Chapter 43: Interesting Times

After a nice early lunch they all travel to Doña Ana to go to Midday Mass as a group. They all go to Hector’s regular church because all his family go there with him and the others have no concerns about what church they attend. They’re all happy to be going to church together. Hector is happy when he introduces Kyle to the priest as his Patrón when they stop to chat after the afternoon service.

The congregation is all of Mexican descent, except for the Anglos in Kyle’s group. The priest is happy to learn Hector’s Patrón is attending church with his people, especially when he finds out most of his new members work for Kyle.

Father Victor asks Kyle, “Is there a special reason you hire so many of Mexican descent?”

Kyle grins when he replies, “I’ve a very simple process of hiring people. I tell Hector what’s needed in the way of skills and he finds someone to do the job by asking people he knows. I trust Hector’s judgment and hire those he brings to me. As you can see, not all of those he’s suggested are Mexicans, because he knows I’m only concerned about the type of person they are and their skills. I find this is good, as all of the people get on well together, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be listed by those who’ve recommended them.”

The priest smiles as he replies, “It’s good to see so many more new families here. And the work you’ve had done is good for the people.”

Kathleen and Kyle spend the rest of the day relaxing and working on their study projects. Oddly enough they do find their college work to be very relaxing for them at the moment.

Monday morning they’re up early for a dawn breakfast and a walk around the compound. Then back to work on their projects. When the children arrive back from school in the mid-afternoon they take a break from their studies to go horse riding with some of them. Just a short ride of an hour or so into the next valley and back. After dinner is more studies and Tuesday is a repeat of Monday.

Wednesday morning they talk as they eat and watch the dawn. They decide to take in all the completed work they have on hand, which is a lot. They’ve now done about eighty percent of their work for the year and they’re both well ahead of schedule. All of their joint projects are finished too.

Just after 09:00 hours in the morning they inform Sonny they need to go into El Paso and will be there most of the day. Sonny turns up in their original Suburban they got from Doctor Narduchi. He has Nina, Maria, and Nick with him as extra security. Both Kyle and Kathleen smile and get in the middle seat of the car; they know there’s no point in arguing. All the seats have two people in them, giving them a good distribution of weight and fire power - if needed.

The drive to El Paso is trouble free so they soon arrive at the college. Sonny drops them off with Nina accompanying Kathleen and Nick with Kyle; they just accept the need for the security and go with the flow. It takes about another hour to get around to all of their professors’ offices. They hand in all of the completed material and have it checked off on the sheets as being submitted, all of it ahead of time. They take a break to have lunch at CyberFun and Beverley brings them up to date on the happenings there. She also brings them up to date on Ryan’s life; he’s settled in well with his father and the new college campus.

After lunch is a visit to see how things are going with Stanley and the businesses. He’s very happy to see them as he has more papers for them to sign and he needs to update them on how things are going.

When they arrive Stanley shows them through to their joint office and sits them down at a double desk to sign the papers he has ready. Kyle reads them and signs them before handing them to KK to sign. She scans them and signs them before handing them to Stanley.

Stanley has a huge grin and says, “Kyle, you remember telling the people over at MoM to get right on to looking for the super computers and getting those new very high bandwidth lines put in?” Kyle nods as he wonders where he’s going with this. “Well, they found a good deal on the computers, but it was for a set of five at what’s about half off if we buy straight away; so I bought them. The Telco was very happy to get the work order and got right on it. They actually ran six lines in: two sets of three cables from two different directions. If someone rips up one set the system switches over to the other. I agreed as we only had to pay for the laying of four cables. But we’ve all six connected and in use just to make sure they’re always working. We’re all surprised at how quick they were at putting them in. All they did was have a robot drag them through the same pipes the T fours are in; and hey presto, all done!” He still has a look like a Cheshire cat, so Kyle wonders what’s still to come.

KK asks, “OK, what’s the big grin for?”

