Chapter Nine
Learning To Fly
For my first few weeks, I stuck to my word and interviewed the entire twenty person staff that Chuck had assembled. Well, maybe pestered would be a better word. I started with the most experienced ladies and gents. That was basically everyone since most of them were hired when Woodland Enterprises formed a few years ago. As my dad had taught me, people’s favorite thing to talk about is themselves and what they do. I typically only had to ask a single question which would push a pebble that created an avalanche of information. I think I might have had one of North Carolina’s first cases of slight carpal tunnel syndrome from taking so many notes. Since I was hired to primarily assist Victoria, I spent the majority of my time with her learning about accounts payables and receivables, purchase orders, store stock, payroll processing etc. etc. While I paid attention and learned, it did bore me to tears. I think one of the only reasons I stayed awake was Victoria’s lust inducing perfume and tight fitting skirts and blouses.
This is a good place to pause to note a few points about Victoria. There is an obvious joke here about Victoria’s points but that’s too easy and I’m too much of a gentleman to go there. At first, on more than one occasion, I had to create some lame excuse for not standing up until Victoria had left the room. “Oh, I have a cramp in my leg.” That was kind of true but a little more north and to the middle. “I’ll just stay here and study these pay stubs a bit longer.” “I need to use your phone.” I don’t think she bought any of it. But her patience and sweet smile told me I wasn’t the first to have this reaction when in close proximity. Fortunately, on my second day, I was pulled aside by Diddy and given some potential life saving advice.
“Look, newbie. I tell all the horn dogs this. And that is all of us boys when it comes to Victoria Ashley, even the geeks in Research. You can look but don’t ever touch or offer to buy. First of all, despite what she looks like, she is old enough to be your mother. Second, her husband, Will, was a starting linebacker with the University of Alabama. He was well known for breaking tackling dummies in half. And that was on his calm days. He is currently our county sheriff. While he’s a great guy, he does have quite a jealous streak and could probably kill you with the hangnail on his left pinkie. We had one foolish wannabe stud that made an inappropriate suggestion to Victoria. Some say Chuck fired him on the spot and he immediately left town. Others say Victoria mentioned it to Will and what was left of the guy became part of the raw feed into reactor number six. Third, we all greatly respect and love Victoria. So anyone bothering her would have to answer to us if they survived Chuck and Will. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
The terror those images invoked actually helped me to look at Victoria as more of a person than a candidate for Playmate of the Year. After a few days, I realized she was at least as beautiful inside as out and I joined the rest of the crew in the deep end of the Victoria friend pool. I also quickly caught on to the fact that everyone referred to Charles as Chuck behind his back. I guess I wasn’t the only wannabe rebel around.
The one guy that I was having trouble nailing down was Earl Boase. I was told that Earl was only a couple of years older than me and had worked for Woodland from the beginning when he was about eighteen. I don’t want to say that he was avoiding me, but every time I scheduled some time to speak with him, he either wasn’t there or had to cancel. Most people I talked to asked me the same question, “Have you met with Earl yet?” And then they would either adopt a world class shit-eating grin or chuckle softly to themselves. I began to think that Earl might be the second coming of Rasputin
When I finally pinned him down, my impression did nothing to dissuade my vision of him as the Russian Antichrist. I stopped just outside the door to his office when I heard his voice booming on the telephone, “C’mon, Charles. I don’t have the time to teach some snot eared wet behind his ass whipper punk how to count the alphabet on his toes. I got real work to do. Besides, he’s gonna come in here, not listen to a thing I say, and then try to tell me how the cow eats the cribbage. I’m not having it. Oh c’mon. Yeah, I know, I know. Well crap on a turd. Alright then…”
So this snot eared whipper punk (?) bravely walked into his office just as the floor stopped reverberating from the phone being viciously slammed down.
“Sorry to disturb you Mr. Boase. Do you have a minute?”
Earl stood up from behind his desk. If they ever revived the old TV show Grizzly Adams, Earl was a lock for the lead. He was bigger and hairier than Dan Haggerty and actually looked meaner than his bear. His mono brow shaded his piercing black eyes that currently had steam coming out of them.
