Monday did go smoothly with lots of odds and ends coming together. Patti did find 10 of the old manikins at the department store that had been closed for so many years. I sent the maintenance guys to pick them up.

The owner wanted cash so I took it out of my pocket. There was no way with the accounting system in place here to get cash. If he would give the maintenance guys a receipt I could add it to the expense account for this project.

The rest of the week and next week were going to be busy. Tomorrow we were going to redo the demo bus attack with the fire chiefs and the 911 people at the shooting range at noon. With Jason on the board of directors there he simply posted that part of the range would be closed from 11AM to 3 PM to the public.

On Wednesday night we were flying out to do the Thursday and Friday seminars to complete this college year. We were going to fly to Charlotte and check in on the site there and spend the night.

Thursday morning I was going to meet with Max Kelly and the Hendricks group to sign the contracts for 200 new cars that we were going to buy. Even with multiple different destination charges to get the new cars delivered at our sites they were the dealers with the best prices. The orders had already been placed and the cars rerouted. Max was supplying Fords, Toyota, Nissans, a few Kias, Ford trucks and vans. The Hendricks group was supplying Chevy and Chevy trucks and vans.

The contract signing was a technicality; electronic transfers had already locked things into place. Plus it would give Vicky and Ching Lee their first site inspection and they were going to do a lot more. Marcy had worked up a procedure that she wanted followed when we went to any site. It was so we could evaluate and rate each site by the same standards. This was going to be the test run.

These site evaluations were to be one more tool in her bag for promotions and demotions of our site people, and negotiating leverage with the site owners for improvements. We suspected that because of the previous owner’s problems a lot of routine improvements had been tactfully neglected. This was one more reason that site inspections were going to be pushed to the forefront and soon. Some of the comment cards we were getting back raised questions about maintenance of facilities and site lease renewals came almost every month. They were scattered throughout the year.

Marcy wanted leverage and a lot of it. There were times Marcy could squeeze nickels and dimes until they screamed to get what she thought was our full money’s worth, and she was good at it. At times I thought she was getting her jollies off while she was doing it.

I was just about done getting my calendar updated, linked to my smart phone and make it available to Patti when Mischief and Mayhem came in. I guess the mental nickname I had given them was going to stay with me.

I handed Roseanne a slip of paper with the company website and the order to get to the job postings page, “I can make no promises. I have no control over that part of the business for all kinds of reasons. If you see something that catches your eye fill it out and send it direct to Lorrie and Marcy. Check the postings every day; a lot of good things are happening over the next few weeks,” I said.

At noon I left for the shooting range to meet the 911 group and the rest of my party there. Jason, Jenny, Courtney, Ching Lee and Vicky dressed as school girls as a slight deviation from the original plan. Courtney and I had changed weapons in our shoulder holsters to a Glock that would only shoot blanks. I had everything ready to go when the group from C-town came through the gate.

Again I explained everything in detail not once but twice, then we pulled on our hoods and my group and I carried it out. The ingredients worked perfectly. As I bounced up from my roll to get away from the explosion and fire and Courtney and I were headed to the getaway truck, I thought the 911 staff were going to crap themselves they were so animated. We grabbed the fire extinguishers and watched as the flames died out from the lack of fuel. The bus we were going to use would still have the seats in plus the manikins so there would be additional fuel to keep the fire going if the fire department was not on the ball doing their thing. That was where they would get to show their stuff.

Another lengthy discussion and they signed off. Everything was ready for shock and awe, with some minor adjustments, a week from today.

At noon on Wednesday we were boarding the King Air to Charlotte. They were surprised to see us. Jack must have carried Rebecca to a high end clothing store to up date her business wardrobe. She was dressed professionally to the nines.

The counter was busy, the thirty extra cars Charlotte had received was keeping the place busy. Jack had said they could recover the lost 20% in rentals and get an additional 20% and Charlotte had surpassed it.

Marcy wanted us to get an honest opinion from Jack about the site evaluation form. What she really wanted was to get him to go with Vicky and Ching Lee to the sites where the bad comment cards were coming from, especially if those sites were coming up for lease renewal. There were twenty five of those in the next 3 months and they were long term leases of two to four years.

As soon as the rush from the noon cycle of landings settled out, Vicky Ching Lee and I took Rebecca to the back meeting table for a meeting and a little interview session.

“Rebecca, the very first thing I want to say is that I am very impressed with the professional appearance you present to the customer, the professional one on one connection that you made with each customer that I saw you wait on. You made each customer feel like they were someone special while you were handling their transaction. You are doing a great job representing the best of JBG to our customers,” I said.

“Jack took me shopping for new clothes the first night I was here. He said my school days were over, that I could wear those clothes on a date or the weekend but here I was an administrator, I was senior management level in the company.”

“He said it was part of my job to reflect that level of authority in front of a rental customer or in the office. People would be reporting to me and it was important that I represented that authority. He has been drilling that into me every hour all day long along with how to be customer friendly and yet still be the boss. I have learned more about business in the last two weeks than I did in the last year at college,” she said.

“You are going to get to stay a few days longer than planned. One of the planes returning from Florida will pick you up next Wednesday so you can be in be back in time for the graduation festivities. That had slipped in the planning,” I said. “I’m sure that your family that will come in for that. Then there is the problem of permanent housing for you and the other three. You will no longer have a dorm room for your things. You have to come up with a plan for that. You have to find an apartment or a house to rent.”

“I have been talking with Sandy, Mark and Randy about that. I think Sandy and I are going to look for a house to rent together and I think Randy and Mark are planning on the same thing,” Rebecca said.

She went back to waiting on the counter so we could meet with Jack and make our proposal to him.

I explained to Jack the site audit form and why we needed it as a corporate policy. I asked if there were anything else that needed to be added.

Jack replied, “No, it looks fine.”

It was then that I popped the question, “Jack, would you be willing to be part of the audit team as part of your other duties? It will include a pay raise of $5200 a year and an additional title. ‘Manager, Audit Team Supervisor & Trainer’ will be the title. It will involve some travel and spending a few nights away from home, some time in motel rooms. There may be times that it will be a week or more as we open new sites.”

“There will also be one more full time employee added here. We might even add the ‘Assistant Manager’ title to it. But this will still be your site as manager when you are not involved in other duties,” I said.

Jack accepted the job and would be at the main office on the Island in three weeks to begin the audits. We were going to rotate members on his team between Vicky, Ching Lee, Randy and Rebecca. I called Jason to have him post a help wanted add in the Charlotte area papers.

As soon as Jason’s HR group was complete with permanent staffing all hiring would begin there. That would reduce the workload on Marcy and the rest of the girls.

I called Brenda Woods to have her make another banner welcoming Jack as ‘Audit Team Supervisor’ as we were waiting to take off.

The seminars went off with out hitch, they were long but productive. We landed back on the Island at 9 PM Friday.

Edit by Alfmeister