Sue adopts every stray she finds, and the rest migrate to Steve. Steve gathers people as well, like Martin, me, and Nelda. You see, Merlin, it's our magic."

"That it is, Glenda. Having this kind of good morning is a great way to start."

Shawna was standing in front of Ryan, "Wear some older jeans and an old T-shirt. Since you're not used to working with greasy parts yet, you're going to get dirty. I'm going to have you work with Sandy and Mandy. I think you'll be safest with these two. Some of the others are a little aggressive, and a few are very strange. These two girls will teach you how to build a motor. You may not have this type of arrangement in the other places you go to, but our motors are becoming famous. You need to know what goes into a perfect motor."

The patio cleared quickly as people left to go to work. Sue and Mercy came out, wearing terrycloth robes, and I got them both big glasses of orange juice and a cup of coffee. Sue usually only had a half a cup, as she didn't like decaf, but didn't want to drink the heavy caffeine.

Susan and Kevin came out to join the group after waking their kids. Their plan for today was to go back to Busch Gardens, or to go to the beach again. Merlin and Missy said, if you go to Busch Gardens we would love to go with you. That place is always a lot of fun. Mercy said she wanted to go too. The group decided to go there. Nelda said she was going with Martin and Glenda to the senior Elks meeting later, so she couldn't go with them. Sue thought about it, and said she would go with them as well.

I begged off, as I had several people to see today, and a few calls that I wanted to make to initiate some activity.

My first stop was the new office trailer that had been set up over the weekend in the front of the property. Terrell was inside the trailer. Most of the trailer had one long table built onto the side with various blueprints spread out on it. One end of the trailer had two desks. I guessed those were for Terrell and his crew boss or foreman.

On the wall by the door was a big white board with a sequence of events that he was working on. First were roadways and parking lots.

"Hey, Steve," Terrell said, as I came through the door. "The equipment for the roadway will be here any minute. The grade stakes are in place, so we're going to get started immediately. The people who will do the trenching for the utilities will be here today to start as well. I'll be putting in all of the electrical, communications, water, and sewer for this entire run before we even grade for the slabs. If we can get that part ready, I can move this trailer back in the park so we can dress up this front area. I want this entire front to look like a park. We may have a couple of places to advertise our products out here, but it should be classy, not gaudy."

"Did you come up with the man to watch the Holiday Inn builders?" I asked, as that had been a concern.

"I did, and he's over there right now studying their prints. His name is Darnel. He's about my size, my coloring, but no hair. He shaves his head because he thinks he's going bald anyway. He knows he works for you, so go say hi to him. He was in school with me, even though he's a lot older than I am, and has some very good construction experience."

"How are you coming with people? Are you going to have enough?" I asked, knowing good construction people are hard to find.

"I have enough to get the job done right now, but it will take a long time to complete the projects with the ones I have. Hopefully more men will hear about the job and come over. This should be a project that will last well over a year, even with a big crew. The big garment building alone is going to take close to nine months to a year with a big crew."

We heard big trucks pulling onto the property. It was the trenchers. They had huge machines that dug holes and laid pipe or conduit at the same time. The sewer pipe had to be laid properly and have an angle of flow. In other words, it had to be done right. The electrical and the communications could be in the same trench but electrical had to be at a much greater depth than the conduit for the communications cable. I watched as Terrell showed the foremen of the trenching and cable laying crews the paths for the cable. The communications and electrical stakes were green and the water and sewer were black. All the road stakes were red and none met each other yet.

I walked over to the Holiday Inn site where there was a major discussion going on. They were trying to set up stakes with a survey crew. A tall black guy was pointing to the plat plan that included the road. "You must be at least fifty feet beyond the proposed right of way, that's the law, not fifty feet from the existing right of way. They are going to widen this road to six lanes with a wide median in the next year or so. If you build the hotel out there they will have to tear it down to build the road.

The contractor was being a putz. He said he was Holiday Inn and could build his hotel wherever he wanted.

I introduced myself to Darnel and the contractor and stated, "I asked originally that the Inn be at least two hundred feet back from the road. My idea was to have a more peaceful setting, with the Inn back within a park like setting. You know I bought far too much land so then why not use it? Let's put this Inn perhaps a hundred fifty yards back. We can landscape in front of it and cut down on the road noise even more. The back of the Inn," I began again folding out the blue print, "is going to have a pool and big deck area that will face an open park area, so the farther from the highway we can get, the better."

"That's going to cost a lot more to get the utilities to the site."

"Not really, from the estimates that were with the original plans, your cost estimates included running all the way from the corner up the street. The utilities are going to be right at the new right of way line, so you will actually be saving on that portion of the construction. Come on, let's make this one a show piece so you can brag to the company about the great building you built. I want it first class. Darnel is here to make sure it's first class. I'm sure you want to be proud of this place as well."

"I have time constraints, you know." The contractor said.

"Do you have an hour you can spare, so I can show you a couple of places? I think I can get my point across." I said to the man, turning away, hoping he would take the bait and follow.

The contractor told the survey crew, "Use this plat print and lay out everything about four hundred feet from the extended right of way. I'll be back as soon as possible."