Stanley replies, “It’s a good thing all that work was done so fast as we needed it as soon as it was in place. The new gear was OK for a few days and then it started to get swamped, so your tech people brought the Crays on-line as soon as they arrived. They also bought some more gear to help manage and share the load. They’ve one T four and the gear you originally had for the free accounts handling the Basic and Standard accounts as those are the two smallest groups. All of the other gear, except the Crays, are on the other three T fours to handle the Free accounts. The five Crays are set up to use all six of the new O C seven six eight fiber optic cables for the Premium accounts, with one of the Crays off-line in back-up mode. The control system is set up to use only four of the five and it can immediately switch over to use the fifth if one of the others goes down. All are constantly updated with all of the needed information. We also increased the RAM memory and doubled the hard drive storage on all of the systems. It was all needed so fast we can’t work out how or why. The site growth has made the term viral seem totally inadequate in describing its growth!”

A stunned Kyle responds, “I didn’t think we’d need that gear for several months! How many memberships do we now have?”

Stanley has a real big grin when he says, “OK, we made a change on the free side too. There’s a free anonymous access area, also a free account with a log-in when you supply a valid e-mail address. As of Friday at noon there were just over seventy thousand Free Log-in Accounts with nearly one hundred thousand Basic accounts, almost two hundred thousand Standards, and just under eight million Premium accounts with access to over one million image files of various types. Rounding off to the nearest million, site income to date is eight hundred and thirty million dollars. About eighty million of it is revenue for this month; the rest is subscriptions in advance, a liability of seven hundred and fifty million. Extra service charges of about twelve million are the difference between the subs and the revenue. So far all of the costs have been met from the cash flow without any borrowings needed. The liabilities income is in secure investments. I’ve asked an audit company to check everything over for us to make sure we’re OK for taxes etcetera. No one can believe how fast this has grown.”

Kyle and Kathleen are stunned by this. After a moment KK asks, “Are the on-site staff aware of the how much we’ve made this month?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re aware of the revenue, due to the membership numbers. But how much it means for their pockets, I don’t think the link’s been made by them yet.” He emphasizes the last word

Kyle grins and pulls out his phone to make a call. It’s answered, and he says, “Morning, Anna, it’s Kyle. How are things going?”

“Hi, Kyle. It’s a good thing you got us onto those bigger lines and computers as we’ve needed them already. We now have almost eight and a half million accounts of one type or another, but the new set up can handle five times that. We also have another seventeen techs to help us manage it twenty-four by seven. What can I do for you today?”

“I’ve got a simple question. You know your original group set up a company and have twenty percent of the shares in the site! Can you ask them how they feel about us introducing a profit sharing bonus scheme for all non-share holder staff to have an equal division of two percent of the monthly profits for each full month of employment, based on the calendar month, plus a ten percent profit payout for the owners?”

“I think they’d go for that! I’ll ask and I’ll call you back in a minute. But I’d like to suggest this first part month be treated as a full month, since all of the new staff were hired within a few days of each other and helped us get through the startup chaos.”

“That sounds OK to me! Check with the others, please.” He hangs up to look at KK and Stanley, both have huge grins.

Stanley walks out of the office, returning a few minutes later with several pages in his hand. He waves the papers, saying, “Costs to date are capital purchases, utilities, contractor fees, and wages. The capital costs are amortized over several years. With an allowance for taxes and overheads, the estimated profit for this month is just on thirty-eight million. Two percent means you’re talking about bonuses totaling to about three quarters of a million dollars to split between twenty non shareholder staff. Hell! That’s over thirty-seven thousand dollars each as a bonus for this month, and each following month will be the same, or more. May I suggest we give an estimated bonus each month with a final adjustment when the full quarter taxes and figures are done?”

