Betsy
- 2 years ago
- 30
- 0
Betsy took a seat at the head of the conference table in the modular office. Once again, she was dismayed by the barrenness of the office. There were six plain metal desks, three to each side of the room, facing the front door. The chairs were plain ‘office mega-store discount chairs’ that, in her opinion, were just plain ugly and looked uncomfortable. There weren’t any partitions to give even a modicum of privacy.
There were no personalized knickknacks or photographs on the desks. There weren’t any pictures on the walls, except for one large map. It had the locations of all of her businesses, marked by small push pins. She wished they had at least put in a plant, or something to soften the stark appearance of the room, but there wasn’t one.
The interior of the office was not her doing. In fact, it embarrassed her. She had complained about the spartan decor of the office in the past. Based on what she could see, her complaints had been ignored. Now it would be much more difficult, if not impossible, to improve the furnishings.
Everyone ... four women and two men ... was at their desks getting ready for the briefing. On each desk, a printer was busy spitting out pages of reports, complete with tables and graphics documenting the status of her business empire. Heads were down while they were furiously typing stuff into the computers on their desks. She wondered what could have prompted the frantic last minute rush.
The tension in the room was almost palpable. It made her wonder what kind of reputation she had with the people working there. She figured that they assumed she was some kind of ogre or something. She had no idea where they could have gotten that impression, unless it was from Catherine.
She then noticed that there was an exercise bike in the back corner of the room. She moved over to it, climbed on, and started pedaling. She kept up a nice easy pace that wouldn’t stress the capabilities of the bike. Replacements wouldn’t be available for a while.
Only two of the people in the room even looked up at her.
Betsy sighed. She knew they were acting that way because the big boss was there for a briefing and each of them wanted to be noticed, but only in a positive way. They were seeking praise and not criticism. She was rather disappointed. She’d rather have one of them stand up to her in confidence than bow in obsequiousness to a stupid idea.
She looked down at the speedometer, and saw that she was pedaling at forty miles per hour. She eased back her pace while trying to think pleasant thoughts. She thought about Chuck. For a few minutes, she was lost in a wonderful daydream about the previous evening spent with him. Her eyes glanced down to the engagement ring around her finger. Her smile grew so large that she looked like a maniac, grinning while pedaling madly on the bike.
The soft whoosh of the door closing interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see Charlie, carrying a portable hard drive. Charlie was looking around the room at the frantic activity. Looking pleased with what she was seeing, Charlie was nodding her head in approval. Betsy hoped that Charlie’s management style wasn’t as harsh as it appeared.
Charlie went over to Betsy and said, “You’re early.”
“I figured that I’d spend a few minutes getting to know folks,” Betsy said.
She knew very little about the people in the room and felt guilty about that. Between her romance, work, and research, the past few months had been very busy. Living and working on Oahu meant that she didn’t have a chance to see them except on weekends and they weren’t around on weekends.
“There will be plenty of time for that,” Charlie said.
She went over to a computer and fiddled with the machine to get it started. She plugged the hard drive into it and watched while the operating system recognized it.
“Before or after the meeting?” Betsy asked.
“Either,” Charlie answered.
Betsy said, “I’d like to get to know them before we get down to business.”
“Fine,” Charlie said glancing over at Betsy.
She went over to the utility cabinet and pulled out the conference phone. She put the phone in the center of the conference table.
Betsy asked, “Can I help with anything?”
“No. Everything is under control.”
Betsy shook her head. She got off the bike and returned to take a seat at the head of the conference table. With her elbow on the table, she rested her chin on the palm of her left hand. She looked bored, but actually was unhappy with what she was seeing.
Charlie finished setting up the room for the meeting. She looked around at everyone at their desks and then up at the clock.
At exactly one minute before the hour, she announced, “Let’s get this show on the road, folks.”
Moving almost as one, everyone got up from their desks, grabbed a stack of papers, and moved over to the conference table. Betsy watched them and shook her head. Thoughts of The Stepford Wives flashed through her mind. The printers were still belching pages.
Once everyone sat down, Charlie said, “Let’s work our way across the country from east to west.”
“Let’s not,” Betsy said getting up from her chair surprising everyone.
“Why not?” Charlie asked.
Instead of answering, Betsy walked over to the supply cabinet and removed a pad of paper and a pen. She returned to her seat and started tearing off sheets of paper from the pad. After taking a sheet of paper, she handed the stack of loose sheets to Charlie and said, “Take one and pass it around.”
Betsy folded her sheet of paper lengthwise. She then wrote her name on it. She carefully placed it on the table in front of herself.
