Message-ID: <14735eli$9808281531@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/14735.txt>
From: "Bill Morgan" <morg105829@hotmail.com>
Subject: {Morgan} NEW: Six-month Turnaround 6/16 M/F Rom. lite sex
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
Content-Type: text/plain
Path: qz!not-for-mail
Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam
Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Original-Message-ID: <19980824172340.15367.qmail@hotmail.com>

Author's note: If you are looking for wall-to-wall sex, look elsewhere. 
This book is a romance with a business setting. Beyond that, the sex is 
comparable to - or less than - what one would find in almost any work of 
popular fiction.

Permission is granted to post on any free site, as long as the copyright 
statement is included. Please advise the author of any such postings.

Comments are welcome and encouraged. Please address me at 
morg105829@aol.com.

I hope you enjoy the book. My plan is to post a chapter each weekday; it 
will take about three weeks for it all to be up. This is chapter 6 of 
16.

Six-Month Turnaround

Copyright 1992, 1998 by Morgan. All rights reserved.

Chapter 6

Cliff didn't see Sandy at her desk when he got to the office Monday 
morning. He smiled to himself, figuring he had worn her out. He felt 
very tired but wonderful. Sunday had been a physically exhausting day. 
She had been variously joyful, impish, questing, loving, funny, 
romantic, and, it seemed, all possible combinations of them. The one 
thing she had never done was take herself seriously after her first 
disclosures. He had returned to his own apartment late Sunday night.

Going into his office he found Sandy sitting with her coffee, waiting 
for him. There was a steaming cup of coffee waiting for him on his desk. 
He stopped abruptly when he saw her. "How did you know I would be here 
right now?" he asked in surprise.

"A bird at the gate told me," she answered with a warm smile. "Cliff, 
I'm worried about you. You look worn out. I was reading an article last 
night that said girls reach their peak of sexuality at sixteen or 
seventeen, while men do at nineteen. Now I've been saving up for nearly 
ten years. You, on the other hand, are over thirty! Honey, are you sure 
I'm not too much for you? I would hate to see anything happen to you." 
While the tone of her voice was very serious, he could see the impish 
laughter in her eyes.

Cliff rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "As if it isn't bad enough in a 
planning session, now I have to get it in the bedroom, too! These damned 
kids get one thing right and it goes to their heads. Everybody's got to 
be an expert!" He grinned at her. "Seriously, Honey, how do you feel? 
You look absolutely fabulous. But how in hell can you look so good with 
so little sleep?"

"I feel so great, it's sinful! Now I know why Jane reacts the way she 
does when I kid her about never getting any sleep when Steve Muller's 
around." She changed the subject. "I've got a couple of bankers coming 
in today. May I bring them by to give them the thrill of meeting our new 
president? It would really make their whole day, I'm sure. I'm starting 
to talk with our major banks as we discussed, so I wanted to check with 
you to be sure we're both on the same page. We intend to pick a single 
major bank to be our primary bank. It will get essentially all of our 
business. We're going to combine the five or six relationships into a 
single one. Cliff, I thought I would explain the idea to each of them, 
spell out what specific services we require, then leave the rest up to 
them. I'll ask them to get back to us with a specific proposal laying 
out what they expect from us, and what they propose to provide to us, 
most particularly including a line of credit. How does that sound?"

He looked at her thoughtfully and responded in his most serious voice, 
"About what I would expect from the girl I love who's going to be the 
mother of my children. Speaking of which, might that process have 
started yesterday?"

Her face saddened, "No, worse luck! I heard somewhere that birth control 
pills help in bust development, and I've been trying! I hope you noticed 
that the dress I wore Saturday night didn't fall off even once!"

The phone on Cliff's desk rang, and Sandy picked it up. "Mr. 
Fitzpatrick's office, Miss Donnell speaking." She listened for a moment 
and grinned. "He's in his office. You may put Miss Simpson on." She was 
making excited motions, obviously relishing the telephone one-upmanship 
Cliff hated. "Just a moment, Miss Simpson. Mr. Fitzpatrick will take 
your call." It was all Cliff could do to control his laughter. Not only 
was Sandy speaking in her haughtiest voice, but she was going the full 
route, putting Stephanie on hold.

He picked up the phone and punched the line button. Quickly he held the 
phone out at arms length as Stephanie screamed into her instrument, 
"Clifford Fitzpatrick, don't you *dare* do that to me again! You be on 
the phone when I pick it up, do you hear!?"

