Taking Texas By Storm
by: E Walk
(© 2009 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 35

Warehouse Sale

I was looking at the papers that Tammy obviously put on my desk when there was as knock on the door.  I looked up and Jackie was standing there, “Mr. Waller, Mr. Taylor is here and would like to speak to you.”

“Jackie, show Mr. Taylor in.”

I went to greet Mr. Taylor, “Dwight, I hope you didn’t come to tell me that I’m costing the company too much.”

Dwight laughed, “The dynamo, Tom Bloom, has put together new report on how much money you and your staff have saved the company by your actions.  That man is efficient and has lots of initiative.  He works well with people in the other divisions and it’s amazing how well people accept his suggestions.”

I looked at the report and it was very comprehensive, “Dwight, have you shared this report with Mr. Odom?”

“No, sir.  Tom handed it to me as he was going to the Warehouse area this morning to help with the inventory.  I figured that since you were the president, you should be the first to see it.”

“Thank you, Dwight.  I’m glad to see that we won’t be going bankrupt in the next ten days.  Keep me informed.  My door is always open.”

I walked Dwight to the door, and saw Mrs. Lawrence talking to Tammy and Jackie, “Mrs. Lawrence, would you like to speak with me?

She grinned, “I figured I’d better come and check on you to make sure you are okay.  If you have a few minutes, I have something that I need to discuss with you before we take it before your staff.”

“Vivian, am I in trouble already?”

“Not hardly, President Waller.”

“Vivian, come into my lair.”

After we were seated, she started, “President  Waller, the divisions are asking when they can start hiring replacements for people who have resigned or quit.  The Technical Divisions have had extremely high rates of retirements and resignations since you arrived.  I’m guessing that the people decided that they were going to get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak, so they had better leave first.”

“Vivian, that’s an area where we haven’t had time to get involved, as of yet.  As far as authorizing new hires, I want you to work with my time study experts to determine the validity of each request.  Your foster son, Joe, Katie Kimball and you can authorize a new hire unless it’s a Department or Division Chief and then I would like to be involved.  I’ll explain what’s going to happen, at the staff meeting, in the morning.”

When I walked into the reception office with Vivian, there was an extremely stunning lady sitting there with a young boy and a young girl.  Tammy looked at me, “President Waller, Mr. and Ms Cleveland claim that you promised to take them to lunch.’’

I took a deep breath, “Mrs. Grimes, I thought I told you I had to take a nap instead of having lunch.  I’ll never make it through the day.”

I went to the young boy and put out my hand, “Hi, Mr. Cleveland, I’m Ed Waller.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.  But do you have a name that I can remember besides Mr. Cleveland, which is the name of my administrative assistant, and I get confused easily?”

The boy shook my hand, “My name is Jason and that’s my sister Janelle.  We’re twins and we’re five years old.”

“Jason, can’t your sister talk?”

Jason giggled, “She talks all the time, and I almost never get a chance to talk.”

I moved to the young girl and stuck out my hand, “Hi Janelle, is what Jason said true?”

“Nah, he’s jealous because I’m cuter than him.  He even talks when he’s sleeping.”

“Janelle, who’s that beautiful lady sitting beside you?”

Janelle looked, “Do you mean our Mother?”

I walked to Mrs. Cleveland, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jason and Janelle’s mother.  You must be a movie star.”

The lady laughed, “Mr. Waller, your full of hot air.  I’m a full time Mom.  The name is Brittany Cleveland.”

I turned back to Jason and Janelle, “I’m getting kind of hungry.  Why don’t we go get something to eat.  We’ll even treat your Daddy and Mother, as long as they don’t eat more than a dollar’s worth of food.”

As we were walking to the elevator, Jason and Janelle were holding my hands.  Jason complained, “Mr. Waller, it was scary, riding up in this box.  I felt like my tummy was going to come out of my mouth.”

After everyone was loaded, I had Janelle push the button for the first floor.  I tried to keep Jason and Janelle’s minds off the ride, “This is so much easier than walking down all those steps.  The last time I tried to do that, I had to stop and take a nap about half way down.”

When we arrived at the first floor, I asked, “Jason and Janelle, what kind of food would you like?”

Jason looked up at me, “Mr. Waller, at home we would probably have some soup and a sandwich.  Can we have something different?”

I had to stop and think, “Why don’t we have a taco and an Orange Julius to drink?”

I turned to Jackie and Brittany, “If you would like something different, please order it, and I’ll spring for it.”

Janelle looked at me, “Mr. Waller, does that mean you’re going to jump around for it.”

I laughed, “No, it means, I’ll pay for it.”

Jackie grinned, “We’ll have what you’re having.”