“Hello. My name is Betsy. As you can see by what I’ve written on my little piece of paper, here, you can call me Betsy. If that seems a little informal to you, then you can call me ... Betsy.”
Charlie colored a little from embarrassment. She hadn’t thought to introduce everyone and forgotten Betsy’s request even in the short time between Betsy suggesting that she have a chance to talk to everyone at the start of the meeting. She didn’t realize that Betsy didn’t really know any of them. She folded the paper lengthwise, wrote her name on it, and placed it in front of herself.
“Don’t you mean, Ms. Carter?” one of the women asked.
“No. The only name on my card, is Betsy. I don’t see Carter anywhere on it,” Betsy said while leaning over to read the her name upside down.
“Okay,” the woman said thinking this wasn’t exactly what she was expecting.
Charlie grabbed her card and scratched off her last name, before putting it back in front of her. The others around the table made little name cards with their first names on it.
Once everyone had a name card in front of them, Betsy said, “Let me introduce myself a little more formally. I’m Betsy. I’m the big cheese ... the head honcho ... the big kahuna ... the lord and master of all that I survey. I’m sure that you’ll all have nightmares about today’s meeting, for years. We’ll accept that as a given and get on to the business of introducing yourselves to me.
“Charlie, it’s nice to see you again. Tell us a little about yourself.”
Charlie stared at Betsy. She stuttered for a second and then said, “I’m Charlie. If she’s the big kahuna, then I’m the little kahuna.”
Betsy asked, “What kind of hobbies do you have?”
“Uh ... I don’t really have any hobbies.”
“Have you thought about taking up knitting? I’ve been considering it,” Betsy said.
“No,” Charlie said, looking puzzled.
“I guess I can understand why you wouldn’t. There really isn’t much of a need for sweaters in Hawaii.”
“Right.”
“Where are you from originally?”
“Ohio.”
“That’s interesting. Did you ever visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland?” Betsy asked.
“Once. It was nice.”
“So how did a nice Ohio girl end up in Hawaii?” Betsy asked.
Charlie stared at Betsy knowing that she knew exactly how she ended up there.
She answered, “I joined the Marines, I got shot, I got sent to the hospital in Oahu, I heard about this job, and stayed here after I was discharged from active duty.”
“That’s an amazing story,” Betsy said. She turned to the woman seated next to Charlie and said, “I see that your name is Marge. Tell me a little about yourself.”
“I’m Marge and ... uh ... I work here,” Marge said.
“What did you do before coming to work here?” Betsy asked.
“I’ve been temping ever since I graduated college.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“University of Hawaii.”
“I go there, too. I’m studying sharks. What did you study?”
“Business,” Marge answered.
“Are you learning anything on this job?” Betsy asked.
“More than I ever learned in school. A lot of my professors talked and acted like they knew a lot about business, but I doubt any of them could have done a thousandth of what you’ve done, here,” Marge answered.
“Well, there’s theory and then there’s practice. You’ve got to know both,” Betsy said.
“I figured that out, real quick. I don’t think a single one of my professors ever gave a moment of thought to what would happen when money became meaningless,” Marge said.
“I don’t think anyone did.”
“You did.”
“I was lucky,” Betsy said avoiding just how much she knew, how much she had figured out, and how far off some of her guesses had been.
“I don’t think luck had much to do with it.”
Betsy said, “Who knows? Robert, tell us a little about yourself.”
“Well, I’m Robert. I was salesman at a shop in the mall after graduating from college. It was the only job I could find, at the time. I’d still be there, probably, except it went out of business about two years ago. I started temping, and landed this job here. I’ve got to admit that the day I got this job was the luckiest day of my life.”
“What kind of store?”
“What?”
“What kind of store did you work in?” Betsy asked.
“It was a mattress store.”
“Was it a good job?”
“It wasn’t that bad. Folks who came in looking for a mattress, were looking for a mattress. I would basically take the order. Most of the time it was kind of quiet. I guess it was the fact that it was quiet, is the reason the store went out of business.”
Betsy said, “That would be a safe bet.”
“Yeah.”
“Sherry, tell us a bit about yourself,” Betsy said.
“My ex-husband was a drunk. He killed a family in a car accident, and now he’s in jail. I divorced him, and came to Hawaii on vacation. I loved it here so much, that I moved here and got a job with the temp firm,” Sherry replied.
“How long had you been married?” Betsy asked.
“Two and a half long years.”
“I take it that the marriage wasn’t a happy one.”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Betsy said.
“Hey, I’m a lot happier now.”
