Page 50 of August
Having arrived at the office, Myra sat down at her desk, opened her laptop, and checked the emails that came directly from the website where people could request an estimate or ask questions. She typically responded to all of these herself because she liked to be in control of the schedule, and she had to approve all estimates anyway, so this was often easier. Shedidhave one comfort advisor, which was a fancy name for a salesperson in the home services industry. About five yearsago, she had gotten an intern for the first time, deciding that she wanted to give back because her internship had helped prepare her for where she was right now. That intern had been twenty-two, just out of their own construction management program, and their goal then had been to become a foreman in the field and own their own company one day. After their internship had been up, though, Myra had needed help with all the estimates and inspections, so she had offered them the job, and after a year, they had told her they wanted to do it full-time as their career. It was a well-paying job that typically got someone home by dinner, and they’d done a good job at it so far, but Myra still had to review all the estimates to check for any errors and to make sure they weren’t under or overcharging.
“Myra?”
She heard her name, but the employee behind her was on the phone with a customer or a potential customer, at least, so it wasn’t her. Myra looked up through the plexiglass that allowed her to see the warehouse outside of her office and saw Jill standing there as well as Rory and Enid. Then, she remembered.
“Oh, hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Jill replied, and the three of them walked around to the door of Myra’s office. “Is now still a good time?”
“Sure. Where’s Mel?”
“She’s holding down the fort since we’re all here. I like to call it her quarterly day to give tours. Now that she’s the big boss of everything, she rarely gets to do tours all day, so she took the busiest ones. We have a part-timer doing the rest and another watching the office while we’re here.”
“I could have watched the office, but I didn’t want to,” Enid offered.
Jill rolled her eyes at her and then looked around.
“So, this is your place?” she asked Myra.
“Yeah, this is it. It’s not much. Mostly, it’s just the office, a break room, and a warehouse for supplies and the trucks to park. Not exciting.”
“It’s exciting to us,” Rory said. “It’s really cool that you own all this.”
“Well, I lease the building, so I don’t exactly own everything,” she replied.
“Take the compliment,” Jill told her, rolling her eyes atherthis time.
Myra laughed and said, “I kind of forgot that you were coming until you all showed up, so I don’t have food or anything. I have bad coffee in the pot in the break room, though. Interested?”
“Not for me. We just had lunch,” Rory said. “Brought you a Po-Boy from your uncle. We told him we were headed here, so he made your favorite.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m starving,” Myra replied, taking the wrapped sandwich from Rory’s outstretched hand.
“So, this is where we could be, right?” Enid asked and pointed to the middle of the open warehouse.
“Yes. The trucks usually park there, but I can have them park outside or even let the guys take them home while you’re working in here. There aren’t any partitions, though, so they’d be walking around and grabbing supplies and tools all around it. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine,” Jill said. “Can we walk around?”
“Yeah, I’ll show you,” Myra replied before she left the sandwich on the desk, stood, and they all walked out of the office and onto the warehouse floor. “So, those shelves are mostly supplies. The guys will be in and out each morning, but they’re not really grabbing things throughout the day. The lumber, tile, and carpet shelves are on the other side and a little out of the way of where you’ll be, so that should be fine.”
“You sell carpet here, too?” Rory asked.
“No, it’s just the stuff we buy for jobs. We store it in the back before we need it when it comes in early, but it usually doesn’t. Typically, it’s late, but we also have some extra stuff back there that clients didn’t want or need, so we buy it back and use it on other jobs. Most of the time, no one will be back there, and I can have them pull their trucks up to the garagedoor that’s between the shelves.” Myra pointed to a closed industrial garage door. “I would only request that you clean up your mess every day. We have people coming in and out all day. I don’t want them slipping or falling on anything in the way.”
“No problem. It’ll only be for a week anyway, but we’ll make sure to clean up every time we leave,” Jill said.
“How many people?” Myra asked.
“About ten,” Jill replied. “The three of us, Mel, probably Kyle, and likely, Willa, because she said it will be fun. I might bring Juni, but she’s only ten, so if she shouldn’t be here, I won’t bring her. Enid?”
“Care wants to help, yeah.”
“And Logan and Candace,” Rory added. “Keith might help, too, if we need him,” she said of Candace’s fiancé.
“Plus, we have a couple of part-timers who might want to help, too,” Jill said. “Is that too many people?”
“No, I just want to make sure that one of you will be here with them at all times. Preferably, you or Mel, Jill, since you’re the manager and she’s the owner of NOLA Guides. For insurance reasons.”
