Quizzical Look E-Book

Jeremy McHarry

• Herausgeber: Bentockiz
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

It seems like the longest minutes he’s ever had to wait, but his heart almost stops when she emerges. In spite of his effort to concentrate, he can’t miss how, with her feet flat on the floor of the vehicle, her knees are higher than her hips which has caused her skirt to slide up past the middle of her thighs. Only the angry honk of a horn from another vehicle wakes him up to reality.

Leseprobe

Title Page

Quizzical Look

Bouquet of Fresh Air

Jeremy McHarry

Quizzical Look / 1st of series: Bouquet of Fresh Air / By Jeremy McHarry

Published 2023 by Bentockiz

e-book Imprint: Uniochlors

e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden

e-book ISBN: 9789198834116

e-book editing: Athens, Greece

Cover Images created via AI art generators

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Introduction

Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.

It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.

This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.

This may be the start of something amazing!

Chapter One

“Robert, take your little girl home before she falls over.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They laugh and Klara waves once as she steps out the door.

Robert turns to Sharlene and asks, “Do you have everything?”

“I think so. Computer, medical kit, papers, and disks. I’m not making you leave early, am I?”

“No. I usually leave about this time, give or take a half hour. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

As they leave, several people smile and wave or give her a thumbs up, and a couple of people compliment her on the presentation.

As they get settled in Robert’s vehicle, Sharlene remarks, “That’s what I would like to see with Digital Empathy.”

“What’s that?”

“The feeling of family your company has.”

“You’ll have to thank your great-grandparents Thomas and Martha for that.”

“I wish I could.”

Robert nods his head as he responds, “I know. They insisted that everyone they worked with, especially anyone who worked for them was of equal value as a human being and worthy of respect. And that every job was important and every person should be able to take pride in their job whether it was digging ditches, being a janitor, or handling millions of credits.

“They passed that attitude on to your grandfather. I could tell you a number of stories of how Dad personally fired a top notch engineer who thought they were too good to empty a trash can. That’s when his Deutsche accent would come out the strongest, ‘Ve don’t need no prima donna, ve a vurking company, not a silly ballet’.”

Sharlene chuckles then says, “I can almost hear him say that.”

“Everyone seemed to assume David and I would take over the company when we were old enough. Almost in response, Dad often made sure we had to do some of the dirtiest jobs, not only to teach us the company from the ground up, but to teach us humility. We also learned that the people we worked with on those dirty jobs were good people, honest, friendly, and hard working. In many cases, they didn’t have worldly success simply because of a lack of educational opportunities or they lived in an economically depressed area where only the most ruthlessly aggressive people succeeded.”

After a brief pause, she asks, “If you had only one piece of advice to pass on to a new company executive, what would it be?”

“Your people are your success. They can do their job without you, but you can’t do your job without them. You need them a lot more than they need you. Dad did his best to teach us that, but what really drove it home was the wreck. David and Soo-Lin were gone, I was devastated, yet the company continued. It still made money, the people did their work, maybe not so enthusiastically as before because David and Soo-Lin were very popular, but the company as a whole functioned. When I realized that a few months later, it was almost as big a blow. I really wondered what use I was.

“Dad was gentle, yet firm with me as he pointed out that without some sort of leadership, things will tend to move towards anarchy. Often corporate executives are only figureheads, but even a figurehead can inspire the people to greater accomplishment, assuming they care about the people and aren’t just self-serving do nothing monarchists. If you support and encourage your people, they can make you successful. If you undermine and degrade your people, they can destroy you.”

“Thanks, Dad. George would mostly agree with you.”

“What part would he disagree with?”

“The last sentence. He once mentioned having a micro-manager for a boss and wondered about the intelligence of their boss who kept them on and the idiot who hired that boss and wondered how high it went.”

Robert nods his head as he says, “Yeah, that can happen, especially if you have committed employees who believe in doing their jobs regardless of how inept or abusive their boss is. And the more layers of management there are between the ivory tower and the worker on the floor, the more likely that can happen.”

“That’s another incentive for me to keep the company small. I’ve also been trying to gently encourage George to poke around in all of the jobs and ask questions. If we do grow, I want it to be clear that he’ll listen to the worker’s concerns and that he has a direct line to the top. In spite of how much he cares about me, he hasn’t been afraid to tell me an idea I had was impractical or could become twisted into something I hadn’t intended.”

“More companies could use that sort of interface. That was part of the idea behind the union movement, to give the workers a voice, but it soon degraded to where the union had its own agenda and the workers were caught in the middle. Instead of one self-serving management entity the workers had to deal with, there were now two, usually with conflicting positions. And when they did agree, it was often to the worker’s disadvantage. Suggestion: keep Digital Empathy as small as possible and do your own poking around and asking questions rather than rely only on George. He seems more than willingly to help you, so let him help in that way, but he isn’t going to be around forever.”

