Chapter 62

Susan looked up and said, “Good morning, Mr. Parker.”

“Good morning, Susan. How are you doing today?”

“I’m doing well. And yourself?” she asked. She batted her eyelashes at him in a parody of flirting.

“I’ve had a wonderful morning,” Dan answered with a smile.

“Excellent,” Susan said.

Dan looked towards his office making sure that the door was open. He could hear the squeak from Terry rocking the chair back and forth. It sounded like she was rather nervous. Gesturing to his office, he asked, “So what is on the agenda for the rest of this morning?”

“Ah, let me check your calendar. It looks like a normal day. Let’s see. Yes, it’s a normal day at the office for you. There is one thing — Terry is in your office waiting anxiously to talk to you,” Susan answered with a grin.

Winking, Dan said, “I suppose that I should immediately make a pot of coffee so that she and I can meet. You can’t have a business meeting in the morning without a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Like a dutiful secretary should, I have already made a pot of coffee, Mr. Parker,” Susan answered barely able to keep from laughing. She could hear a low growl emerging from Dan’s office. It sounded like Terry was about to snap.

“Excellent. Did you use the fresh spring water?” Dan asked grinning broadly.

“Why of course I did, Mr. Parker,” Susan answered enjoying the game.

“Good. You can’t have a good cup of coffee without fresh spring water,” Dan said. Susan was hiding her face in her hands trying to keep it together. Dan wondered how long Terry would last before exploding.

From his office, Terry bellowed, “Dan! Get in here before I go crazy!”

Dan and Susan cracked up laughing. He said, “I have been summoned.”

“The coffee is in the carafe on the meeting table,” Susan said with a smile.

“Thanks,” Dan said before heading into his office.

Dan hadn’t taken two steps into the office when Terry said, “You have to hire at least two new people, maybe three. This is insane.”

“Good morning, Terry. How are you doing?” Dan asked ignoring her outburst.

“You left me running this place for three solid days. How do you think I’m doing?” Terry asked. She had tried calling him a dozen times and he had never answered his phone.

“You’ve been busy?” Dan asked.

“Look, you need to reorganize things here,” Terry said.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not growing until I can handle what we’ve already got,” Dan said walking over to the meeting table. He poured a cup of coffee and took it over to the chair in front of his desk.

“I get it,” Terry said. She wouldn’t have managed at all without the wonderful assistance of Susan. That woman was a miracle worker.

“Good. Let’s get to work,” Dan said sitting down in the chair.

“Where do you want to start?”

Dan said, “You mentioned hiring people. Let’s start there. What do we need done, that requires additional people? What skill sets should we look for in the people we are to hire? Where will we find them? How much will they cost us?”

Terry should have known exactly what questions Dan was going to ask. She hadn’t had time to prepare answers. She said, “I don’t know. I guess the biggest problem that we have, is that one of the pizzerias is under-performing. Someone needs to investigate what is going on there.”

“Okay,” Dan said trying not to influence her thinking.

“You should have someone tracking what is going on at the stores,” Terry said.

Over the past few days, she had spent hours talking to each individual manager about their sales and inventory. Although a lot of things were computerized, purchasing and delivery data had to be entered manually. They had not implemented a centralized distribution system so each store was ordering their supplies individually. When one of the managers failed to order sufficient quantities of something, they borrowed inventory from other stores. It was a mess trying to keep track of everything. Dealing with staffing questions, scheduling problems, and budget concerns required a human in the loop.

“That’s a good idea,” Dan said knowing that was one area where he was spending a lot of time. Even a fifteen minute phone call with each manager consumed three hours of the day when one was dealing with twelve stores. That was an entire morning. A problem at a store could end up eating the rest of the day.

“It should be someone familiar with the business. They would need to have been a manager at one of the pizzerias,” Terry answered thinking out loud. She leaned back in the chair and chewed on the end of her pen thinking it through. She came up with one solution and glanced down at her list of Dan Questions. She dismissed one idea and sought another.

Finally, she said, “What we need is a district manager that you can trust. How about you promote Kevin to that position?”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Dan said. It also coincided with what he had decided two weeks earlier. He leaned forward and said, “He’s starting this afternoon.”

