BRING ON SUMMER... and the heat (Part 134a)

BRING ON SUMMER... and the heat (Part 134a)

After a day at the sailing club and being around boats after a long Winter had me all fired up for Summer. By the time the day had ended I’d been besieged to join in racing the Sunfish. Rex had sold some more of them and now there was a fleet of about a dozen. Some of the new people, Bob and Fritz included, had agreed to participate. I hadn’t ever told Elle I wasn’t going to race sailboats anymore like I’d done with the car so felt I had some ‘wiggle room’. I just had to pick the right time to broach the subject.

I was looking forward to Monday when the three girls I’d hired as temporary clerks to open accounts were to start. Talk about anxious!. I got there a little after 8:30 and two of the three were already waiting. I  thought I’d remembered their names and called them out as I approached. I had them right but assigned the wrong name to each. They just laughed. Lillian, the tall thin girl was wearing a slightly flared khaki skirt and white blouse. Fran, the shorter blonde haired girl was wearing a pretty summer dress. Both skirts were short and I figured Bret would be on that as soon as he walked in. I knew I was.

We’d purchased three card tables for them to work at and were setting them up when the third girl, Karen arrived. My plan had been to have Cara show them the paperwork they’d have to handle to do the job in opening accounts and she’d put together samples for each before she left on Friday night. However, she called in sick. Upon seeing Gina arrive I immediately thought back to Friday night. But, it wasn’t as you’re probably thinking. I’d truly been impressed with her thought process on how to handle getting the new account information entered along with the expected heavy lobby traffic. I decided to ask her to do the training. That freed me up to try and track down the missing tool kits that we needed for the gift campaign.

The girls were told they would only work until 3pm. I’d figured that five hours would be enough. However, right before lunch time, Gina showed up at my desk with the three of them trailing her like little puppies. She announced, happily, that they were all ready to go. I had my doubts and it showed on my face because Gina then challenged me to have them open an account for me. She had that impish grin that made me want to do it.

I wanted it to be realistic so we headed for the lobby. Fran volunteered and, to be truthful. it was almost like she’d been doing it for years. However, Gina sprung something on me when Fran was finishing up. She’d come up with the idea of pre-packaging all the paperwork that would be necessary for each account and keeping a supply of the packages right out there where they’d be working to save time. I couldn’t come up with any reason not to go with it with the exception that all blank passbooks were kept locked up until it was time to actually post the first transaction in the book. Gina then reminded me of her previous suggestion of using receipts. She had me again!

By then it was time for lunch so I excused the three girls but asked Gina to stay. As I wrote about Friday I mentioned that I’d had it in mind to compliment Gina on her idea but when she fell that went away. I wasn’t sure how to phrase what I wanted to say as I didn’t want her to mistake the intent. So... I came at it ‘from out of left field’ but still lingering in the back of my mind was the unease I’d seen in both Hobie and Bert (the president) after I’d hired her. “What do you really want to do with your life?” was what I asked her.

Here we were, still in the lobby (although it was almost empty), and I’m asking her a philosophical question. Remember, I warned that it was ‘from out of left field’. It’s hard to describe the look I saw on her face. Surprise?... maybe. Unease?... probably. Disbelief?... a bit of that too. At that point I think we both took a deep breath. It was almost like who was going to break the silence. It was me. I know it’ll be  hard for you, the readers, to believe what I’m going to say after having read so much of my voyeuristic escapades. I told her with as serious a look on my face as I could muster, that I felt that, as a teller, she was way underutilized and that the two suggestions she’d just put forth proved that. I quickly added that, in no way, did I want her to leave. I told her that she’d ascended to the top of the list of tellers in an incredibly short time and that the customers really liked her. BUT... I also wanted her to know that if there was something that I could do to help her achieve a career goal that I was willing. I think I added that her mind was capable of far more challenging things than to appease the demands of “the great unwashed”, meaning the public.

We stood there for at least five minutes. I knew Bret was waiting for me to come back to my desk so he could go to lunch so I kind of forced the issue. I told her to think about it and to get back to me. I saw a weak smile and heard an equally weak “Thank you...” as she turned and headed for the back entrance to the work area. Of course Bret wanted to know what was going on between the two of us. Bret kept his eyes on her more than any other teller but all I said was that she’d come up with another good idea and I was complimenting her on it. The look on his face told me that he wasn’t buying it but I didn’t care.

Without my ever getting a verbal response from the distribution company, the tool kits arrived  just as I was about to leave for lunch. Like both the coolers and blankets there were two gross of them. Thankfully, they were small. Bret and I’d determined that the only place left we could put them was under the stairs in the small space at the very bottom. We’d measured a four foot space to the wall and then about a three foot space to the half partition which stood about three feet high. Blankets filled all the rest of the area to the front wall. We found we would be able to stuff four of the cartons, unopened, into the space and that would take care of 192 of the kits. But, it meant breaking open the others and then stuffing the individual boxed tool kits into the available space that was left.

Bret at 200+ pounds and me at 6’1“ were not going to fit into the designated space. The logical one to do it was Fran because of her size. But, when it was suggested she shook her head and smiled. Lillian just stepped right up and asked how we wanted them placed. Bret explained that it would be best to push as many as possible right up under the first step of the stairs. Without any hesitation she squatted down and duck walked into the area. When she got in as far as she could go she turned around and put out her hand to start receiving the boxes. Neither Bret nor I was looking at her hand as she presented an absolutely fantastic view of her crotch. Her knees were at least nine inches apart and even though there wasn’t much light under the stairs there was no mistaking what the white that we were looking at really was.

To be continued...