“I know that, even though I seem to forget it when I think of things which need to be done and the advice I want to receive.”

“Change of subject,” as Robert pulls into the driveway, “I know you don’t like to lie, but if your mom’s questions become too difficult to answer truthfully, you may find you have to tell an untruth if you can’t change the subject. I never liked the old adage that sometimes the truth hurts more than a lie, because a lie is a deception which builds on a lack of trust. But I’m finding that with someone in your mom’s condition, the truth doesn’t necessary hurt more, it’s just not understandable.”

“I think I know what you’re saying.” They grip hands in mutual support, then get out of the vehicle and go into the house.

* * * * *

2147-09-27 (a10>e1)

Sharlene puts her things in her room then goes to the kitchen and says, “Hi, Mom.”

“Hello, dear. How was school today?”

“Fine. When will dinner be ready?”

“About a half of an hour. I baked cookies today if you’re hungry now.”

“That sounds great.” Sharlene puts two on a plate and pours a glass of orange juice.

Sarah asks, “Orange juice?”

“I had a presentation to give today and feel a little shaky.”

“Then a snack will do you good.”

“Is it okay if I call a friend? We’re working on a project together and I had some ideas I want to share with her.”

“Of course it’s okay.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you in a little while.”

Robert gives her a thumbs up as Sharlene leaves the kitchen and he steps in.

In her bedroom, Sharlene quickly eats the cookies while she does her best to leave no crumbs and drinks half of the orange juice. After she gathers her thoughts and pulls out the company’s copies of the signed agreements, she calls Mariam.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mariam. It’s Sharlene.”

“Hey, how’d it go?”

“I thought I was going to die of fright at first in front of a crowd of strangers with a video recorder staring me in the face, but I made it through.”

“Good for you.”

“And I’ve got copies of the signed paperwork sitting in front of me right now.”

“All right!! So we’re really a go?”

Sharlene confirms, “We’re really a go.”

“Oh, my. I don’t know what to say. I feel like bouncing off of the walls.”

“I thought that’s how you would feel. When we signed the papers, I was teased about going out and celebrating being deep in debt. I said I was more interested in going home and taking a nap after the presentation. I figured you can do the celebrating for both of us.”

Mariam laughs. When she can settle down some, she says, “Sharlene, thank you so much for taking care of arranging the financing, I wouldn’t have even known where to start.”

“Neither would I, if I didn’t know Dad worked with investors. Klara did a lot of the work. The hardest part for me was doing the presentation. Now a lot of the hard work is going to be in your court in coordinating and organizing things.”

“Girl, that’s going to seem easy compared to trying to talk an investor into fronting millions of credits for an untried technology. So, how much are we talking about?”

“The total authorized amount, including George’s investment, to cover start-up costs, our planned budget for three years, and some for contingencies is ten million credits.”

Since she’s surprised at that, there’s a pause before Mariam asks to confirm she heard correctly, “Ten million?”

“Yes.”

“An investor is really putting ten million credits at risk on us?”

Sharlene clarifies, “Two investors.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave George out. But, holey smoley, that’s a lot of money.”

“Just think what the three year budget was and I don’t know how much Klara put out on top of that to get the Project to begin with.”

“She hasn’t told you?”

“I didn’t ask, as long as the total amount will cover it. We’ll go over that next week with you when we set-up the financial records.”

“So, do we see our bank account suddenly swell by almost ten million credits?”

“No.”

Mariam is surprised again so she asks, “No?”

Sharlene explains, “The money is going to be put into an interest bearing investment account for Digital Empathy which we’ll be able to draw from as we need it. That way, if we start breaking even or start making a profit before the end of three years, we won’t have to take out the whole amount.”

“That’s an interesting twist which will work in our favor if we can get on our feet quickly enough.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So what are the terms of the loan?”

“Klara has all of the details and we’ll go over it next week. The initial discussion with the investor was for a twenty year payoff at four percent per year.”

Since she’s surprised yet again, Mariam asks to confirm, “You said four percent?”

“Yes. I don’t know what the current rates are, so I relied on Klara and Dad’s investment advisors to make the offer and the investor went for it.”

“Since Dad helped with the initial business plan, he asked me to keep him informed. He did some checking and said we would be doing good to get six percent. Four percent, that’s great.”