Betsy said, “Hello, Carol. Tell us a little about yourself.”
“There’s not much to say. I’m a high school graduate, and got a job in an office as a clerk. The office went belly up, and I became a temp.”
“Are you married?” Betsy asked.
“No.”
“I’m engaged to be married,” Betsy said.
Carol replied, “I don’t want to be married. If I want to get laid, I go to Oahu and screw a tourist. He goes back to the mainland and brags about having bagged a local, and I go home happy that he’s not going home with me. I’m happy the way I am.”
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” Betsy said.
“Do I shock you?”
“Not really. I’ve heard a lot of girls in college talk the same way,” Betsy said.
“Good for them.”
Betsy said, “Ann?”
“I’m Ann and I used to work as a temp. Now I work for you.”
“Any hobbies?”
“No.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“I watch recordings of my soap operas.”
“That’s it?”
Ann shrugged her shoulders.
“Jerry, would you like to tell us about yourself?”
Jerry said, “I got a degree in English, and discovered just how much people value a degree in English. I got a job as a temp.”
“Do you have any hobbies?” Betsy asked.
“I play tennis and I read.”
“What kinds of things do you like to read?”
Jerry said, “I like to read just about everything.”
Betsy asked, “That’s good. Have you read much that would be of help in this situation we find ourselves?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame,” Betsy said.
“Literature usually deals with more human issues, than societal ones.”
“I guess so, although my brother would argue that science fiction often deals with societal issues. I’ve never really thought about it.”
Jerry said, “Outside of that, I’m a pretty boring guy.”
“I doubt that. I guess we should get on to the business part of this meeting,” Betsy said. “What do you think, Charlie?”
Charlie said, “Yes. I guess I should explain that we’ve broken your holdings into six regions. Everyone here has responsibility for one region. We have broken the East Coast into two parts, the north and south. There is the eastern region, central region, western region, and west coast. The central region also includes your international holdings. The west coast region includes Hawaii.”
“That seems reasonable,” Betsy said.
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Sweating profusely, Betsy wrestled the fifty-five gallon steel drum down the ramp from the ‘Bloated Shark’ to the dock. The wooden ramp creaked under the strain of the load. Forty-five gallons of salt water weighed over three hundred and eighty pounds. It was a little too bulky and heavy for even Betsy to carry. The Bloated Shark was the name she had given the tugboat she had purchased for a research platform. When she had found it, it was just an old tug that had seen better days. It had...
“Hello,” the man said when Betsy stepped into the instrument room on the tug. He was big as a mountain, with tattoos that ran the full length of his arms. His legs were the size of tree trunks. His hair was cut short, and he had a scar on his chin that gave him the appearance that he ate small babies for breakfast. He was holding a screwdriver in his hand, which was pointed in her general direction. “Who are you?” “I’m Paul.” “Well, Paul, what are you doing on my boat?” “I work for Dr....
Betsy stood atop the building looking down at the people below. Several people were looking up at her, thinking that she was going to jump. She smiled, backed up a few steps, and then ran forward and off of the roof. She spread her arms and legs wide while gravity made its presence known. The people below screamed thinking they were about to see her splatter on the sidewalk. She was only on a four story building, so it wouldn’t have been that great of a splatter, but people aren’t rational...
Betsy waded ashore. She had a large fish, which she held by its tail, slung over her shoulder nearly to her waist. It was flopping around, but she ignored its motions. Once away from the water, she dropped the fish on the sand and removed the rebreather from her back. Then she knelt down, and with her knife, filleted the fish. It didn’t take long for her to remove several nice fillets from the fish. She took a minute to wash the fish filets off in the ocean as well as return the innards to...
Once the family left, Betsy and the staff settled into the process of learning to live together. There were quirks to learn and preferences to discover. The house, with its wide open spacious rooms, was designed to give great views of the exotic landscape. It did not promote privacy, particularly with six people living in the house. Betsy was willing to drop her clothes without a moment’s notice, and head out to the beach. She was just as likely to wear clothes around the house as not. About...
In the process of selling the idea of their filtration system, Jake and John Widmeir had made two interesting discoveries. The first was that Betsy Carter had almost limitless energy. They had been told that, but seeing was believing. She could keep going long after everyone else collapsed from exhaustion. There had been one funny little incident in which a cocksure kid had thought he could keep up with her, in the workout room of the hotel. She had walked out bubbly and full of energy,...