“Isn’t that a little sudden?” Terry asked a little worried that Dan was moving too fast. She added, “I was just thinking out loud. I haven’t really had time to consider all of the repercussions.”

“No. I told him that he was getting promoted two weeks ago,” Dan said with a smile.

“Why did you put me through this?” Terry asked feeling sick to her stomach. She wanted to hit him.

“Right now, it’s Dan and his secretary, Susan, trying to oversee twelve pizzerias with plans to build more. Over the past six months I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Susan can’t take a day off. I can’t watch each store, deal with getting new stores built, and improve the overall profitability of the business all at the same time. I can’t keep up with it any more. It’s too much and I’ve known that for a long time,” Dan said.

He took a sip of his coffee. He said, “You have been focused on growing the business. I’m okay with that to a certain extent. That’s what I asked you to do. However, to continue forward from here, we’ve got to have a good foundation. When I was watching over three stores, it was okay. Right now, that foundation doesn’t exist. We’ve got to fix this mess or Parker’s Perfect Pizza won’t be in business much longer.

“You’ve never run one of the pizzerias. You couldn’t cook a pizza if your life depended upon it. You haven’t worked your way up through the ranks. Regardless, you know an awful lot about running a business. The feedback that I’ve gotten on you over the past three days has been overwhelmingly positive. I gave you a folder of checklists and you did the job despite the fact that I gave you no instructions. Susan has been watching everything you’ve done and she was impressed, but that wasn’t enough to decide that you could really handle the job.

“I needed to know that you would come to the same conclusions as I would have, when given the same set of facts. If you are going to be in charge of the operational aspects of this company I need to know that you’re going to be making good decisions. You just proved it. Promoting Kevin to District Manager was a good decision and it didn’t take you long to come up with it. You are my second solution to my problems.”

Stunned, Terry worked through what he had told her. After a second, she asked, “You’re going to put me in charge?”

“That’s right,” Dan said. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He said, “I know that you want to live in Atlanta with Tom and Amanda. I’m not going to stop you, but I am going to insist that you are here a week to ten days a month. You’ll be able to deal with a lot of things over the phone and internet, but a lot of things require face to face meetings. I wish you could stay in Atlanta all of the time, but I just don’t see how that can be. I’m sorry.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re putting me in charge?” Terry said still unable to believe what she had heard.

“Yes,” Dan answered enjoying the emotions washing across her face. He had a feeling that Tom was going to be sleeping alone, since Terry was going to be busy with Amanda that night. Power was such an amazing aphrodisiac.

“I can’t believe it,” she said shaking her head.

He leaned forward and said, “You are twenty-five years old and in charge of a restaurant chain with average sales of more than a quarter of a million dollars a month. In eighteen months, if the figures that you and Mr. Harrison have been pounding into me are correct, then we’ll have over half a million dollars a month in sales. I would say that for anyone your age that is a pretty good position to be in.”

“You’re right,” Terry said still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was going to be in charge.

Dan leaned forward and said, “I’m going to let you think about what needs to be done for the rest of the morning. Kevin will be in this afternoon, and you’ll need to get him up to speed on what his responsibilities will be.”

“Yes, Sir,” Terry said biting her lower lip. There were a number of checklists that pertained to the job that Kevin would be performing.

Dan took a sip of his now cold coffee. He grimaced and then said, “You might want to call Amanda and let her know.”

“Tom, too,” Terry said picking up the handset of the phone.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” Dan said thinking that it was interesting that she had immediately added Tom to the call list.

Dan stepped out of the office and said, “Susan. I’ll be leaving for the taxman in a few minutes. Could you get me the folder I prepared?”

She handed it to him and said, “Here it is. Your checklist is on top.”

“Excellent,” Dan said. He flipped open the folder and read the checklist while flipping through the documents. Satisfied that all was there, he put the folder in his briefcase. He said, “You know what to do.”

“Of course, Dan,” Susan said, “I’ve got the number for the temp agency right here. We’ll get someone in here today until we can find her a permanent secretary. I’ve already set up an appointment for her with the landlord.”