I went to the taco stand and looked at the menu board, “We have five people and we would like five ground beef tacos and two orders of nachos supreme.”

After I paid for the food, I turned to Janelle, “You make sure that your Daddy and Mother take the food to a table.  Jason and I’ll get our drinks.”

Lunch was entertaining.  Mrs. Cleveland was a very caring mother.  I finally had a chance to visit with Jackie and his wife, after the children went to watch the fish in the aquarium.  I commented, “You two must be very proud of Jason and Janelle.  They’re wonderful children.  I’m surprised that they aren‘t in school.”

Brittany answered, “They are in kindergarten, but I’m home schooling them.  The school in the area where we currently are living isn’t that great.  Hopefully, now that Jackie has a better paying job, we can move to an area that has a good school.  That way I could go back to teaching if I get bored.”

As we were talking, Carlos and Fredrico came up to the table, Fredrico put out his hand, “You must be the notorious Brittany.”

Brittany laughed,  “Yes, but who are you?”

Fredrico grinned, “The handle is Rico Paganini also known as Mafia Boy and this is my friend, Carlos Calderon known as The Spic.”

The two guys were surprised when Brittany stood and kissed them, “I understand that you are the two who were responsible for getting Jackie and Ms Del Rio the new jobs.”

Carlos chuckled, “I guess we’ll have to see about finding jobs for some more people if we’re going to be rewarded like that.”

Carlos turned to me, “President Waller, would you be available to meet with Mr. Sheraton, Mr. Bloom and us at one fifteen?  We’ve finished the inventory and Mr. Bloom and Mr. Sheraton have some ideas that they want to discuss with you.”

“Tell my administrative assistant to block the time and to make sure I’m awake.”

We walked Brittany, Jason and Janelle to the exit, I shook their hands, “It was a pleasure to meet all three of you.  I hope you’ll come for another visit, sometime.”

All three of them hugged Jackie and me.  As we were going to the office in the elevator, Jackie had tears in his eyes, “President Waller, thank you for giving me this chance to provide a decent life for my family.”

When we walked into the office, Tammy was loaded for bear, “It’s about time you two got back.  President Waller, Mr. Odom was looking for you and Greg Gump wants you to call him.

“Thanks, Mrs. Grimes.  Go to lunch, you’ll feel better after you eat.”

I went to see if Mr. Odom was in.  He was still at lunch so I informed Marlene that I would be in the office and to call me if he still wanted me to talk to him.  I had just gone back to my office when Tom Bloom, Rob Sheraton, Carlos and Fredrico arrived.  Carlos and Tom were carrying folders. 

“Welcome again, gentlemen.  Let’s go into the conference room where there is more space to spread out.”

After we were seated, I looked at the four gentlemen, “What is it that I can help you with?”

Carlos grinned, “We just came to report that the inventory of the items in the warehouse has been completed with the help of Contracting Department personnel, Joe and Grant.  Mr. Bloom has provided invaluable assistance.  I think you are going to be surprised at the value of the goods in the warehouse.  Here is the complete inventory of everything in the warehouse with the invoice prices the company paid.”

I quickly looked through the folder and the total value of the merchandise, “Good grief, this is staggering.”

Tom took a deep breath, “That figure would have been even larger if Gilbert and his gang hadn’t been taking things at least once a month for at least the last four years.  Here is a partial list of things that we could track that are missing.  I’ve already provided Todd with a copy of this list.”

Tom continued, “We’re going to meet with Joe and Katie in the morning, to write new procedures for ordering supplies.  Fredrico and Carlos say there are no written guidelines, that they know of, for receiving, distributing or storage of merchandise, so Katie and Joe are going to assist them with guidelines.”

I grinned at Rob, “Didn’t know you were going to have such a big job, did you Rob?”

“President Waller, I’m overwhelmed to say the least.  It’s a good thing I have people like Ms Patterson, Carlos and Rico to keep me out of trouble.”

Tom wasn’t finished, “I think that you’re going to see that there are things in the warehouse that will never be used.  Why there are five snow blowers, blows my mind.  I think you should authorize Rob, Carlos and Rico to make a list of items that will never be used and offer the items to employees at a reasonable price.  Anything that isn’t gotten rid of that way, could be sold at auction.  Why we have so many big screen televisions is questionable, too.  I shouldn’t think there would be a requirement for more than one or two at the very most, in the building.”

A voice spoke, “Mr. Bloom, I totally agree.  What are you going to do about it, President Waller.”

I started to laugh, “So, that’s what a C.E.O does, stands around and eavesdrops?  How long have you been standing there?”

