Chapter Seven
I Want You to Want Me
I awoke to a crisp sunny mountain morning with no Northeast Ohio clouds obscuring the sun. I got Dreamboat started and pointed in the direction of Woodland Enterprises per the instructions Cindy’s dad provided. I had three short term goals in mind. Get the job. Find Cindy. Get my cassette player fixed. Not necessarily in that order.
I had actually attempted to research Woodland Enterprises prior to leaving Ohio. Unfortunately, the Fairview library specialized more in Sesame Street than Wall Street. Even a trip to the real library at the University of Akron yielded little more than bupkes. Mr. Copeland had given me some sketchy details about it being a new company specializing in polymer coatings or coating polymers or pollywog coats or something like that. My mind was more on his bull castration commentary, so I didn’t listen that closely. I anticipated a large glistening office building with lots of serious type grown-ups running around in white lab smocks. Maybe I could be the chief test tube washer.
My first clue that reality was going to bitterly conflict with my mental model occurred when I got to the turn off Highway 74A into the Woodland property. I flew right by it the first time. Actually, in Dreamboat, I more like rattled and wheezed by it. After going what I thought was about ten miles and two Country Louie and the Tweakers songs too far, I pulled over and re-read the directions. Doubling back, I spotted a small hand painted sign directing me towards “Wdlnd Ent.” It pointed up a barely discernible dirt road on the right. Say what? It looked more like a cow path than a road. I shrugged my shoulders, apologized to Dreamboat, cut the steering wheel and ventured forward. After severely rattling my molars and her struts, we finally arrived at the end of the road in a huge cloud of North Carolina particulates. When, as the saying goes, the dust settled, I saw a collection of four mobile homes connected by wood walkways with a huge Civil War vintage crumbling barn behind them. A sign on the first trailer said “Woodland Enterprise – No Solicitors.” Not a glistening glass or white smock in sight. I half expected to hear a few dueling banjos being plucked as I mounted the steps and headed toward the door beneath the sign. And you can bet I kept my head on a swivel for anyone that remotely resembled Ned Beatty!
I think I may have gotten minor whiplash from the double take I did once inside the door. My feet settled into thick plush carpeting as I gawked at the gleaming (but not glistening) mahogany furniture in front of me. I had limited experience with mobile homes, but this was nicer than most any home of any type I had ever been in.
“Don’t worry, Sugar. It shocks most folks the first time they walk in. My name’s Victoria and I am the receptionist, office administrator, accountant, purchasing rep and head cheerleader around here. As soon as you pick your jaw up off the floor, why don’t you tell me how we can help you out?”
Her voice flowed like smooth mountain honey. Long curly blond hair, deep green eyes, perfect makeup all lit up by a glistening white smile. I finally found my glistening! However, I estimated she was at least fifteen years my senior. I said a quick brief prayer that her last name was Robinson.
“Cat got your tongue? Let me guess. You must be Mick. I was told you’d probably be here this morning. But they didn’t say what a handsome young man you are. Can I get you a cool drink?”
I think my response was something like, “Uh bluh bluh bluh, Coke bluh bluh bluh…”
“You are soooo cute. Just get yourself on down the hall to the second door on the right. Mr. Giardino is ready to chat with you. I’ll bring you both a nice soda water.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Robin…I mean Victoria.”
“No problem, Sugar. Now you just go on in and don’t be nervous. Mr. G. may nibble on you a bit, but he doesn’t usually bite very hard.”
I think I was sixteen shades of red when I entered Mr. G’s office. The décor definitely deteriorated once I left the hallway. Mr. Giardino was talking on what looked like Alexander Graham Bell’s original phone sitting behind an Army surplus desk that may not have survived World War Two. A battered file cabinet that looked like it came from the same foxhole as the desk stood against the far wall. I would have taken fifty/fifty odds on whether the chair in front of his desk would support my weight. No mile high carpet underfoot here. The linoleum seemed to crack like Lake Erie ice on a warm March day.
Mr. G. waved me into the chair with his free hand and mouthed, “I’ll be with you in a minute.” The chair protested, but held.
True to his word, in about sixty seconds he hung up. That had given me enough time to glance at the pictures on his wall and take some measure of the man. He looked about thirty-five, in good shape with combed back hair that was jet black and a face that strongly indicated intelligence and humor but also an undercurrent that said “tread with caution.” That was exactly what I planned to do. Was I nervous? You would think I would be with my entire future on the line. And I was. Blow this interview and it was, “Hello Burger Barn.”
“Welcome. We don’t have a whole lot of folks dropping in here, so you must be Mick.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m impressed that you actually found us without having to call ten to twelve times. My name is Charles Giardino. You just got in last night, I bet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir. My name is Charles. That’s what you call me. I know you might be thinking Chuck in your head. But I loathe that name. Don’t EVER even think of calling me that.”
“Yes, si… I mean Chuc… I mean Charles.”
