I paid the cab driver and turned to walk into the shiny, glass-encased office building. The bright southern California sun blinded me, and since I hadn't needed them when I boarded the plane at LaGuardia at 6AM I hadn't thought to bring sunglasses. I was momentarily snowblind when I entered the building. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a reception desk in front of me emblazoned with the emblem "Better Bonds, Inc." There was a young, tan, very attractive woman in a business suit wearing a headset looking at me expectantly. Her hair was bleached almost white from sun, although it might have been some shade of blonde to begin with. Her blouse didn't actually show as much cleavage as its first impression made you think it did because the neckline was accentuated by a tight choker around her neck.
I stepped forward and began "I'm Jack Edwards..."
"Of course, from Affirmative Investments," she interrupted efficiently, "I shall inform Mr. Bower that you're here."
"Thank you," I said. Of course, I expected that everyone would be exceedingly polite to me—my company had just bought out BBI, and I was leading the team in charge of assimilating our business operations. In other words, I would be deciding who got laid off and who was retained.
In a few minutes another tall, beautiful woman came from the back. She was tanned, with brown curly hair, a very short skirt, and bare legs in pumps. The blouse she wore under her jacket was cut exactly at hem-level, so that if she moved to either side an enticing strip of flat, tan belly peeked out. A blouse like that was too racy for the financial district in New York, but perhaps things were different in LA. She came to me extending her hand, which caused the tiny strip of flesh to peek out momentarily. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Edwards," she said in a husky voice, "my name is Ellen, and I'm one of Mr. Bower's personal assistants." One of? How many did he need? "I'm to take you wherever you wish to go."
"I'd like to start with HR, please," I replied. I'd been able to see most of the company's financials on the plane, since it had been part of the due diligence. I hadn't seen anything about the staff. It seemed a strange situation; Morris Bower had started Better Bonds from scratch twenty years ago and had built it into a multi-million dollar investment firm. At a time when the market was stinging from the collapse of junk bonds, he stepped in and started buying investment-grade bonds at high interest rates. He had grown a reputation for knowing a worthless bond from a golden one. Then about three years ago, Better Bonds bottom line suddenly started shrinking. Operating expenses seemed to keep increasing at a much faster rate than profits. With the stock market becoming volatile, Affirmative wanted to increase its presence in the bond market, and made an unsolicited offer for BBI. Their board turned on its founder and sold out while it was still just barely profitable. He would be all right, though—he owned enough stock to clear probably 300 million from the sale, on top of the fortune he'd made when he took the company public in the first place.
I was set up in a conference room and was given access to the company's personnel files. I began going through them. I paid no attention when Ellen excused herself momentarily. At first glance that staffing levels seemed about right, but the expenses still seemed so high... I started looking at individual employees, and what? What's this? A position classified as a special assistant to Mr. Bower—presumably a personal assistant—but making $200,000 a year, plus stock options? That's as much money as I made—that would have to stop, I thought. And then...what? Another one?
"I'm Morris Bower," said a voice behind me. I stood to meet the founder. He was silver-haired and thin on top, but also tan and appeared fit for a man of 60.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bower..." I began, shaking his hand.
"Looking through the personnel files, I see?" he asked. Ellen appeared in the doorway behind him.
"Yes..." I said sitting down.
Morris gave a nod in Ellen's direction. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
"Don't worry about me," he said jovially, "if Affirmative wants me to stay I can, but I'm also quite prepared to retire."
"OK," I replied. The bosses back east would make that call, not me.
"Perhaps you've already noticed that we have a few...special assistants on the payroll..." he said evasively.
"Yes, I had...just how many of them are there?" I asked.
"Four," he answered, "and it might seem that they are rather well compensated..."
"Uh, yeah," I replied sarcastically. I'd never seen anything like it.
"Mr. Edwards," he began formally, sitting down. "I've run this business for a long time. I know what's the going rate for various jobs, or I wouldn't have stayed in business this long. Now I expect that when you see special assistant you think secretary, and if that's the way you look at it then they're way overpaid. But let me assure you that each of the special assistants is much more than an administrator."
"Oh? How so?" I asked patronizingly.
"That," he smiled mysteriously, "is something that you will have to see firsthand. My special assistants would like to remain employed here, and have asked if I could arrange for a forum where they can demonstrate why they have been so valuable to BBI."
He talked about them like he owned them somehow. "Oh? And how will they do that?"
Mr. Bower now stood up. "Let's just call that a little L.A. secret for now. I'm playing golf with guys from 12th National Bank this afternoon, but I'll send my private car to pick you up say, around 3:30." I hesitated, but before I could protest he interrupted "Great. I'll look forward to seeing you again this afternoon." On cue, Ellen opened the door and he swept out. I sighed. What on earth did he have planned for me? They wanted to show why they were worth their outrageous salaries—but they couldn't do it at the office? That didn't make any sense. For a minute, I thought that perhaps something outrageously improprietous might be going on, but thought the better of it. Even in L.A., that kind of thing only happened in cheesy porn movies, I thought.
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Yup, there were four all right. Ellen Majors, my guide. Cherie Crawford, the receptionist at the front desk. And two others I had not yet met, Joy Peijing and Shana Flanagan. With stock options, a million bucks for four support staff. My mind couldn't keep thinking about what their special talents might be that Morris wanted me to know about, and the only thing my mind kept coming back around to was that porn-plot thing. Cheesy soundtrack porn soundtrack music kept running through my head, becoming so insistent as to be distracting by the time 4:00 approached. I wasn't real happy about Morris' rendezvous, but I had to admit I was pretty tired—my day had started at 1AM local time, so I guess it wasn't unreasonable to knock off a little early.
I was stifling a yawn when a girl came to tell me Mr. Bower's car was here for me. It wasn't Cherie, and while she was cute she wasn't dressed anything like Cherie had been—more normal, I would say. The fact that I was slightly disappointed by this surprised me.
"OK, I'll be right there," I said, shutting down my computer and packing up the papers I was planning to take back to the hotel. She waited quietly and then showed me out.
Mr. Bower's private car turned out to be a vintage 1950s Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. A chauffeur stood by the door, waiting to open it for me. "I hope this isn't a company car," I remarked as I sat inside. A car like this was worth, what, maybe a half-million?