“I arrived just as Mr. Calderon handed you the completed inventory.  Might I see the listing, especially the total value of the merchandise in the warehouse?”

He sat down, and I handed him the inventory and the copy of the report on value of the goods that the Gilbert organization had stolen.”

Mr. Odom skimmed the two reports and slammed the table with his fist, “In heavens name, what were the so called vice-presidents doing all this time.  Someone should have caught on to what was happening around here.”

“Do you young men have anything else to drive my blood pressure up.”

Tom smirked, “Not at the present moment, sir.  But I’m sure we can come up with something else, if we try.  President Waller, we have some things we need to take care of, unless you have something else you would like to discuss.”

“Tom, I would like for you to stay a minute.  Rob, what’s the latest news on Mikey?”

My wife called; they are at home and Mikey is practically bouncing off the wall because he can actually see what things look like.  I hope Mitchell isn’t driving Dieter bonkers.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Carlos and Rico, are there any new reports of progress being made in the taking it slow situation?

Both guys started to blush, but Rico responded, “President Waller, you’ll be the first to know of any major changes.  We need to get back to work.”

After Rob, Carlos and Rico had departed, I stood, “Mr. Odom, I have another report that you might like to see, as well.  “I’ll be right back.”

I handed the report of the personnel savings that Tom had prepared, and Dwight Taylor brought this report to me this morning.  “It seems that Mr. Bloom compiled a listing of the savings because of people being fired, retiring or resigning.”

“I also had a meeting with Vivian Lawrence and she sent up a red flag when he said that there had been a large number of resignations and retirements in the Technical Divisions.  She mentioned that it appeared to her as if they were leaving because they were afraid that they might get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.”

Mr. Odom read the report and simply said, “Job well done, Tom.  Ed, are you thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking.”

“Probably, sir.”

Tom looked confused, “Do you two always talk in circles?”

Mr. Odom laughed, “That’s what happens when you get to be president.

I decided to put an end to the charade, “Tom, I have a proposition for you to consider.  I would like to offer you the position as my executive vice-president.”

Tom slumped into his chair, “President Waller, did I hear you correctly?  You just offered me the position as your vice-president.”

“That’s correct.”

“President Waller, I’m flattered.  I would like to be able to discuss the offer with my wife, because it also will impact on her and the family.  I’ll let you know my decision no later than tomorrow morning.”

After Tom had departed, Mr. Odom nodded, “Ed, I think you made a wise choice.  I’m impressed with the fact that he wanted to consult his wife before answering.”

“Mr. Odom, Tammy mentioned that you wanted to talk to me.”

Mr. Odom shook his head, “That was a long time ago.  Oh yeah, Greg called and said we were scheduled to leave at one o’clock on Tuesday and we're booked to fly back so we arrive about six on Thursday night.”

I shook my head, “It seems like a waste of money to fly all that distance for a one day meeting.  It’s going to cause us to essentially be away from the headquarters for three days.”

“Don’t worry, Shell Headquarters won’t collapse while we’re gone.”

Our discussion was interrupted by Jackie, “Sirs, there’s a Mrs. Carr here to talk to President Waller.”

I stood, “Please show Mrs. Carr in.  She knows Mr. Odom better than she knows me.”

I greeted Mrs. Carr, “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Mrs. Carr?”

“We were in the area and I thought I’d check to see how Dieter was doing.”

“Mrs. Carr, he’s been busy babysitting and teaching his charge how to stop acting like a spoiled brat.” 

I told Mrs. Carr and Mr. Odom what happened after I arrived home last night and they both started to laugh.  As Mrs. Carr was leaving, she reminded me, “Have a great weekend with your parents.  Please bring Dieter with you when you come to work on Monday and we’ll pick him up here and go to the airport from here.”

Tammy came into the office, “Gentlemen, it’s time to go home.  President Waller, your to proceed to the side exit.”

Tammy rode down on the elevator with me, “Boss, you made a wise decision to have Jackie work with me as opposed to Deidre.  She and I are a lot alike.  Jackie is the nice guy so that makes me the witch.”

“Does Trig know?”

“No, and don’t you tell him.  He’ll find out soon enough.  See you tomorrow.” 

To be continued...

Editor's Notes: Ah, another simple and pleasant day in the lives of the employees of Shell Oil.  Ed and his crew are still working miracles. 

I am so glad that Dieter is feeling better about himself. He really needed to see that life does go on, and that his brother's death wasn't his fault. Allie is having a very positive effect on Dieter, and of course that isn't any sort of surprise.

We didn't even see Allie and Bra in this chapter. 

I am ready for the next chapter!

Darryl AKA The Radio Rancher

Posted: 07/16/10