“OK, Stanley, that makes good sense in case we missed something in the calculations.” Kyle reaches for the papers and is skimming down the pages of the financial reports when his phone rings and he answers it. A moment’s delay then he says, “Well, Anna, I’m glad they agree. I’ll have Stanley write up something and fax it over for signature right now.” He grins when Stanley starts writing it. “OK! since we’re all in accordance, we’ll do it with an adjustment at the end of each quarter for the full quarter and the final owner profit sharing at the end of the year after we deduct what we think we need to reinvest. Thus, according to the financial reports in my hand the staff can look forward to a bonus of thirty thousand dollars less government deductions each and your company will get a profit share of three quarters of a million dollars to distribute. Do you like those figures?”

There’s dead silence on the phone for a moment, then Anna asks, “Are you sure on those figures?”

Kyle replies, “Very sure. Happy you’re working with us now, are you? The final end of year profit sharing should look after the taxes for you, so you can afford to get a new pair of shoes now.”

Anna laughs, “Yes, I can! Once the money arrives. I think I’ll wait until the end of the shift to tell all the others, or nothing will get done around here. Thanks, Kyle. In a few weeks you’ve taken us from rags to riches; literally.”

“Right! I’ll get the accounts staff onto making those payments today so they can show as separate to their regular pay for the week.” A few more words are exchanged, and they hang up.

Kyle and Stanley discuss how things are going with setting up for the trips to the Mansion. The work in Dallas is almost finished, but they still have to finish the other end of the flight. Just as they’re finishing the receptionist walks in to tell them a courier is there for Kyle.

All three walk out to find two guys in FedEx uniforms are waiting with two trolleys of boxes. One holds up an electronic tablet and asks, “Kyle Alexander or Stanley Patterson, ID please?”

Kyle pulls out his wallet and shows the man his ID while he reads the tablet. He puts it down and says, “I’ll sign when I check them all. It says here you have fifty-two boxes and an envelope.”

The man nods, “Yep, fifty-two boxes like these and an envelope. Now where do you want them?” After a short discussion they’re taken into the office for Kyle and Kathleen, where the two men start stacking the boxes against the wall with the numbers on their sides facing out. It takes them several minutes to bring them all up with only seven on a trolley at a time, but they’re soon all stacked in numerical order. So Kyle signs the man’s tablet and accepts the envelope.

Kyle smiles when he opens the envelope and sees this is the patents stuff from Mac. One item per box with full documentation on it for the US Patents people with a working model. The envelope has a summary of what’s in each box, so he can leave it closed until he wants to lodge it.

Kyle discusses it all with Stanley and hands him the papers to get the items lodged by the patent attorney Stanley found, due to an earlier request for one by Kyle. He adds, “Stanley, make sure the man applies for patents here, worldwide patents, and for any country they think we best get extras for. Such as Europe, Japan, and Korea for the computer related ones.” Stanley agrees to get right on it and to handle it through the new company Kyle asked him to set up for them.

Kathleen and Kyle leave for home right after Kyle and Stanley visit Morgan Accounting to tell them to organize the bonus and dividend payments as soon as they can process them.

About thirty minutes after Kyle called her Anna checks the bank account for the limited partnership company of her friends and herself, they called it 8Ply, as there’s eight of them in the company, and she sees a payment for $756,000. She smiles and walks off to talk to the others about how much to payout now. They agree to let Anna workout a figure of about two thirds of the payment and to leave the rest for later. After ten minutes of playing with figures Anna has it rounded out to an immediate payment of $60,000 each. Since she has the authority codes to make payments from the company bank account she makes the transfers to the individual accounts before taking the sheet with her calculations around to be signed off by the others. All are very happy with the payments because it really helps them sort out their finances.

Anna has them all sign, only because she rang and had the ones who were off shift come in to sign the papers and personally tell them about the payment. They’re now employed as shift supervisors to oversee hired technical staff while working the three shifts per day over seven days, plus scheduled shifts off. Anna and Julie are the shift supervisors of the two shifts of administration staff who work to cover Monday to Friday from seven in the morning to eleven at night to have people on hand during the work day across the whole of the USA. Anna finishes at 3:15 p.m. and heads to her parents’ home for a family dinner tonight.