I drove the contractor to the shop and walked him back to the welding area. Tim was working with a couple of new men showing them the way to make a perfect weld. "Tim, when you came here, what was your biggest complaint with other places you worked?"

Tim thought for a second, "I was always being made to work faster and faster. I couldn't do a good job working faster, so I just gave up making quality work, I just did it fast. Now I make sure that the work I produce is perfect. You would think it would take me longer but once I was dialed into producing a perfect product, it just got faster and faster."

We walked over to the body building area. One of the guys that had been at the original body building company was there. I asked him the same question. He gave basically the same answer but added. "The harder they pushed to go faster the slower our production became. Now that no one ever tells us to work faster, to just make it better each time, we're turning out quality that's never been seen before, very fast. We're not trying to make it fast, just good. It's just happening."

Back in the rebuild area, I asked one of senior mechanics why he didn't work for the big manufacturer any longer. "They were always on the guys to push harder to get more work out. We were pushing the work out, but it was coming back just as fast because we were not thorough. Here, nothing goes out the door until I know it's right. Another man will check my work before I turn it loose. I'm putting out more work faster now without any come backs, ever."

We walked across the street to the clothing plant. I found Mike and had him take me to the section that had been the worst as far as bad quality and seconds. I asked the lead seamstress what changes she had made. "Mr. Steve, when you came in here and said to us, no more seconds, you wanted us to clean up every mistake we made before we made one more of anything. You weren't mad, you just wanted all that garbage out of here. Then you told us to slow down and make sure of every piece we sewed, to make it perfect, just like that sign says. We started doing it your way and you know what? This shop is your top producing shop now. We just got the in-house quality award for the third straight week."

I took the contractor back across the street to the truck and drove him to the little Greek restaurant for a cup of coffee. I got the man a piece of pie and sat with him quietly as he ate. Once he was finished I asked, "Do you understand how you can get more done by doing it better the first time? Did you hear the common thread? You can push yourself all you want, but it will never be what you want because you'll know you cut corners getting there. You didn't build the quality building you wanted. Look to build the quality, look how you can plan and schedule your men and subcontractors so they blend with each other, complement each other, but watch over all of them closely so they do a good job first and not a fast job first. Good will make them fast. Fast will never make them good."

He looked at me and said, "That's an impressive couple of businesses you just showed me. I'll tell you what. I'll really work on the planning and quality you're looking for. I know the scheduling of subs is key to making a building go up right. My time on this isn't that tight, I was just going to prove to myself how fast it could get done, and how cheap I could do the project. I can see that I may be able to build it cheaper if I do it right the first time. You've obviously proven that point multiple times. Thanks for showing me."

We went back to the building site to find Darnel holding a survey pole for the surveyor. The contractor was impressed that my man was jumping right in to help. He went up to Darnel and offered his hand. "Sorry about being obstinate. Your boss taught me something today I'll try to remember. I'm ready to make this the best we can.

I drove back to Nelda's home site. The barn was gone and the house was up on wheels out almost to the roadway. I looked and finally found the well among some bushes. I pulled the bushes from the sandy soil and with a big magic marker wrote on the tank, "Do Not Remove." I called Terrell and told him to have his guys come over and build a fence around the well and tank. Terrell asked if the power was still on. I flipped the power on and the pump came on. The pressure gauge on the tank rose quickly. When I told Terrell it was he said he would send his men out there right away to build the fence. He said he needed clean water for the men and this would take care of the problem.

As I drove out of Nelda's old lane road, I noticed the mailbox was stuffed with mail. After stopping and getting all of the mail out for Nelda, I called Glenda and asked her to take Nelda to the local post office so she could forward her mail. She said she would do that. I called Tiny and asked him to get the power out here put in our name. I read him the meter number from the pole next to the pump. The guy who took the house had been good about taking down the hot wires. There was nothing dangerous dangling. He had removed the wires at the box, after the meter.

It was getting toward noon already so I went home to have lunch. Glenda, Martin and Nelda were gone so I fixed some soup and a bunch of tuna fish salad sandwiches with lettuce and tomato. When it was ready I poked my head into the workroom to find Sue, Betty, Joan, and Hanna busily pinning up a dummy with material. Hmmm, I thought Sue was going to Busch Gardens.

When I said, "Lunch" quietly, they all looked up at me strangely, then realized it was lunch time. "Come and get it, the food's on the table."

Actually the soup wasn't on the table yet but it would be by the time they got there. I ladled soup into bowls and took them to the table. When I finished, the four girls, plus the office girl that Sue had doing books, came out to lunch. I got iced tea and Diet Cokes for everyone, sitting to eat with them.

Sue told me that Betty and Joan had a couple of items they wanted to get into production quickly so they could get it out in the web catalogue. She had stayed to help speed up the process.

They excitedly talked about the two new fashions they thought would be good sellers. They were working on creating quality staple products such as a couple of plain blouses that would always be needed within a wardrobe. They wanted to have those products for the customers and retailers they were supplying. They wanted their stuff to be of superior quality though not cheap material, slapped together. They wanted the customer to feel the quality when they put it on. They seemed to know what they were doing, and I sure agreed with their approach.