“Dump a load on that chair and tell me what you need. But I only just have a minute. Fifty-seven point three seconds to be exact.”
Fortunately, I didn’t take him literally on his “dump a load on that chair” comment or his exact timing. I lit up my thousand watt smile and fired off my cleverly worded opening question.
“Can you tell me what you do?”
After sighs, grumbles and groans, Earl launched into a few tidbits about his job as the Operations Analyst. I used all of my and Dad’s best time tested tricks to keep him talking (“Wow, that must be hard. How fascinating, tell me more? How do you get that all done in one day? How did you become such an expert?” and so on). It was the single most exhausting discussion I have ever had. But after a while, Earl loosened up and got rolling. Our fifty-seven point three seconds had stretched into an hour. I found out that Earl had a natural ability with numbers. He called himself an idiot slaveont which I didn’t quite understand at the time. He was supposed to apply his love of numbers to the plant operations (temperatures, feed quality, pressures, etc.) to optimize production (e.g. get the most and the best output for the least input and related cost). I learned several other things about Earl that day. While he loved numbers, he had no mechanical aptitude and really didn’t understand the piping, vessels and whatnots and how they connected or interacted. This was the stuff I loved. But I got the feeling he didn’t care too much about it. He also was the all time master of the malapropism. He loved to speak in clichés and analogies but severely bungled every one (e.g. “six of one, ten of the other”). If he was doing this intentionally, he should be performing at Stratford-Upon-Avon. It seemed to be a natural tic he had and it instantly made me like him.
I took a chance and asked him, “Earl, do you like to balance your checkbook?” OMG! He took off like a greyhound chasing a rabbit and gave me a rambling but entertaining discourse on entry level finance. This stretched us into hour number two and planted a seed in my fertile (some might say dung filled) mind.
Before I left, Earl asked me if I would have lunch with him the next day (“How about we bite a lunch tomorrow?”). This turned into lunch together almost every day and we became tight friends.
A day after my first conversation with Earl, I ran (literally) into Chuck in the hallway outside his office. I was hurrying for my training time with Victoria (the only time I really ever hurried at work) and he was walking while trying to put a lid on his coffee cup. After I apologized profusely and offered to pay for his dry cleaning bill (“On what we pay you? No fucking way.”), I screwed up my courage, swallowed my fear and choked out a suggestion.
“Sir, I mean Mr... I mean Charles…”
Chuck grinned and said, “Yeah, I used to be nervous in front of studly good looking VIPS too. Look, I crap one turd at a time like everyone else. Just talk to me like you would your dad.”
“Ok, Pop.” His grin vanished. I might have pushed a tad too far. “I mean, Charles. I talked to Earl at length yesterday. It got me to thinking.”
“We don’t pay you for that. But I’m glad you’re doing it.” The grin was back.
“Earl is excellent with numbers. But he doesn’t seem thrilled with real nuts and bolts. I was just thinking that maybe he would be better su
ited than me at assisting Victoria with the finance and procurement work.”
“And who would be our Operations Analyst?”
“Well, I think that is something maybe I could learn to do. I am a bit mechanically inclined, good with numbers and I love nuts and bolts.”
The grin exited stage left only to reappear after a few moments of thought.
“Let me get this straight. You’d give up training under Victoria to get closer to the real operation?”
“Gee, I guess I would.”
“Now that shows a real passion for your work. And I’m sure you’ve been warned about not showing any real passion toward Victoria. I’ve also noticed that Earl doesn’t really seem to have his heart in the operations thing. Ok, starting tomorrow, Earl will train you for the Operations Analyst role. After a few weeks, I’ll have him train with Victoria to relieve some of her duties. We’ll consider it an experiment and give it a few months to see how it works out. That was well played and showed some innovation and courage. I like it.”
“Thanks Mr…Charles.”
“Don’t mention it. And, Mick…”
“Yes, sir?”
“Just don’t fuck it up.”
Apparently I didn’t since I’m the Operations Manager today. I’m trussed up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey in aluminum foil on the floor of some yet to be defined location sweating my balls off, but I am the Operations Manager.