While driving home Anna thinks on how this money will help so many people right now, many more than just those who are being paid. All the staff have been friends for a long time, which is why they were hired. She knows all of them will use part of the money to help out their families, like she intends to do.

Moving off from a set of lights the car engine starts to misbehave, again, and it reminds her she should get a new car. This one hasn’t done too bad for the six years she’s had it, but it was well beyond its ’use by’ date when she bought it and it’s been getting worse since then. But it was all she could afford at the time. This sets her to thinking about what to buy, as she can now afford a new car.

Ten minutes later Anna is approaching a Suzuki dealership and she notices they have two small cars at the front of the yard with signs on them saying: ’Special sale on this car - come in and make us an offer.’ So she pulls up and parks just past the dealership.

Anna walks back to look both cars over. Both are the same model, Suzuki SX4 sedans (one is light blue and one bright red in color), both with lots of accessories fitted. They’re obviously demonstrator vehicles because they have three months registration left with less than four thousand miles on them. She checks out the rest of the yard and notices these are the last two of this model they have. She knows the base model sells for just on $14,000 on the road and with these accessories they should be up to near the $18,000 mark, if brand new. But these are demonstrators and should be a lot cheaper.

One of the sales staff walks over to ask if he can help her, she smiles when she nods at the cars while asking, “What’s the best deal you can do for me if I take both these off your hands today?”

He grins and says, “Thirty thousand for both as they stand.”

She shakes her head, “Nice try, but my Uncle Dave runs a Ford yard over in Houston and I can get a better deal than that on new Fords from him. Get serious, or I’m walking.” The salesman isn’t happy. She adds, “These are demos, so I’ll offer you twenty thousand for them both.”

He starts to argue, so she turns, and walks away. When she passes the front of the glass showroom the door opens and an older man walks out. He asks, “Excuse me, Miss. What happened in the yard? I saw you looking over those two cars and then walk away after the salesman spoke to you.”

She stops to look him over for a moment before saying, “I want a newer car and I thought one of those might do. When I saw they were demonstrator cars I thought I could do a deal and get my sister her first car at the same time. The salesman obviously thought he could get me to pay anything and offered the two for thirty thousand. I know cars and how dealerships work. Some summers I used to help out my Uncle Dave at his Ford yard in Houston. I offered twenty thousand and he got angry. So I’m walking out.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t try to negotiate calmly with you. I own this yard and I know we can’t sell the two for only twenty thousand due to the cost of the financing and such. Then there’s the risk with the trade in.”

Anna smiles, “Look, I’m prepared to work a deal, but not be robbed. How much for both vehicles, no trade in, straight cash payment?”

His eyes go wide. “Please come in and let me check a few things. The absolute best I can do for you is twenty-three thousand for the two, but I’m sure I can sweeten the deal. I can’t go below the book value on the cars, no matter what. But I can throw some extras in. OK?” She nods yes and follows the man inside the showroom.

They enter an office in the corner and he gets out some records. The final deal is $24,000 for both vehicles with the dealership providing all services and usual service parts for free for the next fifteen months, they pay for re-registration and insurance due in a few months, 100 gallons of fuel from their pump, and will deliver the vehicles to her home later today for her. As soon as they sign the paperwork Anna calls her bank and gives them the codes to make the funds transfer to the dealership. They shake hands and she leaves. As she drives off she wonders if the first salesman will still have a job in the morning since she wasn’t that hard to deal with once they got to the dickering.

Arriving at her parents’ house Anna parks up beside the garage and not on the street the way she usually does. She walks in to find her mother busy with the preparations for dinner and her siblings studying at the dinner table. After greeting everyone she asks her next eldest sister for a private talk in the study where the two family computers are kept; one for the kids and one for the parents.

Once in the study Anna asks, “How’s things going with your college registration, Debbie?”

Deborah replies, “You know we’ve decided it’s best I do the first year as a live-in student in the dorm so I can settle into the different style of study and learning!” Anna nods. “I’ve lodged my application and we’ve got until the end of this month to lock in my registration by paying the two thousand dollar one sixth accommodation fee deposit, or the ten thousand dollar discount fee for the year. Mom and Dad have been saving, but they don’t have enough for the deposit yet.”

