Money and Things
Lenny was rather frazzled when he finally got back to the office. He knew the sun was up, but the sun had been up for well over 14 hours and it was still morning. He didn't quite know which morning, but it was morning here in the U.S. The receptionist brought him in a fax as he sat at his desk. She closed the door to Lenny's office on the way in. Oh my, thought Lenny This can't be good.
“Lenny, I don't ask much about what is going on here, and I don't want to know any details. All I want to know is if I should start bringing my passport into work with me along with enough cash for a plane ticket out of the country. I know we do some shady things and I'm starting to feel like it might be getting too big.”
Lenny had to laugh. “Jennifer,” he chuckled, “We are opening a branch in Kyyiv specifically so it doesn't get too big here. I'm trying to talk Jeremy into running it for a few years. That fax should have all of the information about the office location, company name, and places we will have bank accounts. Would you like to fly over with Jeremy to help set it up? We could muddle through for a couple of weeks with you over there helping get the place organized.”
“That's a dangerous offer,” responded Jennifer.
“How so?”
“If they do come after us some day, I will appear as something more than a secretary.”
“We could change your title to Office Manager if that is what this is about,” grinned Lenny.
“More words and the same money isn't what I came in to talk with you about, I'm being serious here.”
“So am I. You deserve a bump in your income given all you do for us and a company paid trip might help you relax.”
“Might cost me my marriage. He's good looking and they like to drink a lot in Russia.”
Now they both laughed. “What you two do on your own time is your own business. Don't ask, don't tell is my policy there,” chuckled Lenny.
“That hasn't worked so good for the military,” quipped back Jennifer.
“Well,” responded Lenny, “When Jeremy gets in later today I will be hitting him up to do it. Since you will be the one calling our travel agent, simply let me know if you booked two flights or three?”
“Three?”
“I will have to send one of the IT guys along to get a network link up with our data centers. Will also need them to decide if we should give up our second site here and simply have it over there. I hadn't thought about that last part until just now. It would make sense to do that if the office has sufficient power and space. Might even cover the cost of the office space. Schedule a meeting with myself and the IT guys to discuss it.”
“You want the IT women there, too?” chided Jennifer.
“It was a generic guy,” responded Lenny.
“That's fine, we'll keep it between us girls,” Jennifer quipped as she walked out of Lenny's office.
Lenny liked her. She had the right attitude to work in a place like this. The only time she ever questioned things was when there was something to worry about. Indeed, there was something to worry about here, but Lenny couldn't bring himself to tell her. He did pick up the phone and call the service firm handling their payroll to change Jennifer's title to Office Manager and give her a $10K annual raise. Wait until she gets her next direct deposit stub, thought Lenny.
Just as Lenny finished, Jeremy walked in. The boy looked worn out. “Glad you came in Jeremy, it looks like you could use the rest,” joked Lenny.
“I take it from your good mood you are still sleep deprived from your flight back,” responded Jeremy in kind.
“I will never understand why airlines let people with small children on board,” said Lenny. “I swear that brat cried all the way here.”
Jeremy laughed and said, “We should gather the others.”
“Get them. I will be in the conference room shortly.”
A few minutes later they were all seated in the conference room. Jeremy began his verbal report. “First Global has completed migrating all of the French banking operations to the new software from Pytho Corporation. We should be hearing an announcement about the product soon. I don't know how much longer it will take for First Global to come out with their announcement about being the first customer.”
Just then, Jeremy's cell phone rang. He looked at the number and saw it was Stacie. “Hello, I'm in a meeting, can I call you back?”
“No. I just stepped out to call you. The last data center migration that was supposed to happen this weekend was a disaster. Kathryn is over there now with a few others. Sounds like they are looking for asses to bounce out the door. I don't have anymore and probably won't until tonight or tomorrow. I knew you would want to know. Bye.”
Jeremy hung up then looked around the room. “Well, I was going to tell you that First Global was migrating the last data center this weekend. That phone call just informed me the migration was a disaster and they are looking for people to fire over it. I thought we were set for the shred to start any time we wanted, but it looks like it may have to wait.”
Lenny thought for a moment and said, “It may happen before we can get involved. There is an outage time limit restriction for insurance purposes. If they don't get things running in time, federal investigators will be paying them a visit.”
“I assume they had a fall back plan for this migration as they had with the others,” said Jeremy. “But just to be sure ...” he picked up the conference room phone and called Jennifer.
“Yes.”
“Your bank is First Global or a division of it isn't it?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“We were wondering if we could get you to drive over there and try to cash a check. We hear they might be having some systems problems and would like some firsthand information. Just put the phones on overhead ring.”
“Sure. Anything else while I'm out?”
“Oh, don't tempt me to ask for bagels,” replied Jeremy.
