Chapter 358

I spent the rest of the day in my office with Cindy and Mark. They had finalized the training schedule based on the information I gave them on Friday. I also asked them to be thinking about who would be next in line for an administrator’s position that they could work with and where we could place them in the office.

If Victor’s budget came to pass, it would mean more expansion in all directions. Oh well, more to ponder when my mind was no so occupied as it was right now.

Robert and Burt were sending twice daily updates on the groups. None of them were getting any better. It looked to me like they were brainstorming in the chat rooms they used or else trying to throw us off.

They had pulled that stunt in Chicago and gotten away with it. It was not going to work with me, plus their objectives were more direct and they had fewer options this time.

At 3:00 I went out to the meeting room table where the 10 ladies were finishing up the paperwork for today. The final piece for today was verifying they knew how to do their daily time sheets and send it to the time keeper who Marcy had temporarily appointed for them.

They were each given one of the older laptops. Robert and Burt had taught Brook how to scrub the hard drive and load the basic office and email programs that we used. There was a file with corporate forms, vacation, sick leave, time keeping things like that. They also got their ID card and a temporary corporate phone with a preloaded call list.

All 10 of them had flown into BWI yesterday and waited at the MAAR site until there were groups of four to make their way to the eastern shore. They were put up in the Holiday West last night; tonight they were split between the Horsey house and the Crash pad.

We had finally made a decision on the Crash pad to get better utilization out of it. Bob’s Construction was going to remodel it by increasing the length and adding a wing. When Bob was finished it would have 20 motel style rooms with twin beds and each with a shower/tub combo, microwave and refrigerator, little work desk and TV. The Horsey house was then going to get another wing added to it with the same setup, only a two story version with an elevator.

Between the two we would have accommodations for 80 people in-house. This was the trade-off to end the need to buy a motel to save money for Marcy. Repairs and remodeling on both were direct write-offs; that was all Marcy needed to hear from the tax man. Even with the corporate discount, renting 20 to 40 rooms a night, 6 days a week was counting up.

At 3:30 Tina Booth called up to tell us the bus was out front. All 16 of us were going to Lawman’s Supply; even Jenny was going. Mom and Mindy was going to watch Jacob and little Robert. Jenny had started pumping to get them used to a bottle; she would be going back to work before we knew it.

Lawman’s Supply normally closed at 4:30; tonight they were going to stay open so the 10 ladies could be outfitted. All of us were going because the girls wanted the combat pants like I had packed for Morocco. When I came back I noticed them looking them over before they went into the wash and talking about all the pockets to stash things.

When the ladies returned the applications we had asked for clothing sizes so we could preorder gear for them. Lawman’s made sure they had smaller and larger sizes. Women’s sizes were always screwy with vests and the like.