Cliff ignored the outburst. "Hi, Steph. What's on your mind so early 
Monday morning? I'm surprised you're in the office so early."

Her voice tone suddenly changed. Now she sounded like a little girl. 
"Cliffie, I missed you! Didn't you miss me? I was thinking about keeping 
you warm Saturday night, but you didn't even call. What were you doing?"

"Steph, I'm glad you called. I was out Saturday night with the young 
lady I'm planning to marry. Obviously, it wasn't you. I'm sorry to have 
to tell it to you this way, but I guess I don't know an easy way to do 
it." He yanked the instrument away from his ear, prepared for the 
explosion to follow. He wasn't disappointed. 

"You *what*!" she screamed. "You can't do that to me! I won't allow it! 
Daddy won't allow it! Why that's... that's the dumbest thing I've ever 
heard. No one leaves me! No one! I won't stand for it!" They could both 
hear her start to cry - and they were obviously tears of rage.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Stephanie. I was hoping we could remain 
friends." He rolled his eyes to the ceiling as he said the last words, 
and Sandy almost choked trying to control her laughter. "There's nothing 
more to say except good bye. So good bye." He hung up the phone before 
she had a chance to respond.

A few moments later the phone rang again. Sandy picked it up. After 
identifying herself, she listened for a moment and then said, "I'm 
sorry. Mr. Fitzpatrick is in conference. He is not available to Miss 
Simpson. Good bye."

She looked at Cliff fondly. "Am I to interpret that statement as a 
proposal of marriage? When you said you were out with the girl you 
intend to marry? If so, I accept. These days, where proposals are 
concerned, a girl has to take whatever she can get!"

"Sandy, will you marry me?" he asked. "My God! I can't believe it! Do 
you realize I only met you two weeks ago today, and yet I've never been 
as sure of anything in my life as I am about wanting you to be my wife?"

She got up from the chair and went to him. He took her in his arms and 
kissed her softly. At least it was intended to be soft. Their love for 
each other just flowed between them. "Of course I'll marry you, Cliff. 
You have made me the happiest person alive. But I don't think we should 
make it official until after October 1, if that's all right with you.

"I'm a little concerned about that girl, though. She went berserk! Is 
she in any position to cause you trouble? I mean, can she sue you for 
breach of promise, or palimony or something?"

"Sandy, I give you my solemn word - even though you don't need it - I 
have *never* spoken of marriage to that girl in my life! I think I told 
you that she introduced me to some of her friends as her fiance, but I 
never talked marriage to her and never used the term. I can honestly say 
I thought I loved her until I met you. Then she just went in the tank.

"And as for you, young lady, I have some bones to pick. First, it was 
nasty to play telephone games with her. It hurt her feelings. Although 
the way you did it was as good as I've ever seen. The other thing is, 
how did you know I didn't want to speak to her when she called the 
second time?"

Sandy held her head up and spoke in the same haughty tone she had used 
to Stephanie. "I beg your pardon? A wife is certainly within her rights 
not taking calls for her husband from his former mistress. I mean... 
really!"

Sandy left for the ladies room to change into her "treasurer's suit." 
Twice during the morning she brought in bank calling officers. Cliff 
noted that one of the major Chicago banks had sent both a senior vice 
president and a vice president and it was obvious they were impressed 
with Sandy. When the senior vice president asked if he could speak with 
Mr. Fitzpatrick alone, Sandy and his associate went back to her office.

"Mr. Fitzpatrick, I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am with your 
new treasurer. I understand she's new in the job, but you certainly 
couldn't prove it by me. She's as knowledgeable as any treasurer I've 
ever met. My bank intends to make a major commitment to Murphy to get 
your business. Had your former treasurer, Mr. Purcell, still been in 
that position it would have been out of the question. We like to think 
we offer superior banking services to superior corporations. Obviously, 
there are limited avenues available to us to form such judgments, but 
one is the quality of the treasurer. If the treasurer is not handling 
his company's money wisely, you can appreciate we're not very interested 
in giving him some of ours to mishandle, too. We are very impressed with 
what Miss Donnell has accomplished in just a couple of weeks. I hope you 
will select us as your primary bank. We want your business and my 
colleagues and I are going to put together what we expect to be a very 
attractive proposal to get it."

