Chapter 14

Wednesday, Mar. 20

The alarm went off this morning and I jumped out of bed ready to take on the world. I guess that meal last night and the restful sleep did wonders for my body and my attitude. I was cleaned up and dressed before 7 AM, and was enjoying a half of grapefruit along with some oatmeal for breakfast today. Dad and I sat and ate together this morning, before Mom came in and joined us. At 7:20, I was outside waiting on Sam so we could get to work by 8.

"Sam, is there a problem if I take Friday off, I would like to finish my English essay so that would be done before I start back to school next week. I can work if I need to, but I also want to do some shopping for a laptop that I could use it for school and work. I'm learning so much at work that I'm having a hard time remembering everything, so if I had my own laptop or notebook, I could make some notes and not forget things I may need to know later on."

"Bob, that is an excellent idea, and I don't think that would be a problem, just check with Glenn tomorrow to make sure, but I think he would agree. He may even suggest that you take Saturday off instead, since you have the division meetings down pat now."

"Thanks, Sam, I'll get with Glenn when he comes in tomorrow. Either day would be good for me."

"Not a problem, Bob, we need to make sure we don't overwork our number one recruiter and resident genius; especially since he has saved us so much in time and people. Oh, by the way, Maria is due back to work today, and is now very healthy thanks to you and your quick thinking."

"I'm so glad that Maria is OK now. She gave us all a scare there for awhile. I hope that lets other people know you have to watch for signs of not feeling well, because it may mean something is wrong."

"Yes, I've been thinking of setting up a screening process by some doctors and making it available to all our employees. We may even be able to get them to come here and do blood circulation tests on everyone to ensure they are healthy. Let's face it, if too many of our employees get sick or have to leave for major surgery, production would suffer greatly. But if we do this a few at a time, then we wouldn't affect the production that much and we would know we have healthy people. Let me see what I can work out on that. I know we always have a good turnout when the bloodmobile comes around every year. Thanks, Bob, you saying about hoping people listen to their bodies made me think about this in a new way and now I have more things to think about. Bob, oh boy, am I glad I hired you."

"Sam, I have to say it has been a real eye opener for me too. I'm so glad we met through Ronnie and you asked me to sit in on that Saturday morning meeting. It's changed my life so much; and all for the better too. Thank you too, Sam."

Once at work, we went our separate ways and I started compiling all the new data for my report to corporate. Glinda was very nicely dressed in a blouse and vest outfit, with what looked like dress slacks. "Glinda, I sure hope you brought some other clothes to work in today, in case you have to go out to sections for measuring and crawling around the floors."

"Well, Bob, I actually have a lot of just computer work to do today. I have been doing all the dirty work earlier this week so I could dress nice today for my introduction. I should be able to stay here in the office all day today unless we get some emergency."

"Thanks, Glinda, good thinking. You look very nice today that is if I am not overstepping any boundaries by saying so."

'I'm not thinking so, and thank you. May I say you look nice today too? We aren't trying to impress the wheels are we?"

"Well, maybe a little. Anyway, the meeting isn't until three so we can get caught up with most of our work before then."

The rest of the morning went as planned, I finished my report, got things set up for tomorrow, wrote myself a note to talk to Glenn about a day off this week, and we ran a fire drill for another section today. It was nice out today and the section did very well, only four minutes to get everyone out and in place. I saw Maria at lunch today and I talked to her for a few minutes. She hugged me and kissed my cheek thanking me for helping her. I blushed and said, "Maria, I only did my job, but I was glad I was there for you."

I returned to work and did a six months review for Jerry Hopkins. I did the write-up anyway and would do the actual review tomorrow with Jerry and Glenn. I didn't give him a glowing recommendation, but I gave him what I felt was a good review. I said something about the good things he has accomplished and I wrote about what he needed to do to improve and gave him some goals for his next review. I figured that over the next six months he needed to learn the rest of the duties assigned to Support Services. That way he would be fully trained in all of our duties by then.

All too soon, it was meeting time and I asked if Glinda could join me as we headed for the big conference room. I sat at my place at the table, with Glinda behind me in a side chair. When it was time for the meeting, the projection TV screen came on and we could see the main players at corporate. There was Charles Gillford, CEO, at the head of the table with Paul Howard, COO, on his right, and Gail Mumford, CFO, on his left. Randy Traynor was to Gail's left and Christie Nichols to Paul's right. I wondered why Christie was there. I also saw Ex-Lt. James Dooley at the table too. I didn't know the rest of the people at the table, but assumed they were corporate people.

Charles said, "Welcome everyone. I have two guests today that I want to introduce and I see two new faces; well, one new face and an old friend. I assume Sam will introduce them to us. Now the young lady to Paul's right is Christie Nichols, she is our new site manager in San Diego, which is quickly becoming one of our most productive lease sites for programming. I believe Bob Roberts and Sam Simpson are the ones responsible for bringing her into our fold. Also, there is another that somehow came to us in a roundabout way by Mr. Roberts, as well. Mr. James Dooley is now our new assistant site manager for the Berkley site and already he has stirred us up for a 20 percent increase in sales and productivity. Now your turn, Sam."

"Charles, Paul, Gail, and the rest of the directors; as you know Bob Roberts has been working for us off and on for little while now, but only really started working part time since mid-January. He found several things while working in Security which we now have changed for the better in all our security divisions, he also brought up the need to standardize our building drawings by going to AutoCAD for our support services divisions and his recommendation gave us our other new person, Glinda Goodrich, our newest employee and drafter. She has already updated several of our original drawings to actual layouts. We are very lucky to have found Glinda, but I think we all know who brought her to our attention. We welcome both Miss Nichols and Mr. Dooley to our family, as you welcome our new people Miss Goodrich and Mr. Roberts. Now we can really start this meeting."