“Almost messed it up right there, Mick. Tell someone that’s kind of nervous not to do something and that’s usually the first thing they’ll do. But you caught yourself just in time. You have fast reactions and you are a fast learner. That’s about a half point in your favor. Mick, what brings you to Asheville, North Carolina?”
“The shorter answer is that I followed my girlfriend.”
“Ok, Mick, I knew that. So, I’ll give you another half point for honesty. I hate when you newbies try to blow smoke up my whatsit. And, by the way, I am keeping track of the points. I would take half a point away for that being a pretty lame reason for relocation, but my wife would be upset with me for not recognizing your noble romanticism, or some such nonsense. You are up to a whopping one point so far. Hit ten points at anytime during this interview, and the job is yours. Go negative, and you are out of here faster than a bear claw at a Weight Watcher’s convention.”
“Thanks, Charles.”
“Being polite and succinct just earned you another half point. It gets harder from here. What do you know about Woodland Enterprises so far?”
Ok. I’d been handed the ball and needed to charge ahead at full speed. “Well, you are a new company doing research into some kind of (run for daylight) polymer coatings.”
No lump in the gravy look, so I must have got that right. It was time to accelerate my BS through the hole in the line. “Damn the torpedoes,” as Pop would say.
“You are keeping a low profile. From the few public records I could find, I deduced that Woodland is a sole proprietorship. Also, your location says you are not seeking much attention. You are not about white smocks and glistening glass. However, given the décor in your lobby, I’d say you want to impress those that you invite here, except for young interviewees like me. We get brought to this office. You probably have a world class conference room where you deposit the high priced prospective talent, budding customers, or potential investor types.”
That earned me a slightly wry Chuck smile. I might not call him that out loud, but I was sure I would in my head. I’m such a rebel. While I felt I had knocked over a few blockers and was running for a first down, the little voice in the back of my cranium kept telling me to not push it too far.
“If this is your only location, I would venture to guess that the inside of that old barn out back looks nothing like the outside. I imagine t
hat it is full of pipes and vessels and all sorts of polymer research whatnots. You’re a rather small operation given the cluster of four trailers and the multi-tasking Victoria upfront. ”
I stopped talking so I could retain my succinctness half point. Chuck stared at me for what might have been the longest minute of my life.
“Sherlock Freaking Holmes. Wow. That’s impressive. You got most of that right. Two points! But I’m going to deduct one for mentioning Victoria’s up-fronts.”
“But I… uh…”
“That’s a joke, Mick. Not only am I not going to deduct, I’m going to add another point for you turning bright red. A lot of kids your age would shoot back with some smart aleck answer to that. Let me enlighten you about a few things. We do operate independently, for the most part. However, and this is a big however, we have a major investor that owns fifty-one percent of the enterprise. He prefers, scratch that, demands to remain unknown. So we simply call him The Shareholder. I more or less report to him. I am the only one here that communicates with him. The quickest way to get terminated is doing any kind of research to try to find out who he is. Got that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Right answer. Another point.”
“So why are you called Woodland Enterprises? Who is Mr. Woodland?”
“Beats the heck out of me. I wanted to call us ‘Let’s Hope We Don’t Blow This Dang Place to Kingdom Come Enterprises’ but that was too long to fit on the sign. The Shareholder suggested Woodland and it stuck. I think he thought a name like that might score us points with the crazy environmentalists. That was a good question and it’s worth another half point.”
I was struggling a bit with the scorekeeping but I knew I was definitely in the game. It was time to go for the end zone.
“Ch.. Charles, could you describe what the job would be?”
“Again, nice play, kid. Another point. You’d be shocked at how many people fail to ask that very important question. We’re looking for someone that can take some of the office burden off of Victoria and can also be available to learn the operations process. It will require long hours and the ability to learn quickly. It won’t pay much to start. But, if you wanted to, we could let you live onsite. And, if you really prove yourself, there is high potential here for upward growth. So, Mick, if I hired you, what would you do your first couple of weeks here?”
“Charles, I see by the autographed pictures of Nicklaus and Trevino on your walls that you like golf.”
“Bet your bottom dollar I do.”
“Well, my dad taught me to seek out the old guys at the course. Look for the guys that have been playing forever and pick their brains. They not only know what to do, they know what not to do. They know when to go for it and when to lay up. They know how to avoid getting into the tall rough and how to get out of it if they screw up. They know how to play the odds. While it may be a cliché, there is no teacher like experience. And if you talk to someone about what they love, they are more than happy to share. So I would spend my first weeks here interviewing the longest term employees about what they know and what they do. I would try to soak up everything like a sponge starting out dry with no preconceived notions.”
“Mick, have you been keeping track of the points so far? Never mind, me neither. But I think you’ve scored enough.” Chuck picked up the phone and said, “Victoria, bring me the hiring package. And clean out the box for him to live in. I think we just found our newest employee.”