REPORTING 6 -- CHOICES, CONSEQUENCES AND CHRISTMAS
This is a continuation of the Reporting Story and readers would appreciate the current if they take the time to review the episodes to date. This story begins the inter-relationship with others that have been written and the facts will become further interwoven. We live in 2019, a very modern society and infidelity/promiscuity is far less important than the force with which we live, the pace we experience and the pleasures that are readily provided and as a result sought after by even the more conservative elements. Life is short.
People have CHOICES.
They make decisions out of the choices which are available to them at the time. There are decision makers among us and there are those who hate the pressure of having to make those decisions preferring to obfuscate and defer. Unfortunately those choices can at times be very unpleasant and occasionally vital to essential. Many just have to be made or as the umpire says the "judgement call".
From every decision we make there are consequences, commonly both good and bad and that can be based on the perceptions of those around us. Whatever, we have to live with the consequences of our actions and decisions. The key point being how one weighs up the points on the left and right sides of the board, because different people faced with the same decision cum problem will decide totally different courses of action or non-action. That said while we all mistakes we can stay in bed all day and watch TV or alternatively invite another to make sure the only thing on the TV is good porn and the action is not sleep.
CHRISTMAS is both a fantastic time of year and a stressful time, mainly because people are thrown together with screaming kids or crazy scenarios at places like work or work/ business Christmas parties. Issues are brought to a head and they need to be confronted.
It is in this complex time of year the ten ladies now back in Houston for some days now are brought back to reality. Some just look forward to May when the 10 plus new recruits will be off again exploring Las Vegas. Others, but most relevant to us Samantha (Sam), Belle and Toni, are about to be brought into a very tough world of Houston with its middle class moralities, major financial economic issues and risk takers extraordinaire.
The First Week of December
The cooler weather had brought with its memories of old times, Christmas lights, kids parties and shopping. These were all fun and joyous and the kids were all young enough to ignore the realities their parents were exposed to in order to pay the bills and set things up for 2019. It was Budgets time, Business Plans, close deals time and bonuses qualifications for the parents and their businesses.
Meeting of the Investors in Consult Co Inc
Jake (husband of Toni) had just been promoted to a divisional director and he joined the other 5 Directors discussing their business plans for 2019 and the leads for new contracts that definitely would be coming up early in 2019. Consult Co Inc had been set up by the 6 guys post uni and post the GFC as the USA had started to turn around with shale oil and gas leading the way out of the Texas and Pennsylvania fields. The last few years had all been dramatic with serious growth and profits followed by substantial recruitments and a total manpower force of over 100 people. With that size came a constant need to refresh revenue streams, new ideas and replacement contracts. Michael was the leader having done his MBA part-time in Administration and Construction Engineering. The other 5 had university degrees in various aspects of science including computer science and artificial intelligence.
Michael:
Ok so we have agreed:
we go to IPO (float on the Nasdaq) in the third quarter of 2019;
we sign up Ali's group on a bonus basis for all the leads they give us;
every one of us has KPI's (key performance indicators) we must achieve so we are ready to provide our books off to the Stock Brokers to support our capital raisings and listing;
the potential contracts that Ali has already identified are absolutely critical to us if we are going to be ready to support that IPO;
those share entitlements that will be issued to each of us is 100% based on performance so if anyone does not meet their targets they are scaled down dramatically;
if we all meet our targets the estimated value of Consult Co Inc will be $20 million to $40 million and that is our single objective for the next seven months come hell or high water.
Michael looked around the room and all nodded enthusiastically.
Michael:
As you know Ali has been living with me for the last twelve months and she and her "girls" have been very active "between the sheets" as we may say getting us our leads. Now as much as Ali et al can keep those contacts fresh, it is up to you five guys to follow up those new contracts, get them signed up and staffed so we get our stats right and our Stock Brokers impressed. If we all agree here and now, nothing else counts between today and July. There can be no equivocations or excuses; we win those deals via whatever legal means we can. If that means working 20 hour days, we work 20 hour days. If that means we need to supply call girls, cases of wine and dinners, free holidays, training courses in Las Vegas we do it, but we have to keep our costs within our Budget.
Michael looked around the room again. There were no dissenters, actually more to the opposite.
Michael:
What I am about to say is probably the most controversial but to me far from that.