“Funny. Is Lenny there?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him the IT meeting is at 2 PM.”
“OK, thanks.”
“Lenny, the IT meeting is at 2 PM.”
“Good. We might as well jump into the next topic then. Gentleman we have just begun the process of opening a branch in Kyyiv.”
The other two analysts looked stunned. They knew Lenny was out for a few days on short notice, but had no idea he was somewhere in Russia opening a new branch.
“I just received the bulk of the information on the new office and company name this morning. I'm trying to guilt Jeremy into running it for a while, so you need to help me on that or I will have to guilt one of you.”
“Don't look at me,” said one of the analysts, “I've got a family.”
The second analyst looked at Jeremy and said, “Congratulations Jeremy! You really deserve the promotion! It's a great career move!”
Lenny roared as Jeremy hung his head. He had hoped to talk with Lenny about this before he turned a full-court press on him. “The company will have to set me up with a furnished two-bedroom apartment and I will need to fly back here to close on the sale of my townhome. I also will have to have time to get my stuff into storage and other stuff packed for shipping,” Jeremy said in an almost defeated tone.
Both analysts said in unison, “If Lenny gives us some time off work we can help you pack.” At this moment neither of them envied Jeremy's cozy relationship with Lenny. The price tag had just been revealed and it was too steep for either of them to pay.
Jeremy had thought about it last night when he got back. He had even sent an email to the Realtor who had helped him find this place and asked her to call him some time today. The housing market had been going up steadily since he bought that townhome so he stood to net a tidy profit on it. Possibly enough to more than cover two years of storage on his stuff.
“I have no idea how you go about getting a two-year work visa in Russia when you are a U.S. citizen. That is completely up to you Lenny.”
Lenny n
odded. He would fax Vladimir and ask him if it should be handled from his end or if the law firm Lenny kept on retainer should deal with it here. Lenny fumbled through the fax and said, “We will have to get some new business cards printed up for you with the new branch name. One side in English and the other side in Russian. Your new title will be Branch Manager.”
“My meeting later today with the IT staff is to get one of them to go over there for a few weeks with you and survey the office we have acquired. They will need to set up network communications between here and there at a minimum. I'm also going to run the possibility of moving our second data center there. We at least need to look into the option. I may or may not have to offer some people from the second data center jobs over there if they will go.”
Jeremy sat there looking rather shell shocked, then finally muttered, “I can't believe I just agreed to do this.”
“We heard you!” said the other two analysts.
Lenny laughed again. He wasn't even going to ask about the second bedroom. He would simply include the requirements in his next fax to Vladimir.
“Don't worry Jeremy, it will only be temporary. My cousin has expressed some interest in running the place when he gets out of his current occupation. Even if he doesn't you should have found and trained someone inside of two years. You could probably hang onto the townhome so you had some place to come back to.”
“No. If I'm going to do this I want to sell the townhome while the market is still going up. We both know the housing bubble is going to burst at some point. By the time I get back it should have happened. I will be able to get a nicer place for less money.”
“Keep finding plays like this Jeremy, and money won't be one of your concerns,” said Lenny.
Money wasn't a major concern of Jeremy's as it was. He was young, single, and didn't party a lot. While he had started here at a measly $40K per year and only climbed to $50K recently, he had been putting as much as he could in his personal trading account. Every good play Lenny let him know about he had also played in his own personal account. What started out as a pathetic $3K had bought him his townhome, his current car, and there was still over $100K in that account. Jeremy had already bought a big position in First Global Bank anticipating a bump from the software announcement. After the news he had just received though, he was hoping they could get their next quarterlies out before there was some form of public investigation. That would give the stock a little to medium bump on its own. Jeremy might have to make the safe play and get out then. Making $8 per share on 3,200 shares in just a couple of months was still an incredible rate of return for the average Joe.
Jeremy had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't realized the others had left the conference room. He got up and went back to his desk trying to get focused on work again. Looking through his email he saw a note from Lenny.
Jeremy,
I don't know if you heard me, but Jennifer might come with you for the first two weeks to help set the place up.
The other two have identified Granite National Bank as a potential market for Pytho software. They have several locations and seem to be in a bit of a bind with the FDIC.
Lenny
This is getting to be quite a little menagerie, thought Jeremy. Me, Jennifer, someone from IT. Who knows who else Lenny will think to send with me.
***
Nikolaus greeted Abel with a firm handshake when he came to Nikolaus's office. Abel had been a loyal party member willing to do whatever was asked of him. He currently was a senior VP at this corporation's little-talked-about generic drug division.
“It is good to see you again Abel.”
“And you. It has been quite some time since you called me into service.”
“Well, I shall be calling you into service today,” said Nikolaus as he closed his office door. Both men sat down and Nikolaus handed Abel some papers.