“Good,” Dan said. He pulled out a checklist from his pocket and checked off another item. Grabbing his briefcase, he said, “I’m going now.”

When Dan arrived home Tom was relaxing by the pool chatting with Sally. It was late and he was tired. Dan stepped out on the patio and said, “Tom! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Tom shrugged his shoulders and said, “Another summer spent making detergents smell better has come to an end. My internship is over. Amanda and I are leaving the day after tomorrow for Atlanta.”

“I’m sure that the world of odiferous detergents will miss you, but its loss is Atlanta’s gain,” Dan said with a smile.

Tom laughed and said, ““I’m sure that Atlanta is waiting with bated breath.”

“No doubt,” Dan said, “So where are Terry and Amanda?”

“I talked Amanda and Terry into having a date tonight. It will be a month before Terry makes it back to Atlanta, so I thought that she’d enjoy a night out with Amanda,” Tom said.

Dan nodded his head and said, “I’m sorry about stealing Terry away from you two like this. I told her that she only needed to be here part time.”

“Don’t worry about it. Terry is so excited about the opportunity you’ve given her, that she doesn’t care that she’s going to be gone a lot of the time. The fact is that Amanda and I are going to be very busy with graduate school,” Tom said.

Dan took a seat and asked, “Where is Terry going to be living while she’s here?”

“Amanda’s parents offered her a room,” Tom answered.

Dan’s ‘little speech’ to Amanda’s mother, had had very far reaching consequences in the Ludwig home. Amanda’s mother had cried for three days, and then begged Terry to forgive her. Ever since then she doted on Terry like a second daughter.

Tom added, “So did my parents. She’s going to alternate between the two places.”

“Ah, that’s nice,” Dan said.

Tom was silent for a few minutes and said, “I really want to thank you for all you’ve done for Terry. She’s a remarkable woman in a lot of ways, but she’d have never gotten the opportunities that you’ve given her without a lot of luck.”

“She’s earned it,” Dan said. In the few days since she had settled into her new job, Terry had been a dynamo. She’d rented more office space and gotten Kevin an office with it fully furnished. She had trained Kevin in his new job responsibilities. She had revised some of the procedures that Dan had been following by placing more of the burden on the managers. She had hired a temporary bookkeeper to take care of the simple accounting needs. Things were running a lot smoother.

“What kept you so late?” Tom asked.

“I had to renew my certification on lifesaving for CERT. I had missed too many training sessions and it had expired,” Dan said shrugging his shoulders. Ernie had been in the class with him. It was kind of strange seeing Ernie outside of work.

“It sounds like you were busy,” Tom said. He wondered how many other things Dan was trying to balance in his life.

Dan sat back in his chair and said, “Parker’s Perfect Pizza has been open for two and a half years. There are times when it feels like a hundred and times when it feels like the first day. Today it feels like I’ve been doing this for a hundred years.”

“You’re tired,” Tom said.

“Yes and no. I heard a rumor that one of my managers is selling drugs out of one of the stores. I’m meeting with the lawyer tomorrow to determine what we are allowed to do about that,” Dan said. He stared at the surface of the pool shaking his head wondering what he was supposed to do. He wasn’t going to fire the guy based on a rumor and he wasn’t going to let the pizzeria get closed down if the manager was breaking the law. There wasn’t a clear cut answer to some things.

Tom shook his head and said, “That sucks. Why would someone do that?”

“I don’t know. We fired a kid for stealing two days ago. He had a drug habit,” Dan answered. He frowned and said, “I’d send the cops in there just to check out the rumors, but I don’t want to destroy someone’s career because of a rumor. On the other hand, I don’t want my company to get a reputation as a haven for drug dealers. If the manager is selling drugs, we’re going to make a big deal out of it. I’m going to tell the world that we have a zero tolerance policy concerning that kind of behavior among our employees. If necessary, I’ll institute a policy of random drug tests.”

Tom said, “I guess we didn’t think about things like that when you started this.”

“That’s true. God, I sure was young and dumb back then,” Dan said shaking his head.