Chapter 124

We decided to order subs and have supper as part of our nightly business meeting. Lorrie took an order for all the employees working in the gym. One of the cabinets in the storeroom had already become a can goods store and we had every kind of disposable eating ware you could get. We made a large steaming bowl of tomato soup to go with the subs.

Bob from Bob's Construction wanted to have a walk-through and he was coming tonight. I took that to mean the construction was nearly complete. There had been a fresh paint smell nearly every night this week.

The gym was full of ladies working out after their day job as usual. There were now men waiting in the lobby along with women for the tanning booths. The lobby was filled to standing. Every time Wendy came out wearing her thong swimsuit to get another customer for a tan, a collective groan was heard in the lobby. Wendy's helper for the night was Misty, she had recovered from her ordeal enough that she was comfortable wearing a bikini again.

Now that the sink had been installed in the aid station and privacy curtains in the massage room Amy had started performing Brazilian waxes, doing three the very first day. They were by appointment after the first day. Amy was staying busy now with the massages, waxes and trims.

Bob arrived and the six of us followed him up the stairs. I liked the lighting for the stairs, there was plenty of it. The public bathroom on the landing at the top stairs was larger than I had thought it would be and well lit.

The door into the offices was a heavy-duty metal door and had security glass with the wire in it. The door was card access. The office looked huge with no furniture. There was a row of post to help keep the wide ceiling spans from sagging. Those posts supported a steel beam that ran the entire length of the office. The steel beam was completely covered in red oak with a natural varnish. I loved it, it was beautiful. I wondered where he had found that high quality oak on the shore.

Centered under the beam waist high was a 3 foot wide counter almost 20 feet long that separated the office in half. File cabinets were to be under the counter. To the left of the entrance door was door to the private bathroom. It was over the lower landing of the steps. To the left in the corner was the first big office, it was larger than the other three. The access to the servers and phone communications room was through a door in that office for security reasons. The rest of the offices were to the right of the larger one.

The big flat screens that would display the entire data loop for the car rentals were sitting on the floor about where they were to be mounted high up on the wall. That whole wall was to be cubicles for employees. The openings to the cubicles were towards the long counter.

At the opposite end from the private offices was the big double doors that opened into the gym so a forklift could be used to put large office equipment up there without lugging it up the stairs. It had a double locking system to prevent accidental opening. To the right of the doors was a little kitchen nook. It had a small refrigerator, microwave, small double sink and counter. Jeanna's big dining room table that she did not want was already sitting near the long counter and entrance door to be used for meetings or eating. There was a large pull-down screen at the wall with one of those fancy ceiling mounted projectors pointed at it.

The floor was covered in a nice commercial carpet. I was impressed. Marcy had done a wonderful job again in getting the office laid out. Marcy had brought with her the office supply catalog that she had used as a guide for the cubicles. Bob measured them out and marked them on the print. Salisbury Office Supply had them in stock and was bringing them tomorrow, they were going to assemble them in place along with top quality office chairs.

Bob began going through his list. "The night crews are going to hang the flat screens, and use the forklift to set the big copier in and also all the horizontal file cabinets that went under the counter. They would also set the file cabinets for the private offices in place."

He had worked with the computer people today. "The servers were all in place and all the computer outlets had been checked and all were connected to the servers. The servers were on and running going through a burn-in and self checks. They were to be left on from now on. The battery backup was to be installed and certified tomorrow. The night crew was going to open the pallet of desktop computers and printers and put them on the counter. The computer people would hook them up tomorrow and test all of the equipment in place tomorrow afternoon after all the furniture was assembled including the phone system. Each of the offices had six electrical and computer outlets in the floor as well as around the wall so there would be no cords across the floor," he said.

And then Bob continued, "Verizon's fiber group was to be here tomorrow morning to connect the fiber optic cable up the to the distribution center and activate it. The cable was installed today using one of the spare conduits from the road. They were also going to activate the rest of the phone lines you had requested so they could be tested by the communications group while they are here,"