Chapter 118

Things started moving fast between Christmas and New Year. Fed Ex had started delivering daily bundles of information from the auditors about the Mid Atlantic car rental acquisition. UPS started delivering crates of office equipment for Jeanna's office and for our new offices. With the gym having a commercial address freight was cheaper to have everything shipped there than to a residential address. Lorrie, Marcy and Ching Lee were running back and forth to get everything set up at Jeanna's.

The big very expensive copiers that were going to be leased effective February 1 had already been delivered. We had a bear of a time getting Jeanna's to her house, and then on top of that it needed 220 volts. An electrician had to come and run an outlet just for it. The big screens to go on the walls in the meeting rooms in both offices had been delivered. Jeanna's two had already been hung to use with her bank work. Our 6 were still in their crates in the far back corner of the gym. Our office was to have several of them.

From what I understood about that part of the computer program the screens would run in a loop like the arrival screens did at an airport. Ours would show rentals, reservations, and returns in real time. One would show vehicles available at each locations and the GPS location of those on the road along with excessive speed or involved in accidents. Our over-dinner conversations were business meetings every night now.

If it hadn't been apparent to the rest of the girls yet it was obvious to me that we were going to need several secretaries or office people. We couldn't pull any more trainers out of the gym, we going to need more of them as it were.

A forklift and a scissors-lift arrived and were sitting parked under the canopy of the long loading dock. Other materials were unloaded by Bob, pallets of ply wood, drywall, pipe, and wire. Another small dumpster was sitting in one of the parking places.

I started making the run to the college. Students were arriving and moving into their dorms. HR and I were giving the same welcoming speech three times a day. Patti and I were busy doing photo IDs, making up new access cards and reactivating old ones. Local businesses were posting part-time help wanted notices on the bulletin board. We researched every one of those carefully, the business and all we could find on the owners before they were posted.

On Thursday Misty and Belinda started moving into their rooms. They were finished except for a travel bag. They were going to stay out of our house until they formally had to move in on Monday to meet the sponsorship requirements. Sarah was traveling back and forth with either Patti or me, she too was moving in on Monday. She was there to give an overview of the student union and how it could help with any problems that any new student might have.

There were many. For some of the students this was their first extended time away from their parents. For some reason they had not made the decision to attend college at fall session of the college year or lacked funding or grade credits and decided to start in the second half of the college year with some of required courses.

Sarah asked me if there was any way she could get a display area and possibly a cubicle in the security department. The idea was to give students one stop to handle any problem that may not be HR related. The security department was open 24/7. My answer was simple; if HR gave their blessing we would gladly make available whatever room she needed including a designated phone. I had several unassigned cubicles. There were also several private meeting rooms for confidential things. She left to meet with Bob Jackson and Shirley Short to ask about it.