Chapter 27

By the end of 1991, having sold off all of my rental homes, I had much more money than I'd ever dreamed of having. My son, Frank, was seventeen by then, and a senior in high school. My son, Eric was thirty two years old, a college graduate, married, with two small children of his own. Jake too was married, also a college graduate, but he and his wife had decided to forego having children.

Jake's wife, Diane, was just about as self absorbed as any human being I'd ever come across. She was the absolute beginning and end of her little universe, and anyone trying to interact with her had to deal with her that way.

Sonia hated Diane, and had, since the day Jake brought her home and introduced her to the family. In spite of her putting up as many obstacles as she could to prevent it, Sonia was unable to keep Jake from running off to Las Vegas and marrying Diane.

Jake was putty in his wife's hands. She could literally get him to do anything she asked for. I would grant that she was an extremely attractive woman, big busted, with long dark hair, striking brown eyes, and a seemingly perfect complexion. Personality wise though, she was poison.

The couple had been married for about six months before Diane found out that Jake wasn't my son, but my nephew, and that Sonia wasn't my wife, but my sister in law. I'm not sure how she ever thought Jake was my son, but she sure seemed upset with Jake when she discovered he wasn't.

Jake worked for me, as did Eric. Eric had taken over for my father when he retired back in 1984, at the age of seventy. Eric was twenty four at the time. Jake had originally gone to work at the dry cleaners, fresh out of college. He had a big fight, with his grandmother, about his pay, and quit his job, after about four years working for her.

Jake had studied business in school, and had a lot of fancy ideas about how to run a business. Eric had gotten a liberal arts degree, and actually was helping me run my business. Jake might have resented Eric's success to some extent, and truthfully, Jake was a lot better qualified to do Eric's job than Eric had been.

When my father announced his plan to finally retire and take things easy, Eric had been working as a sales clerk in a sporting goods company. His degree in history hadn't prepared him for any job. Jake was still working at the dry cleaners then, doing his best to convince his grandmother that she needed to adapt herself to the new ways of doing business. Mrs. Ross was quite happy with the old ways, apparently, and mostly had Jake handling deliveries, and working the front counter when Sonia or Dorothy weren't there.

By the time Jake quit working for his grandmother, sometime in 1985, the only opening I had in the company, that Jake might be able to handle, was as an entry level builder's helper. Jake was quite certain that he had no interest in becoming a manual laborer, not with his Business Administration degree.

Jake was smarter than Eric. This had been easily apparent, since back when the two were in elementary school. Eric had always had to work harder to keep his grades up as high as Jake's. Eric managed to do that, all the same. Eric was more like my father, as far as having a great work ethic, and being willing to do what he had to, in order to get the job done.

After only six months on the job, Eric had already surpassed my father's excellence at the position. I had been well satisfied with how my father performed, but I had to admit that Eric's youth and energy made a big difference.

After looking, unsuccessfully, for something to work at, for about four months, Jake came back to talk to me about becoming one of the crew's helpers. I knew he'd be miserable doing that job, and I also knew it would bother all my crews having Jake being given a job that he was so obviously unqualified for.

Trying to avert a lot of hard feelings among the crews, I decided to give Jake a big part of my job instead. Originally, I hired him as my assistant, letting him run around looking for the best prices for some of the needed building materials. I started him out at fifteen dollars an hour, about what I was paying for an experienced builder's helper. This was five dollars more an hour than his grandmother had been paying him before he quit.

Within a month, Jake had a better handle on building material costs, and availability, than I did. Next, I let him start handling the time sheets for each job, and being the guy in charge of collecting all the receipts, and for getting all the documentation we needed, as far as expenses, to our accounting company. I raised his salary up to twenty dollars an hour after I assigned him this extra work. By then, he was making almost as much as Eric, who was making one thousand a week.

I kept finding more parts of my own job to turn over to Jake. As soon as he showed me he could handle what I'd already given him, I'd add something else on. I again raised his pay up to where he was making the same as Eric. Finally, it got to the point where all I had left to do on the job site was sign the checks and keep an eye on Jake to make sure he was handling everything.

In fairness to Jake, I finally had to give him yet another raise, and this one left him making about thirty per cent more than Eric. This didn't seem to bother Eric, but it did cause a minor stir back home. Dorothy didn't like it that Eric wasn't making as much as Jake any more.

"The job Jake is doing is more important to the company than what Eric does. He practically runs the company for me now."