Carl had no real idea where he was. Upon learning that he was single and lived alone; Betsy’s father, Ed, had insisted on taking him to the Carter home, where Carl would get around the clock care. It was an offer that Carl found nearly impossible to turn down. It wasn’t that Carl was concerned about the care he would receive in the hospital; but what would happen after he was discharged, was an issue. There was no one at his apartment to take care of him, and he wasn’t about to ask one of his...
Head buried in her closet, Betsy was tossing clothes out left and right. Charlie and Alice were standing at the door watching her. They were a little amused by her behavior. Alice said, “I do believe that Betsy is in a tizzy.” “Tizzy? Yes, she does look like a person in a tizzy,” Charlie said. “It could be a dither,” Alice said. “No. It’s definitely a tizzy, not a dither,” Charlie said. “I wonder why she’s in a tizzy?” Betsy growled and then muttered, “I’ll show them a tizzy.” “I have...
Charlie was seated at the desk in her office inside the house, watching Betsy fidget in her chair. They had returned from the capital the previous day. It was necessary to get caught up on all of the work that had accumulated over the past few days. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken nearly as long as she expected to get caught up on the business aspects of Betsy’s life. The staff had taken care of nearly everything in their absence. She looked down at Betsy’s calendar for a moment, flipped...
The modern person, who has lived a significant percentage of their life in a digital economy, can not imagine what life would be like without checks, credit cards, debit cards, and online banking. Mortgages, rent, utilities, and insurance are paid with check or by electronic transfer. Large purchases and consumer goods are paid with credit cards, or checks. Plastic is not reserved only for big items. People will whip out a credit or debit card to pay for a five dollar lunch, or a cup of...
With Sally away on her honeymoon, Betsy was at loose ends. After Chuck’s kidnapping, she just didn’t want to take off for the ocean for a week at a time. At this point, it wasn’t necessary. She had all of the biological data necessary for her dissertation. All that was missing was sufficient tracking data to support her arguments and time would take care of that. She didn’t need to tag any more sharks since she had already tagged far more of them than was necessary for her dissertation. For...
Ling said, “You look like hell.” “I’ve been around your daughter for a couple of days,” Gary replied pointedly. He tried to count the days, but they all ran into a blur of move and move and move. He had never been so tired in his life. Trying to keep up with Betsy was a constant effort. She was always in motion and that required him to always be in motion. The normal human being wasn’t built for that level of activity. “You should get some rest,” Kelly said. Gary pointed at Ling and said,...
In what has to be one of the greatest plays on words of all time, Mark Twain wrote: ‘Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.’ “This can’t possibly be happening. It’s impossible. I just won’t accept it.” Everyone has observed denial at work. Everyone has experienced denial for him or her self. Denial is a universal experience. One can deny it, but that denial rather proves the point. Denial is an unavoidable consequence of how the human mind works. The human mind makes gross generalizations...
In the short time she had worked for Betsy, life for Charlie had been interesting. Still unable to get around with any kind of ease, Charlie was more than happy to sit behind the desk and take care of the hundreds of little things, that had been ignored by Betsy. She’d been stunned to discover that Betsy hadn’t even bothered to open a local bank account. She had been shocked one day, to discover a past due statement buried with the stack of mail that had accumulated over a couple of weeks....
Betsy was pacing around outside the construction site. The site engineer (Stan Kubrick) and one of the foremen (Jim Franklin) were there with her, wondering why she had literally dragged them away from their homes. Chuck was standing under a palm, enjoying the shade, while George was nervously licking his lips. A man wandered by and stared at the group for a second. Finally, he approached and said, “Hey, Jim!” “Hello, Kirk.” “What are you doing here?” Kirk asked. He had been working on...
Betsy stood in front of the little stand that was selling meat. The stand had once been a little souvenir hut that had sold glitzy trinkets to tourists. It had a fake grass roof, giving it a kind of hokey appearance that tourists expected of a tropical island. She wondered where it had come from, but wasn’t interested enough to ask. A bird flew overhead and landed upon a branch of a nearby bush. She turned to look at it. It was a red crested cardinal. Like many of the more common birds on...
Betsy skipped down the hallway pausing to read the sign on each door. The other students in the hallway would move over to the other side to avoid getting hit by the jump rope. She stopped in front of one of the doors and read the name off the nameplate aloud, “Sally Tilton.” She stepped back nearly hitting a student with her jump rope and read the sign on the door aloud, “Keep out.” She stopped swinging the rope around, but kept up the jumping motion while knocking on the door. She called...