Cliff saw from his business card that he represented Bank of Chicago, 
one of the nation's largest banks, and his name was Thomas P. Morris. 
"Mr. Morris, thank you for your very kind comments about Miss Donnell. 
With your permission, I would like to tell her what you said. I'm sure 
she will be very pleased to receive such praise from a senior executive 
of a bank such as yours. Beyond that, I can't make any promises. I will 
say two things, however: First, it's clear you understand what we're 
looking for in a primary banking relationship. There are some bankers 
who don't seem to understand the concept. Second, I appreciate your 
comment about preparing a very competitive proposal for us. Knowing your 
reputation, I'm sure it will be a very good one. I'm looking forward to 
seeing it, and thank you for saying what you did."

After showing them out, Sandy changed again and came into his office. 
"Sandy, that was great!" He told her what Morris had said, particularly 
stressing the importance of the quality of the treasurer to the bank. 
"Honey, you hit a home run! You were brilliant!"

They were about to go down to eat when they heard a commotion out front. 
Suddenly, the door burst open. It was Stephanie. "Clifford, you 
bastard!" she screamed. "Who do you think you are!? You can't just tell 
me it's all over! *I* decide when it's over!" Sandy started to leave, 
when Stephanie grabbed her by her blouse and ripped as hard as she 
could. The cotton blouse was shredded from her body. "I'll just bet this 
is the little bitch," she sneered. She swung on Sandy, but that was as 
far as it went. Sandy ducked, and the force of her swing caused the 
bigger girl to lose her balance and fall on her face. As she hit the 
floor, a security officer ran in followed closely by two Milwaukee 
police officers. They had seen Stephanie swing at the taller girl as 
they came in. One of the police officers was a woman who took Stephanie 
in hand, putting her in handcuffs with her hands cuffed behind her back. 
If anything, this enraged Stephanie even more.

The officer escorted the girl out of the office, screaming obscenities, 
while her partner shook his head. "What was that all about?" he asked.

Sandy was standing wearing only her bra and shreds of her blouse. It 
didn't appear to bother her in the slightest. "Officer, that was Mr. 
Fitzpatrick's former girl friend. She's from Chicago. This morning she 
called Mr. Fitzpatrick who told her their... relationship... was at an 
end. Clearly, she's not used to taking no for an answer. She appeared a 
few moments ago, stormed into the office screaming at Mr. Fitzpatrick 
and then swung at me. I think you saw her try to hit me as you arrived. 
One thing you should know, officer, for your own protection: She's the 
daughter of the chairman of Ajax Industries. I wish to press charges for 
assault and battery and anything else I can cool her off with. I am 
Sandra Donnell, by the way. I am Mr. Fitzpatrick's assistant and 
treasurer of the company."

"Miss Donnell, how long have you known the other woman? What's her name, 
by the way?"

"This is the first time I've ever laid eyes on her! I'm not sure if I've 
ever spoken to her. Wait! I spoke about five words to her on the phone 
this morning. I think that's all. Her name is Stephanie Simpson." The 
officer took down the information and took statements from other people 
in the office. She went and changed clothes and returned to Cliff's 
office.

He looked concerned. "Sandy, I'm sorry about that. It was totally 
uncalled for. And I just sat there like a lump while she swung at you. 
Are you okay?"

She smiled and said, "I'm fine, except she owes me a new blouse. Good 
heavens! I just realized I was standing there with just my bra and some 
shreds of blouse. What will people think!?"

"Several things," he said, seeming to be thoughtful. "First, don't mess 
with you... you're too quick. Second, you have a beautiful body. But 
anyone with eyes knew that, too. Third, they would see more of you in a 
bathing suit. Okay? What do you think we should do now? About Stephanie, 
I mean. Are you going to prosecute? I think you should, and I think we 
should ask for a peace bond from her. It keeps her away from us."

"I guess I will prosecute," Sandy said. "I'm curious about one thing, 
though. How many guys has she gone through, do you suppose?"

Cliff was startled by the question. "I don't have a clue," he finally 
answered. "But why do you ask?"

"Darling, there's one thing about that girl that worries me. I think she 
always got whatever she wanted. Always! Today she really went berserk. 
I've never seen anyone so totally out of control. You may have been the 
first person ever to tell her to buzz off." Then she smiled, "With me 
it's different. I've been told to buzz off, drop dead, go play with 
someone else, make way for a *real* woman, etc., etc., more times than I 
can count. Maybe that's why I am the way I am with you. I love you so 
damned much I'll do anything to keep you. I think you're making a big 
mistake, but I'm working as hard as I can to keep you from opening your 
eyes."

He realized she was deadly serious. He was awed. She was such a 
wonderful person, yet she refused to believe it. He decided he was one 
of the luckiest people in the world. "And you're doing a good job. If 
you keep it up, my eyes will never open. Whenever I'm away from you, 
I'll be sound asleep. Wench, you are insatiable!"