“Got your invoice with the payment codes handy, Sis?” Debbie nods yes. “Well, go get it. I got an unexpected bonus today. I’ll get that out of the way because it’s very important.” Debbie smiles while she stands to race off to the get paperwork from her bedroom.

While she’s gone to get that Anna turns to the computer and logs in. She brings up the college website to access her student loan account, asking for a final payout figure. The system has a page to handle that and she gets a figure of $14,527.00 if paid today. She smiles while she processes the payment as an electronic funds transfer (EFT) and gets a receipt number from the college. She prints the page with the receipt number on it and puts the page in her pocket.

Debbie returns with the papers for her registration and hands them to Anna. She’s still on the college site as she went to the same college. So she goes to the right page to make a payment and has fun watching Debbie’s eyes go wide when she pays the full $10,000 as an EFT. She gets the receipt number and prints out the page. Turning to Debbie she says, “Don’t say a thing until after I tell Mom and Dad!” Debbie nods.

Picking up and putting the receipt into her pocket Anna winks at Debbie when she turns toward the door to go back to join the rest of the family. While they do Anna thinks on how her change of circumstances will change life for her whole family.

At 26 years of age Anna is the eldest of six kids, four girls and two boys. David, her eldest brother, is next at 23 years old; he’s in the Army. Then Debbie at 20, Paul at 17, Elaine is 14, and Mary is about to turn 12. Her parents have two cars which Debbie and Paul borrow as needed. When Anna and David moved out of home it meant the other kids could now have a room each, which made life a lot better for them.

Anna grins as they enter the dining room and she says, “Paul, come help me clear out my car, please.” He smiles and gets up, only too happy to leave his history homework for a few minutes. As they walk to the car she adds, “I’m getting a new car and this old thing was worth nothing as a trade in, so you get it as a hobby project to rebuild and use as your own car. It needs a lot of work, so you should be kept busy.”

He grins, “Thanks, Anna. I’d have thought Debbie would get the next car!”

“She doesn’t have the mechanical knowledge to keep it going, you do. Anyway, I’ve got that covered as long as Mom and Dad don’t shoot me when I tell them.” They both grin. “I’ll also put up a thousand bucks for the parts you need. After that you’re on your own, unless Dad helps you out.” Paul has a big grin while they empty the car of Anna’s personal effects to take them in the house after he accepts the car keys.

About ten minutes later the front doorbell rings while Anna is in the kitchen chatting with her mother. Elaine answers the door then calls for Anna. When she gets to the door Anna finds out it’s the car dealership owner with her new car keys, both cars are parked in front of the house. The registration and insurance have been placed in her and Debbie’s names, as asked for and agreed. The cars are right to go. She thanks him when she accepts the keys. They shake hands and he gets in a third car to go back to his dealership. She turns to wink at Elaine who’s standing by the door and wondering what’s up, because he only asked for Anna and she only thanked him when he handed her the keys.

Anna gets a call on her cell phone it’s Kyle saying, “Anna, there’s a news report about MoM tonight. Please let the others know the money is coming out of my dividends, not yours. OK?” She agrees and he hangs up. She’s left wondering what it’s about while she calls the others.

Just before six o’clock her father arrives home. He walks in the door, crosses straight to the television, and turns it on. The usual house rule is no TV until after dinner. He calls out, “Sorry, dear! I just have to see how a certain local television station handles some news.” This must relate to his work for the Texas Education Agency. The kids take up seats to watch the news. They all glance at their father, because he has it on a local station that’s very right-wing and religious in its leanings; a station he usually avoids because of their harsh views.