The TV screen, had broken up into ten smaller screens, each showing one of the larger branches of the company. Smaller lease sites either joined another larger site for these meetings or had separate meetings with corporate. Each site manager gave his report on how their particular site was doing, and after all reports were given, there was a discussion period where questions could be asked from or to any one site or group of sites. I did ask if any other large site was having any problems with fire drills. Whether they were orderly, did their frequency of drills meet the OSHA standards and any applicable city and state regulations? One site, Boulder, Colorado, said they had not had a drill in several months and thanked me for bringing it up. It was something on their to-do list, but they had just passed it down the line. Berkley's Dooley said that they didn't have to run drills as they usually had enough bomb threats from radical groups from San Francisco, that they didn't need them. They averaged at least a threat a month. Finally, about 5:15, the meeting started to break up, however Paul and Charles both told me to keep up the good work, and to personally send them any more applicant files that I could find.

As we were walking back to the office, Glinda asked, "Bob, do you have some knack for finding good people for this company? I kind of heard about Miss Nichols, then me, but Mr. Dooley too? How did you hear about him?"

I explained about my letter writing campaign and how it really started last year with my talking with Angel and Nathan and then a few others until we had a whole network of people we knew or talked to. "It just kind of snowballed from there, now I probably e-mail, write, or talk to about a fifty soldiers or ex-soldiers who have been through Walter Reed or Ft Belvoir. It's really no big deal."

"No big deal, huh? Well, it is a big deal, you really are something else. I guess that best describes you, you are something else. See you tomorrow, big shot."

I kind of just stood there until it hit me, I really was 'something else', something besides a regular working guy, something more than a normal teenager, something much more than a friend to all kinds of people. Wow, it never really hit me just how special I really was until now, and I was stunned. I walked back to Glenn's desk and picked up my light jacket and went out to the parking lot to wait for Sam. I got into the car and kind of zoned out. I was in kind of a daze, thinking about my life and what had happened since I woke up that October morning, which seems so long ago. Since then, I can talk to just about anyone I want, anywhere in the world; or anywhere in this universe really. I can move things with my mind, I can do surgery with my mind and I have helped, well instigated really, the moving of an asteroid that could have killed the earth and everyone on it. I have started a program to help healing soldiers get a leg up in healing mentally by getting them together with other injured soldiers so they can talk about their fears, their regrets, and their problems in being accepted by society as a whole, with people who have 'been there, done that' and survived. It is real humbling to think that all this is because of me waking up and being able to hear and talk to people in their minds. Sam woke me from my reverie when he asked, "Ready to go home, Bob?"

"Yeah, Sam, I was just kind of daydreaming. I was thinking about how much my life has changed since last year. I guess I'm a real lucky guy to be living the life I am today." I looked around and we were in our driveway. "Thanks, Sam, see you tomorrow."

I went into the house, did my chores, and settled down to read my e-mails and work on my essay on Jules Verne some more. Supper came and went, and I continued with my report. Soon it was bedtime. I cuddled with my sister and immediately fell asleep.

Thursday, Mar. 21

Up with the alarm again, shower, get dressed, downstairs for breakfast, and wait for Sam. Once at work, I discussed with Glenn when he wanted his day off and then I would take the other day. I went over all the things that happened during his mini-vacation. We set about getting the workday started and over with. Glenn had elected to take Friday off, so I could be off on Saturday, which meant either Mom or Dad could run me around. I appreciated that as I wanted to see about a notebook for work and a new desktop for home.

Our old computer at home is still using Windows 2000, so I want to upgrade it. I have talked to a computer place in Georgetown that says they can take our old tower and monitor and rebuild the tower with all the latest hardware and software, add a 21" flat screen monitor and wireless printer for less than $800. We can use our old printer with my new notebook until the new tower is complete, or I might just look at a new desktop at one of the area computer stores. Of course, all the computer stores give you a great deal on the hardware, but then there's the software to run the thing. That's where they get your money, that and the installation and transfer of your old data to the new machine. That little bit will cost you from $200 to $400, depending on what you want added, like your office software and anti-virus or security software. That is not counting any game packages you might be interested in. So I need to shop around at the stores. I have already shopped via the internet and found several items I want to look at, and I want to talk to the people in Georgetown face to face to see what kind of deal I can get from them too. Anyway, it's time to get back to work.

Today went smooth and Glenn and I got things ready for tomorrow when he would be gone. We also discussed with Sam that by the time this week was over, it might be time for me to move on to another division. I had pretty much learned everything I could about Glenn's division, so I would be starting in the design division next Tuesday.

Great, I would be working with Fred Sanders. I really liked him; I hope everything worked out with his wife last year. I really couldn't say anything because he would then start asking questions I really didn't want to answer.

Anyway, I went into the house and started in on my essay some more. It was soon suppertime, and as soon as I ate, I went back to my essay, trying to get the final draft finished. As soon as I did that, I could print out a copy for my parents to read and sometimes make suggestions. Kind of like an editor, but I had final say on what was written and submitted. Sometimes I might follow their suggestions and other times not. Anyway, all too soon it was bedtime for me and Suzie, well me especially. But I didn't object, I could always sleep in on Saturday morning, well, at least until 8 or so.