"Can I change the subject?" Sandy asked. "What about the sessions with 
the stores? We're supposed to start that on Wednesday. Incidentally, 
you've got a rare treat in store. You'll meet JL Wilson. He's from 
Charlotte, and is really one of the good ol' boys. The best way I can 
describe him is to say John Flood hated his guts, and JL didn't like 
Flood nearly that much. Incidentally, he really is a true Southern boy. 
His name is 'J' 'L'. If he were in the service, it would be written in 
quotes. It's 'J' for nothing and 'L' for nothing. There's a lesson here, 
someplace. He started work for my uncle... or my father, I guess. JL is 
a guy with intense personal loyalties. Whenever I see him, which isn't 
very often, I am reminded that his ancestors - commonly referred to as 
poor white trash - were the backbone of the Confederate army. If you are 
their friend, they can't ever do enough for you. On the other hand, 
don't *ever* cross 'em. They can be implacable enemies.

"Incidentally, I hear that some of the accountants are getting very 
upset about the analysis being done on the rings and valves. They're 
about to cry at the thought of losing revenue. I hear the numbers are 
pretty devastating, though. Do you want me to do anything?"

"Yes, I do," he replied, "But not about that. I think I'm going to make 
use of your young legs, starting on Wednesday. We old men - you said 
earlier today I was over the hill - have to get our rest. Seriously, 
Sandy, I've never seen anyone do a better job than you did last week 
leading the discussion on strategy. Would you work with me and help run 
the sessions?"

"You are serious, aren't you? I would love to, Cliff, but I can't. I 
don't know a thing about it!"

"Young lady, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a girl who's 
always fishing for compliments! Your figure couldn't be more perfect, 
but you keep saying it's ugly and inadequate. Now, after costing me a 
small fortune for a dinner and an ex-girlfriend, you try to act like 
you're incapable of doing it. Sandra Donnell, you are the best damned 
natural-born leader I've ever met. That's the end of the compliments for 
at least the next hour, or until I want a kiss, whichever comes first." 
He grinned at her, and she came over, took his face in her hands and 
kissed him. He smiled at her and continued, "That's what gives women in 
business a bad name. Just when you make a great point, they come up, 
sexually assault you, melt you down to warm mush, and then walk away. 
No, damn it, I wasn't kidding! I'm using you, so you'd better be well 
rested. You're going to be on those little feet for quite awhile, 
beginning Wednesday morning! Hear?"

* * *

On Wednesday morning, they were back in the same hotel room. Cliff 
thought wryly they were also back to the same cold cuts for lunch. Many 
of the participants were the same, but there was a new group 
representing the Stores Division. Cliff began with the same 
introduction. Then he turned the session over to Sandy who began with a 
matrix of competitors by region of the country. Cliff admired the way 
she handled herself and handled the group. It was a replay of the 
previous week. But because she knew the people, she was much better than 
he was at inducing participation from the people in the room.

A bleak picture quickly emerged. JL Wilson and his boys in the Southeast 
were doing a fine job. The rest of the country was break-even or worse. 
The company had been dealing with the stores as if they were a single 
entity, and it was obvious they were not. The competitive situation was 
dramatically different from region to region. The Southeast - roughly 
starting at North Carolina, then swinging southwest through South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and west through Tennessee 
- seemed to be the only part of the country in which Murphy had a viable 
retail presence.

The problems in the rest of the country appeared to be either or both of 
two types. Either there were a significant number of stores - the 
Northeast, for example - but not nearly as many as better positioned 
competitors, or isolated stores that couldn't be supported well from the 
warehouse or with affordable local-market advertising. Cliff addressed 
the situation. "Business strategy is closely allied to military 
strategy. I think what we're seeing here is an armored division that's 
been broken up into little pieces and scattered along a very wide battle 
line. We have a lot of troops, but they're so spread out they can't be 
effective. In fact, in all too many of the areas we're terribly exposed. 
We have isolated outposts. At each, there are nowhere near enough troops 
to attack, and not even enough to adequately defend. We just sit in 
place and hope the other guys leave us alone. If they don't - if 
competition in any of these markets intensifies - we're in trouble. 
Worse yet, in looking at these market areas I see a number of them where 
there are two or three much more important players who look like they're 
about to disrupt the status quo.