A few minutes later the news starts. The announcer always opens up with the interesting state items first. It’s clear the announcer finds the first item to be a bit funny and all can see he’s trying not to laugh as he says, “The biggest news for Texas tonight is from El Paso. Stanley Patterson, the CEO of the El Paso company Warrior, Pinky, and the Brain LLP announced the company will sponsor ten total support college sponsorships each year for the next ten years, as a minimum. That is ten new scholarships each year for ten years. The terms are unusual in the company is asking high school teachers to recommend students who work hard to get good grades, but not good enough for a grades based scholarships and whose parents can’t afford to pay for them to go to college. The scholarships will be for ten Texas school students to go to any college in the US and it will cover fees, accommodation, materials, books, and some money to live on so they can focus on their studies. He also announced their subsidiary, Mansions of Mayhem, will fund ten scholarships for Texas students to go to Texan colleges under the same terms and conditions. In both cases the student can study any subject, and they’ll also cover post graduate studies for them. This news is completely unexpected by all and is causing some issues for a few of the high schools as Mansions of Mayhem is the company that owns and runs the Dallas based adult website Mistress Eva’s Mansion of Mayhem. The federal and state education authorities welcome these actions and thank both the companies involved for the support.” It’s obvious the announcer finds it funny his employers don’t like this good news.

With that item over the TV is quickly switched to another station where they’re still giving that news item. On this station they have the home page of MoM displayed over the announcer’s shoulder. Anna has a huge grin as her father says, “This is great news, as every business is happy to support the top thinkers. But it’s the hard workers who do so much for this country and this one corporation is pushing hard to help them. I hope others jump on the bandwagon too.” The whole family agrees when he turns the TV off and they head to the table for dinner.

Just after they start on the main meal Anna looks up at her father and says, “Dad, I hope you don’t mind, but the new company I work for is doing so well they decided to pay all of the staff a monthly bonus based on the month’s profit. Just two percent to share between the twenty staff. Also, the owners will share out ten percent of the month’s profit as well. That means I got a nice bonus payment today when they paid it out.”

Her mother looks up and says, “That’s nice, Anna. Don’t go wasting it all on frivolous things! Use it wisely.”

“Oh, I think I am, Mom. I’ve already spent about two thirds of it. I just hope you don’t get mad at me for doing it.”

Her father looks up from his food to ask, “Why should we be mad?”

“Well, I know how much trouble you’ve had saving up the deposit to pay for Debbie’s accommodation. So I paid it today.”

He puts his knife and fork down while he looks hard at his eldest child, “I’d have rather you spent that money to pay part of your student loan, young lady!”

She grins, “Dad, I got paid a lot more than you think. I paid out my student loan first. It’s all paid now and I’m debt free. I didn’t just pay the deposit for Debbie. I paid the full year to get the maximum discount for it.” She enjoys the stunned looks on her parents’ faces. “While we’re at it. I also got a great deal on two demonstrator cars, one for Debbie and one for me. I’m giving Paul my old car and a thousand toward the cost of the parts it needs. That means they both have cars now.”

Her mother slowly lowers her hands to the table while she softly asks, “Just how much did you get, Anna?”

“Well, as one of the eight staff who helped set up the company I get an eighth share of twenty percent of the profits. We had a meeting and decided to only pay out about two thirds of that right now. So I got paid two thirds of one eight of one fifth of the profits for the month. I’ll get roughly the same amount each month for the next twelve months as the company uses a pay in advance annual subscription process with the rest of my share of the profit dividends later in the year. I’m very happy with the sixty thousand dollars I got paid for this month.”

Everyone else at the table is in shock. After a brief moment Debbie giggles and asks, “How long did you practice saying that with a straight face, and get it right, Sis?”

“Most of the afternoon. I got told just after lunch. The business has been in operation for just under a month and has already exceeded all our wildest expectations. The CEO expects us to hit a billion dollars of income sometime during next month. Since most of the costs are capital and amortized over several years the monthly expenses are relatively low for such expensive hardware. We have five super computers and enough other gear to mimic the performance of a sixth. Our majority owner warned us to keep a lot of our dividend money aside, since he expects each of us to have a big income tax bill by the end of the year.”