"But, Eric is your son. How do you think it looks, to be paying your nephew more than your own son?"

"Did Eric say anything to you about not making as much as Jake?"

"No, but Sonia sure has. It shouldn't be a competition between Eric and Jake. You should pay them both the same."

I gave Dorothy the look I had for letting her know that I wasn't willing to discuss this nonsense any longer with her. She ignored my look, and kept right on after me about equalizing the boy's pay. I finally had to leave the house, and go over to see my father in order to get a little peace and quiet. Dorothy was on the telephone with my mother when I arrived at my parent's house, giving her a real song and dance about how unfair I was being to 'poor' Eric.

"Is it worth the extra three hundred a week, to fight her on this, Jimbo? She does have a point, you know. You can't take the money with you, anyway. My advice to you is to let her win this one."

I was a little bit surprised at my father's cavalier attitude about an extra fifteen thousand dollars a year expense for me. I was already paying Eric everything his job was worth. It just went against the grain. and was unfair to Jake, to give Eric money he hadn't earned.

The next day, at work, I took Jake aside and made him a new deal. I ended up cutting his pay back to Eric's pay, buying him a new Cadillac, as a company car, and putting him on an expense account to make up any difference between what he would be getting for pay, and what he should have been getting before I had to take it back. I made him promise not to discuss any of the details of his new job perks with anyone in the family.

That night I informed Dorothy that Jake and Eric were making the same wages. She just went ahead and assumed that I'd raised Eric's pay.

By the time 1992 finally rolled around, I was back down to only having four crews working for me. Two of my crews quit working for me, the Kiel brothers had saved up some money from the bonuses I paid, and wanted to try their hand at building their own spec houses. The other crew were two of the older men, now in their late fifties, who wanted to retire and take things easier.

I had over seventy finished lots around the county, building lots that I'd acquired over the past few years, and planned on building houses on, using my four remaining crews. I still had my eye on that forty acres I owned over in Anaheim Hills. Now that so much of the infrastructure was in, I could see myself putting anywhere between 120 and 160 new homes in a tract I planned on some day building. I planned to wait until the housing market rebounded from the current slowdown we were experiencing.

New homes, especially the larger and nicer ones, were still selling at prices where a builder could make a profit. Median new home prices had been falling since 1990, and wouldn't start going back up again until 1996. Since I didn't need to borrow any money to build, I was pretty well insulated from the housing downturn.

It was in 1992 that Jake's wife, Diane, finally decided to make her move. While Jake made a decent living, it wasn't enough, in Diane's opinion, to afford her all the things she felt entitled to. She knew that Jake did most of the actual work involved in keeping my company operating. I was mostly just a figurehead. At fifty five years old, all I did anymore, was provide all the housing designs and the financing for the projects we were undertaking.

"Uncle Jim, Diane wanted me to ask you if you could come over some night, so the three of us could discuss how you see my future with the company." Jake seemed very uncomfortable when he presented this invitation to me. I hadn't been asked over to Jake and Diane's house since their house warming party five years before. All the women in my family had referred to Diane as 'Princess Diane' by then. Not just behind her back either, they called her that to her face. Diane seemed to enjoy being referred to that way.

"What do you mean by your future? I'm certainly happy with the job you're doing, Jake. If there's something more that you need or want, you know you could just come talk to me about it. I'm not sure I want to discuss company business with Diane. You do realize that Diane and I aren't really on the best of terms?"

"I know, but Diane wants to talk to you about some things. If you would agree to come over, she could explain things better than I would."

I was a little bit intrigued by this summons from Diane. After she and Jake had gotten married, I'd pretty much tried to avoid her as much as possible. Almost everything about her rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't like the way she manipulated Jake into doing things he didn't want to, and I positively hated her unbridled sense of entitlement. I told Jake I'd be over for a visit in two days.

Dorothy and Sonia both wanted to come with me, to see what Diane was up to, but I finally convinced them that it was strictly a business meeting. I told them I'd tell them all about it, just as soon as I got back home.

"Thank you for coming, Jim. I've been after Jake for some time to arrange for the three of us to get together, hoping that, together, we would be able to work something out to allow Jake to continue running the company."

The three of us were sitting in Jake's living room. Jake and I had bottles of beer, and Diane had a flute of champagne. Jake and I were dressed casually, and Diane was wearing some kind of evening dress.

"What did you have in mind in the way of changes we'd need to make for this to happen, Diane?"