"We're getting ahead of our story, but it seems we are competitively 
weak in most of the markets. Moreover, there are several in which a 
couple of competitors have been rated Strong. Many of you were here last 
week for the discussion of competitive position. For those of you who 
weren't, a Strong position is one in which two or more competitors have 
a sort of shared dominance. You remember the worst possible position to 
be in is to be Weak when there are Strong competitors. There are people 
who would have you believe that when the big guys start to fight, the 
little guys just stand aside and watch. Unfortunately, the world doesn't 
work that way. When the elephants start to fight, some mice accidentally 
get trampled. And I mean accidentally. The big guys are going after each 
other, not the little guys. Unfortunately, the activities they initiate 
to take business from the other big guy generally results in killing us 
first. It has happened in the last few years in both the beer and coffee 
businesses. What about it folks? What do you think we should do?"

Steve Muller spoke. "If I understand all this, what we have to do is 
concentrate our efforts. To follow your analogy, we've got a bunch of 
little outposts that are too weak to support us, and too far out for us 
to support them. We have to bring them in so we can get some market 
impact somewhere. It seems pretty clear to me."

Cliff saw Jane, Sandy, Bill, and a few others nod agreement.

Jeff Stover, the company controller, spoke up. "Wait a minute!" he said. 
"If I understand what you're proposing to do, you're going to chop off 
nearly half our sales and a good chunk of our profit. We lose a lot more 
in sales than we do in profit, of course, but we're still going to lose 
a good deal. Cliff, we can't afford it!"

"Thanks, Jeff. You have just raised a very interesting point. Do you 
have the store financials with you, by any chance?" Stover said he did. 
"Okay, let's take a look at the Western Region. Steve says it's a good 
area to sell off." Then Cliff used a flip-chart sheet to construct a 
simplified profit & loss statement. He recorded data for the preceding 
year, starting with sales. He then subtracted cost of goods and store 
operating expenses to get an operating profit number. From this he 
subtracted a series of below-the-line costs including transportation, 
advertising, and general & administra tive expenses. The final line, 
profit, was a positive number.

"See, Cliff," Stover said, "It's not a lot of money, but it's certainly 
something. Why should we give it up? I'll concede we're not in good 
shape out there if someone comes after us, but they're not doing it now. 
Why don't we just leave it alone and keep our fingers crossed?"

"You make good points, Jeff. But let's take a look at these numbers, 
particularly the ones below the line. First, let's recognize we're 
talking allocations, not hard numbers. It's not a criticism, it's 
reality. To the Board and the shareholders it ultimately makes no 
difference. The costs are real and they're charged against revenue. But 
in planning, it *does* make a difference. The total may be accurate - 
and I'm sure it is - but the assignment to divisions can be wrong. Let's 
look at transportation, Jeff. How is it as signed?"

"We take our total transportation bill and prorate it against sales. How 
else could we do it? We can't take every stinking bill of lading and 
assign it to a region. It would take forever, and would cost more to do 
than the money we're allocating!"

"Okay, good answer... and good logic. But let's look closer. Is 
transportation really a function of sales? Or is it a function of 
distance and volume? I'll bet you, Jeff that we get hit two ways out to 
the West Coast. First, the distances from Milwaukee are enormous. That's 
got to cost a ton! Second, we're small out there, so I'm sure most, if 
not all, of our shipments are Less-Than-Truckload. I haven't looked in a 
while, but LTL is far more expensive per unit of shipping weight than 
truckload, isn't it?"

Stover nodded slowly, "Yes, sir, it sure is."

"So our transportation allocation to the Western Region is lower than it 
should be, so someone else is paying too much. I suspect, Jeff, it's the 
South. Distances are shorter, and volume is much larger. We're more 
likely to be able to ship full truckloads. Right?"

"Yes, sir, that's right, too."

"Okay, let's take a look at general and administrative - G&A charges. 
Are they assigned by sales, also?" Stover said they were. "Here we go 
again. First, it includes store super vision. Steve, you just got back 
from Spokane. What were your travel expenses for the trip running?"

Steve grinned and rolled his eyes. "Sir, we've got a nasty new 
treasurer. If I owned a house, I would be thinking about taking out a 
second mortgage to cover this month's American Express bill! We think 
distances are pretty good here in the Midwest, but they're nothing like 
what you get out there! Take a look at Salt Lake City on a map sometime. 
That's *nowhere*. The nearest city to the east is Denver, and that's 
nearly 400 miles in a straight line. Only you've got to get across the 
Rocky Mountains that stand in between! Cliff, I didn't figure out my 
travel cost on a per-store-visited basis, but I could. The number I 
would come up with would make Sandy's hair turn white!"