“I need this company set up as a distributor in Russia. Here is their contact information, letters of credit, etc. They need access to the on-line inventory and ordering system for all of the items we sell to anybody and a list of items we will be shipping to just them.”
“Will my company be making these products, stocking them, or shipping them?”
“No. These products will come out of the secured location. I have the list of them here with their costs and the only description that will be available. They are the only ones to see these items.”
“No problem with that. I will have to coordinate with some people here at the main headquarters to get them access to the inventory system. I will assign one of my staff to set them up. How big of a territory do they get?”
“Doesn't matter. Simply ensure that all three of their distribution locations are in the system for shipping.”
“This is some rather low pricing for specialty stuff. Am I going to have to explain it to anyone?”
“No. Send them to me if they ask.”
“Should I flag them for no marketing contact?”
“I didn't know we had such a capability.”
“We do now that you have the secured location and the kind of customers who go along with it.”
“Can we flag them for marketing contact from your division only?”
“I believe that is an option. Are they actually going to buy our products?”
“They expressed a strong desire to have access to everything you make. Here is the contact information for an individual they can chat with. He is also expecting product catalogs, marketing literature, etc. They haven't expressed an interest in the primary products of the corporation, but you should have your people contact him and verify that before flagging them.”
“Will do. I can set them up with half a million in credit without having to do the letter of credit checking. Once that goes through they may get a higher limit. I assume you need this done yesterday?”
“Within the next two days, yes. The specialty products are almost ready for shipment from the secured location warehouse. They want the products shipped on the same truck as their other products though. You will have to handle how to coordinate that.”
“Normally, that doesn't happen, with items from there. I will have to see if that warehouse allows for it. We have what is called a 'transfer ship' capability. We will pick and pack an order leaving it waiting on the dock for an arrival from another warehouse before sending the truck out. I assume you want this stuff loaded in the front for when it crosses the border?”
“You would assume correct.”
“If you talk to them again, tell them to flag their orders as 'ship complete' when they place them. I will tell my people to do the same. It is the only way the 'transfer ship' process will kick in. By default we do a split shipment, but that is probably more than you care to know about our logistics system.”
“It is enough for me to know that you know,” grinned Nikolaus.
“I will get on this now and let you know when they have been setup,” Abel said, getting up.
“I'm surprised you didn't ask what this was all about.”
“I don't care. Right now my only concern is which distributor we are going to honk off by giving up some of their territory to this distributor. One of their locations is in the middle of a territory held by one of our bigger distributors. I have to get legal involved to see if we have any wiggle room in the contract.”
“We give exclusive territories for generics?”
“Generally no, but when you handle the primary product line and have an exclusive territory it is generally written into the contract you get the same territory for the generics. When it comes time to make a case, I'm going to have to point them at you.”
“Understood. I will simply tell legal that this distributor is participating in one of our black ops projects and they asked to get access to the generics in order to fill out the truck with some business that customs wouldn't question.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Abel.
“It had better be good because it is the
truth,” responded Nikolaus.
***
Kathryn and Marget were in the conference room till almost noon on the Monday morning after the disastrous data center migration attempt. Finally, once all of the startup files had been verified and the new security file installed, the second Indian data center came on-line running the application. The machine load balancing operation began and the intra-day audit job was scheduled for about 1 PM. The communications load balancer recognized it, had another machine to route requests to, and started splitting them off. The machine in India, which had been shouldering the entire load, had its utilization drop below 90% and response times began to improve.
Margret told Pete to power things down in the data center and come back after the girls took him out for a sit-down lunch. She told him to be sure and pick a nice place as Big Four Consulting was buying.
The legal team from Big Four had arrived about an hour ago and been holed up in Carol's cubical. The one brief comment Margret heard from Carol was that these were contract lawyers and not skilled in giving depositions, they may have been deposed a few times themselves, but they had never conducted a deposition.
At any rate it was in the lawyer's hands now. The skirt who had been helping was told she could go back to her desk. Margret called Carol from the conference room to say it was all hers now. Kathryn told the other two to wait here and answer some questions. If they had half a brain she expected them to try and pin everything on the one who called in sick this morning. That wouldn't change anything. All three of them were supposed to be there on Saturday morning and contact Kathryn if there were any problems.
Once they were out of the conference room Kathryn asked Margret, “Can I use the phone in your office with the door closed? I need to speak with someone in HR about the process and to let them know the lawyers will be in with them shortly.”
“Certainly,” replied Margret. “I don't know if the two of them will be enough though. It depends on what Carol comes up with for our FDIC notification letter. They may wish to come here and have a chat with us. I don't know how she is going to gloss over the fact our entire data center staff quit in protest.”
Infinite Exposure Page 28