Chapter 146

By the time I had finished checking in all the cars Marcy was nearly done with the interviews. There was just one person waiting to be interviewed. The VIN numbers and the tag numbers matched the manifest, but I also noticed that they needed gas. I noticed that there seemed to be a steady number of private jets landing and taking off.

Jenny had the site looking like a car rental site. The Chamber of Commerce had stopped by and left pamphlets to put in the literature rack. There were some magazines on the table that Jenny had bought at the news stand. I loaded the information on each car into the computer and assigned a corporate number to the auto. I scanned the factory build sheet into the file as an attachment along with a copy of the registration card. Each car came with 4 sets of keys. Two sets I hung in the site key cabinet, the other two sets were going back to Summers Road into the master key cabinet. It had been shipped from the old corporate headquarters and contained extra keys to every car MAAR owned.

I had just started looking at my e-mails when two men approached the counter where Jenny and I were sitting at the computers.

"The sign said you open in a couple of weeks but it looks like you are open now. Do you have any cars here to rent?" The man asked. "We need two of them for a couple of days."

I looked at Jenny and asked, "What would Marcy do?" of course I was chuckling as I logged into the site, then asked for their credit cards and drivers license. I rented two of the cars that we had shipped down from the college. I knew they were full of gas. Tomorrow morning I would mount the key return box by the back door for after hours drop-offs.

Jenny had finished her computer task and decided to go fill the new cars with gas, which was fine with me. I still had not finished my emails. It seemed every day it took longer to wade through them.

One was from Patti, with a copy of the request to hire more security people who were certified to carry a handgun, in order to expand my force for the college trips. It was several pages long; I signed it electronically. It would take months to go through the complicated process in order for them to be onboard in September.

Another was from Frost Borough Dean Skaggs. There was a 50 page attachment with it. The note on the header page said, "The board had approved your bid if you accept the few changes we have hand-written in. Rewrite the contract with those changes and we will meet to sign."

The first change I noticed as I went through the pages was in the length of the contract, we had asked for 5 years with a 2% increase at 2 years. He had written in 10 years with a 1% increase each year, a contract reevaluation at 5 years and a performance review each year.

The next change was the start date. The contract called for September 1 as the start date with East Coast security to begin installing the equipment on July 1. They wanted us to take over June 1 with at least 50% of the manpower on site and fully staffed on September 1. East Coast would still start installing the equipment on July 1. The June 1 date was just a little over 45 days away. A lot of things were going to have to get on the fast track and soon. All the other changes were minor. I printed out a copy.

I forwarded a copy to Marcy's secretary, Susie Q. Her correct name was Susan Quillen but everyone called her Susie Q. She had typed up the original document. I attached a note for her to make the changes and return it back ASAP, and to send a copy to Vicky and Ching Lee. I wanted to discuss both versions with them as soon as Marcy was finished.

As if that was not bad enough, the next email was from the HR contractor that MAAR used. It was notification that they were canceling our contract with them in 30 days. Their core client business had grown to the point it was using all their manpower. Because of the new Healthcare law they were not going to expand their workforce, but instead reduce the work load to limits they could handle. We were one of several companies being cut.

That HR contractor handled everything, including the health plan that they subcontracted, and the employee manual that was supposed to be nearly finished but had not even been started. They had also subcontracted the retirement plan as well, but at least that part was with a well known investment group. I felt pretty sure that could be continued. Along with everything else, the random drug testing and policy that we were required to do was handled by them. They had been used in the past to do pre-employment screening.

We had been planning to bring all that in-house when the contract came due in two years, that was suddenly now. I wondered how many more office people that were going to take? Then I wondered if Bob's Contracting had started on the big development yet?

My first thought about the HR problem was Jason. Jenny had said he wanted to retire at the end of his two year stint on the Governor's committee. That was in June and he had hinted that he wanted to help us more. He had been a cop, a lawyer and a politician before getting involved in the Governor's criminal task force. The first couple of months would be busy but then he could set his own schedule. He would need a secretary and an assistant.