After breakfast, we gathered up our dirty dishes and left them in the sink for later. A check on the time revealed that we were not running behind, but there still wasn’t enough time just right then to rinse off the dishes and put them into the dishwasher. It would have to wait until later in the day. We collected up everything that we would need for the day and headed out to my truck. As I drove Hannah to her school, I suddenly realized that the two of us could meet for lunch later today. But when I broached the subject with her, I got shot down.
“Mom & Dad called me yesterday and they wanted to sit down to lunch with me and Haley today. They’re following Haley back in their car and we’re all getting together then. But please don’t be upset, okay? The good news is that Haley and I are both coming over to your place tonight for Pork Chops! Starting tonight, we’re going to try and resume what we had a couple of weeks ago. I am certain that it is all going to work out just fine. You’ll see.”
A very large number of students were milling around in front of the school when I parked to let Hannah out. She reached up and put her arms around my neck, then she pulled me down for a passionate tongue-tangling kiss. Several onlookers whistled, jeered, and cat-called at us, but we just ignored them and did not break our lip lock until we had both decided that we were ready to do so.
“Geezus,” I whispered into Hannah’s ear. “Today is going to crawl by so slowly that I’ll be tearing my hair out long before 5 o’clock gets here.”
“I know how you feel, babe. The past two weeks have been absolute torture. But spending the night in your arms last night almost made up for it. My plan is for Haley and me to spend the entire weekend with you and go home Sunday night. But I may not be strong enough to pull it off and leave you come Sunday. You just might end up dropping me off just like this come Monday morning. But we will play it by ear and see.”
“I’m good either way. So don’t sweat it, babe. I love you!”
“I really, really love you too, Skip.”
We finally said our goodbyes just as the school’s PA toned out for the start of the day and all of the other students began filing inside of the building. Hannah joined the throng of the masses and was soon out of my sight. I still had some time to kill before I was due at my job, so I drove slowly through town taking in the scenery. I stopped at the local Southern Maid Donuts on West Gentry Parkway and bought two dozen glazed and two dozen holes for the other employees at my job. Even so, I was a good thirty minutes early for work when I pulled into my parking place.
The owner spotted me almost immediately when I walked inside of the main office. As I looked in his direction, he motioned for me to come over to his office. So I quickly made my way over to the break room and dropped off the treats that I had brought with me then headed upstairs into his domain. Once inside, I was instructed to take a seat. He took a seat on the front corner of his desk before speaking with me.
“Skip, you have been a very valuable asset to this company ever since you arrived here. I haven’t been spying on you, but I haven’t missed some of the comments that your supervisors have made about your work. Whenever I bid on a project, I always include a 20% margin above the profit and expense numbers to cover, uh…well let’s be diplomatic and just call them mistakes. It isn’t unusual for a guy or gal to dial in the CNC machine to the wrong specs and fuck up the first piece that they run through the mill.
“And then there’s you. I did spy on you from a distance once or twice after I heard the gossip because I had to see it for myself. You’re just like the carpenter who measures twice so that he only has to cut once. Over the past year, you had only one fucked-up piece come out of your mill. The funny thing is that it wasn’t your fault anyway. The blank that you put into the machine had a stress fracture in it that nobody caught until your finished piece was hit with the ultrasound by our Q.C. guy.
“Over the past year, I have started to give rebates to our best customers instead of pocketing that extra margin as profit. That has given our street-cred a huge boost and orders are soaring because of the free word-of-mouth advertising we are getting. I have to tell you that you did play a part in making that happen and it wasn’t a small one. When Alejandro retired three months ago, I figured that I would eventually replace him with a new salesman. But sales are up so we are doing great with the three remaining personnel that we currently have.
“So that brings me back to you. Alejandro’s office is still vacant, so we’re are going to move you into it. I am creating a new position just for you. Starting today, you’re going to have the same authority equivalent to the shop foreman. Your official title will be Machine Training Leader. Some of the guys that have been with us from before you started were embarrassed at how good your performance was and they upped their game all on their own. But I want to go a step further than that.
“I want you to partner with the old heads and teach them what you know and how you did it. They already admire you and I know that they will listen to you. Trust me. You’re also going to be one of the steps that the job candidates have to go through in order to get hired, so you can pass or fail someone before we even offer them a position. I have already told Ginger to meet with you sometime today so she can bring you up to speed on the H.R. stuff that you will need to learn.
“I know that you have been getting a healthy amount of overtime recently, so with this new position you might end up making slightly less than you grossed last year. But I am switching you over from hourly to salary starting at 12:01 am this coming Sunday morning when our next pay period begins. I’m going to give you the same amount that a regular 40 hour week would normally pay you plus an additional $500.00 a month raise. Your anniversary date is still more than six months away, but I am also going to go ahead and increase your vacation time by an additional week. So I have to ask, are you interested? Or do you want to stay right where you are instead?”
“I’ll take it!” I exclaimed as I rushed over to shake his hand. He patted me on the back and together we walked across the catwalk above the reception area to check out my new office.
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The morning was pretty much wide open for me because Ginger O’Halloran had me set for a 2:00 o’clock appointment that afternoon. We would spend three hours signing paperwork for my new position as well as getting a lesson on Human resources do’s and don’ts. Our computer tech had already wiped the hard-drive and memory on Alejandro’s company PC that sat on my desk, so I had a clean slate to start from there. I took an hour to go down to the floor of the shop and speak to the guys that I had been friends with since I had started working here. Everyone congratulated me on my promotion.
Lunch was still a little more than an hour off in the future when Chelsea Dickinson knocked on the door frame to my office. She is a descendant of John Dickinson who received a land grant on the mainland north of Galveston Island in 1824. Many people often confuse her heritage with the more famous Almaron Dickinson who was a defender at The Alamo and one of the last Texians to die in that 1836 battle. His wife Susanna and infant daughter Angelina (sometimes known by her middle name Elizabeth) were nearby in the chapel at the time of his death. The wife and daughter are famous for being some of the very few Anglo Survivors of the battle. Since Almaron had no male descendants, Chelsea could NOT have the same last name and be his heir.
But I digress. Chelsea and I met about a month after I started working here. She has been the receptionist since she was 16. Her father and the owner are golfing buddies. She is just a little bit less than 2 years younger than me and about 5’6″ tall with brunette hair and blue eyes. She is well endowed, but absolutely proportionately so. No one would ever accuse her of being top heavy, nor would they get away with calling her flat chested either. Her East Texas accent is so think that I often teased her about being a Southern Belle who missed her calling.
We dated for about six months and even shared a bed several times, but I have a strong love of the outdoors and she is a misplaced city slicker. We never officially “broke up” so much as we just shifted our relationship from lovers to extremely tight friends. However we are both still very fond of each other.
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