“Then I’d better thank Klara and the investment advisors even more than I have. When I told the investment advisors about what we intended to do with Digital Empathy, they said if we can solve the technical issues and played our cards right, they thought we would have a big boom. The investor agreed with that assessment, really likes the idea of trying to help people, and is looking forward to what we can do.”

“This is fabulous. I can hardly believe it.”

“Now that it’s settled, I’m seeing all of the hard work and coordination ahead of us.”

Mariam tries to assure her, “Quit worrying. Celebrate the moment. A little hard work never hurt anyone and you know it. Assuming there are no interfering factors, with some hard work, we have a lot more control over what we can and can’t accomplish. To try and talk a couple of investors into forking over ten million credits, that’s a lot of luck and persuasion which you have no control over what the results will be.”

“Then I’ll give you another bit of news so you can get your ceiling crawling down to a minimum before Klara shows up next week for the training.”

“What’s that?”

“After the presentation, a couple of other investors came up to Klara and wanted to get in on it.”

“No way. Really? More investors wanted to get in on it? That’s fantastic!! Yippee!!! . . . Sorry, I didn’t mean to break your ear drums. What did she tell them?”

Even as she struggles to keep her chuckles to herself at Mariam’s enthusiasm, Sharlene answers, “She didn’t go into any details, it was probably ‘thank you, but no thanks’ since we’re already funded for three years. She’s been coordinating with the main investor for weeks now and we’ve gotten a real good deal partially because the investor is even more interested in helping people than in making a profit. I’m guessing the other investors were only thinking of the potential profits.”

“That’s a good point. Even if they were only thinking of their own pockets, it still means they were able to see the potential in what we’re trying to do. This is simply great. Thank you so much for arranging the financing and for being willing to take time away from George to do it. I think I have some idea of how much you two want each other and to be with each other. I really believe you two have made a significant sacrifice for the company and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”

“I’m doing it for myself, too.”

“Sharlene, I love you and all you’ve been doing. I know you believe that Digital Empathy is needed, that it’s important, and that it can help people. I appreciate and thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. But I also know it isn’t what grabs you in the guts and drags you to do something about it. Both you and George have poured yourselves into Digital Empathy. Each of you, in your own way, have given your heart to it, even though that’s not where your heart longs to be. I know a lot of your support of Digital Empathy has been to encourage me, because this is my passion, this is where my heart belongs. Both you and George have my eternal gratitude.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Your actions have been more powerful than words.”

Sharlene hears a tap at the door and her dad’s voice, “Dinner, kiddo.”

She speaks up, “Be there in a minute.”

Mariam asks, “What’s up?”

“Dad’s calling me for dinner.”

“Then enjoy dinner, enjoy the time with your family, then come home to George’s arms and enjoy him.”

“Thank you, Mariam.”

“Thank you! Now go have dinner, because I have a date with the ceiling. Yippee!!!”

Sharlene can only look at her phone for a moment before she shakes her head in almost disbelief at Mariam’s enthusiasm, disconnects the call, and goes to dinner.

* * * * *

After dinner, Sharlene helps Sarah clean up and when they’re done, Sarah asks, “Did you call your friend?”

“Yes, Mom. She was happy to hear we did well on our project.”

“Wasn’t she there to hear how you did?”

“The results weren’t immediately available. She wasn’t able to be there, so she asked me to check the results and let her know.”

“That was nice. What was your project about?”

“Um, we had to put together an idea for a new kind of company.”

“What class would have that kind of a project?”

Sharlene quickly thinks then answers, “It was an independent study program which incorporated several different subjects. Part of it involved business, part of it was history to see if our idea had been used before, part of it was sociology to understand whether people might want what the company offered, part of it was law related in order to write up contracts, and part of it was doing research and talking with people who are experts in each of those areas. We were kind of lucky because my friend’s dad is in business and I was able to get a lot of information from Dad and Klara.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“It was a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be at first. We couldn’t have done it without all of the help we received.”

“It’s always nice to get the right kind of help.”

“You’re right about that, Mom.”

Robert asks, “Sarah, did you want to watch your show?”

“Is it that time already? It is. Thank you for reminding me, Robert. Dear, would you like to watch the show? It’s very good and has such nice performers.”

“Sure, Mom.”

* * * * *

2147-09-27 (e2)

A very long hour later, Sarah dabs at her eyes with a tissue as she says, “Such a sweet ending. It always makes me feel good to see such friendly people helping each other. It’s my bedtime. Good night, dear. Good night, Robert.”

“Good night,” in stereo.

When Sarah is well out of hearing range, Sharlene has to express herself, “Good grief, Dad, what kind of unrealistic syrupy drivel was that? In a lot of ways I’m naive, but that . . . .?”