Betsy paced the floor, criss-crossing the living room in her house. Fortunately, the house was built with a wide open spacial style that allowed her a lot of room to move. If the room had been a bit smaller, she would have been bouncing off the walls ... literally, not figuratively. Not for the first time since returning to the house that morning, she asked, “Where is he?” “I don’t know,” Charlie answered without having to ask who he was. “Why isn’t Gary here?” “He had to go to the...
With the destruction of the economy, a number of things had changed in the world. One, which almost no one would even think about, was the disappearance of certain specialty shops, of which bridal stores were a good example. There just wasn’t a place to buy what had become a traditional wedding gown. What few dresses had remained on the shelves of stores at the time of the collapse had long since disappeared. Young couples getting married now tended to wear nice dresses and suits. The new...
The desert stretches from horizon to horizon, existing in both time and space. One man gazes upon it and sees paradise. Another man gazes upon the same scene and only sees desolation. One desert, two men, and three entirely different worlds. It is not a mystery why people argue and bicker over nearly everything. If two people can’t agree on something as vast and as timeless as a desert, why should it be a surprise if they can’t agree on much of anything? The variations in preferences of even...
Charlie was wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair. As with a lot of patients, she had argued that it wasn’t necessary, except that it was. Her prosthetic was packed away in her luggage, which Betsy was carrying. Either the infection had been a little more aggressive than she had thought, or she had really been a lot more tired than she had felt. She was so weak that she was afraid that she might not be able to use the crutches she’d been given. Once they were outside, Betsy handed the...
Tight-lipped, Ed stared at the man. Talking with him was a constant assault on his truth sense. The longer he talked, the worse the lies got. It was as if one lie emboldened the next. Ed said, “She was drugged.” “The test results were lost,” the man said with a smirk. Ed’s truth sense stabbed him in the brain upon hearing the lie. He said, “Quit lying.” “I’m not lying. They were lost.” “She was drugged, and you know it!” Ed shouted. The man replied, “She chewed his arm off and beat him...
Chuck wandered over to the security center and office building construction site, searching for Gary. The building was still a long ways from finished, but he could imagine what it would look like when it would be completed. The foundation was in place, the framing was complete, and some of the exterior walls had been added. Chuck found Gary inspecting the building. Gary was checking to make sure that nothing that didn’t belong had been added to the walls. There were folks who would be...
Chuck was seated in the backyard passing the time by watching a couple of birds working together in building a nest. Watching them build a structure for the results of their mating reminded him that he was going to be married soon. He was looking forward to the event without the kind of nervousness that plagued many grooms. There was only one downside – he wished his parents were still alive to see him get married. He wished his parents could have met Betsy. He was sure they would have loved...
Sally walked into the room thinking that she had made a horrible mistake. There were a lot of people, none of whom she recognized, moving around. She grabbed Gary’s arm to prevent being separated from him. Betsy had disappeared somewhere into the heart of the party. It was a typical frat party – a lot of testosterone driven young men, scantily dressed young women, too much booze, not enough light; and loud music, which made talking impossible. The air had the lingering hint of a sickly sweet...
The sound of waves crashing along the beach provided a background noise that Betsy found particularly relaxing. She was sitting tailor fashion on the beach, looking out across the ocean at the distant horizon. This was about as calm as Betsy could appear to act. It truly was an appearance of calm rather than true calm. She was digging two holes. She was excavating one hole with each hand, and using the sand in the other hand to fill it in again. The strength required to shove her hands into...
By the morning after the altercation with Kyle, the swelling in Carl’s face had reduced to the point where he could see again. His nose was still tender, but most of the pain was gone. It was hard to believe that Kyle had been able to hurt him so badly, with just two punches. He’d been beaten up a few times in high school, but that had been nothing compared to the previous day. He had awakened that morning to find Betsy, wearing a knee-length skirt and white blouse, seated in a chair reading...
Ling, pulling Cal behind her by his ear, followed Millie and Melvin out of the plane. Betsy was inside with Kelly and the rescuers planning how to free the two men trapped in the chairs. Jimmy was over by the fire piling branches on it after getting it restarted. Ed was with him giving him pointers on the care and management of a good campfire. Ling threw Cal to the ground. Looking at Millie, she asked, “What’s the story with him?” “He’s an asshole,” Millie answered. “I figured that much...
“I agree. I will see what I can do to convince a certain young man to become a caretaker.” Harry stood behind the young man watching him. Unable to keep silent any longer, Harry said, “You’re talking to a mongoose.” “I know,” the young man answered. “They don’t talk back,” Harry said making reference to the weird one sided conversation he’d been listening to. “You don’t know that. In fact, she’s quite talkative,” the young man said while rising from his kneeling position to face...