"Jeff," Cliff continued, "you see the point. We're allocating on sales, 
but expenses aren't incurred that way. Moreover, because of the problems 
in the Western Division, I'll bet it gets a far higher proportion of 
management visits than it's proportion of our Store Division sales. 
Right?" Again heads nodded. "Guys, I don't want to sound like I'm 
picking on Jeff and his people. As he said earlier, the costs are real 
and they have to be assigned somewhere. The way he's doing it is 
reasonable. However, it can produce some pretty poor management 
decisions. Now, Jeff, what do you think about the profits in the Western 
Region? How much do you think we're going to lose?"

Stover smiled and raised both hands in a sign of surrender. "I give up. 
The profit number is so small to start with that any swing on the 
expense allocations we've been talking about would cause it to disappear 
and turn into red ink. I can also see that we've been systematically 
understating Southern Region profits. What do you want us to do now?"

"Jeff, I would appreciate it if you could have one of your guys take a 
crack at last year's numbers in light of the discussion we've just had. 
Let's see if we can come up with some better numbers in time for the 
next session. And I mean approximations. I certainly agree with your 
earlier comments: I don't want your people going over every bill of 
lading and expense account. Okay?"

The group broke for lunch, and Cliff took the opportunity to talk with 
Sandy. "I'm going to take advantage of your good nature," he said with a 
smile. "I want you to lead a discussion of warehousing. Since there's 
going to be a lot of shooting, I would rather they shoot at you. 
Besides, if worse comes to worse and they take it out on us, they're 
less likely to shoot a woman."

"Golly," she said with a grin. "I can hardly wait! Are you prepared to 
notify my next of kin? Although, come to think of it, I don't have any!" 
Her eyes warmed suddenly, "I may get my revenge, Clifford Fitzpatrick. 
You're my heir, as of Saturday. I finally wrote a will, so if anything 
happens to me, this whole mess gets dumped in your lap... permanently. 
Then won't you be sorry?"

Cliff sat in the back of the room as Sandy led the warehousing 
discussion. As he suspected, it emerged there was a sort of staff 
mentality present at headquarters. Essentially, there was an unexamined 
belief that people in the field couldn't find their way to the bathroom 
unless there was a staff memorandum on the subject. By the time she had 
finished, there wasn't a single good reason left for centralizing 
purchasing and distribution in Milwaukee and dozens of reasons for 
moving the activities to the field. Without asking Cliff, Sandy moved 
ahead to what became a rather funny discussion of computerizing 
point-of-sale activities.

One of Kevin O'Rourke's people, Jamie Carothers, responsible for data 
processing in the Stores Division, said it was unaffordable. Sandy, 
drawing on her knowledge of new personal computers and off-the-shelf 
software, didn't understand why. Jamie acknow ledged that the software 
existed, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was the cost of 
telephone line charges. "Line charges?" Sandy asked. "What line 
charges?"

"The line charges to link all the point-of-sale computers to the 
mainframe in Milwaukee," Jamie replied.

"Why do they need to be linked?"

"How else can we know how much they're selling, and of what?" he 
answered.

"Jamie, I think we just agreed central warehousing doesn't make sense. 
Even if it did, why do we need a minute-by-minute report of sales? What 
would we do with it?"

"Well!" he began. "It permits us to... to... monitor..." He grinned. 
"I'm sorry, Sandy, it must be that staff mentality you referred to. As a 
matter of fact, if we were updated once a day, in the middle of the 
night, we'd be far better off than we are now. Frankly, I'm not sure we 
need to know here in Milwaukee more often than once a week, if even that 
often." Everyone laughed when he added, "Where do I get one of those 
Kick Me signs to hang on my back? I'm sorry!"

Sandy led the meeting on to a discussion of strategy. Sandy said, "It 
looks like the strategy is pretty simple. We're closing out all the 
regions except the South. I guess that's Market Rationalization. 
Distribution Rationalization covers the new Southern warehouse idea. 
Finally, we have Methods and Functions Efficiency covering the new 
point-of-sale computers. It looks to me like we've got a lot to do 
before the next session. Anyone have anything else? No? We're 
adjourned."

That evening, after another one of Sandy's lovely dinners, Cliff 
massaged her feet and legs while she lay face down on the bed. A short 
time later, she awakened as he reached more interesting places. Again 
that night they didn't get much sleep.



-- 
+----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+
| <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> |
| Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ |
<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/>----<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/faq.html>