Sally, Sarah’s mother, drove them to school on Monday. It was the first day of school and they were going to meet with the principal, Ms. Schott, and the counselor, Mrs. Sizemore, to go over the girls’ new class schedule. Ruth Lessner arrived while they were waiting to be called in for the meeting. She was taking Marks place since he was involved in the tour at MSI.
Ashley saw that Ms. Schott recognized Aunt Ruth when they entered the room. “Ms. Schott, Mrs. Sizemore, this is my aunt, Ruth Lessner. There is a tour at MSI for the Secretary of Defense so my grandfather, Mark Sawyer is unable to be here this morning.”
Ruth also had realized the problem that her notoriety had caused. She often had people worrying when she showed up. “I am Ashley’s secondary guardian. We felt that one of us needed to be here today. My son Steve is also one of her guardians. He is in his last year of law school at Stanford so he will be the primary alternate to Mark since I live in Santa Monica. Here is a copy of the guardianship papers for Ashley’s file.”
“I am Sally Pierce, Sarah’s mother.”
“I wanted to personally meet with Ashley and Sarah today. It is the first time that we have ever had a freshman that was able to have such advanced placement. Let alone two. We have a tentative schedule for both of you, but you will have to each meet with four of your instructors to personally convince them as to your readiness to be part of their classes. Mrs. MacNally, the chairman of the mathematics department said that she had talked with Ms. Swenson, who had convinced her that you are both mature enough to take the classes.” Helen Schott saw that the girls had slightly guilty smiles on their faces. “How did you convince Ms. Swenson at cheerleader practice of your maturity?”
“I think that it probably occurred after that. We found out last week that Gloria is engaged to my son Steve. I never asked her. What does Gloria teach?”
“She teaches upper level mathematics courses including Advanced Placement Statistics.” Ms. Schott smiled. “That may be why she was so supportive to get the two of you in the Canada College courses. Then again Mr. Caldwell knew you but suggested that it would be informative for your teachers to meet you outside of class. His recommendation got you into all of your classes today. We will have a meeting at the end of the day where you will meet with all of your teachers, if that is OK with you. Mrs. Lessner and Mrs. Pierce, you are invited also. We don’t want to feel that we are putting too much pressure on the girls.”
Ruth chuckled. “I do not think that my presence will be necessary.” She looked at Sally.
“I’ll wait for PTA to meet them. No, I will be picking the girls up. I should come in and meet them after the meeting.”
“Mrs. Lessner why did you laugh?” Helen Schott was surprised at the attorney known as Ruthless reacting to her suggestion like that.
“Al Simpson, the Secretary of Defense didn’t intimidate them when they met with him yesterday. In fact it was more the other way around. Don’t worry, I don’t expect them to show anything but respect for their teachers, but I’m not sure if I want to meet the person that would intimidate them. One other thing. I have this check to allow you to expand the cheerleader squad to twenty-four. Gloria said that it would help ensure that they had a chance at regionals. I also have another check to help cover expenses for the school plays this year. If there are other expenses that we can help with, just let me know and we will take it under advisement.”
Helen Schott took the checks and was surprised to see that they were more than enough for the stated purposes. “Mrs. Lessner, thank you for your donations. This is very generous.”
“It’s not my money, not that I might not make a donation in the future. Ashley is too young to handle her own money yet. At least legally, so Mark and I get to write the checks.”
Ms. Schott and Mrs. Sizemore looked at Ashley, who blushed. “I have the money. I thought that school would be more fun if we didn’t have to worry about some things that money can take care of. I would appreciate it if you would keep my name out of it. I don’t want people thinking about my money when they think of me.”
Sarah reached over and took her hand. “Ash has been through a lot. She sees this as a way to make our last year of public school better. We will be treated differently because of the classes we are taking and other things that we will be doing. To have Ashley identified as an heiress will cause her problems.”
“Heiress?”
“She is the majority owner of MSI.” Ruth explained. “Mark appointed both Sarah and Ashley to the board of directors of MSI before they realized how much she inherited. Luckily the three of them work so well together.”
“MSI is a major company. It is worth billions.”
“It was privately owned by the Sawyer family. Ashley inherited from all her family members that died except her grandmother.”
“She will need bodyguards. How will we handle that?” Helen Schott looked worried.
“That is something that has been suggested to Mark by the FBI. We have not resolved what all the issues are yet. We have worked out an agreement with the local police department to fund off duty police officers to patrol the neighborhood until we come up with something more permenant. We will be having a meeting tomorrow with the Menlo Park police department and the FBI. We will let you know what is decided.
*****
Classes went about how they expected since most of the other students were seniors and three years older. Lunch went better. They sat with the other cheerleaders, who were all talking about the squad being expanded. They were all excited about their chances of winning the regional and going on to the state finals. One of the girls had heard that Ms. Swanson’s future mother-in-law had given the money to expand the squad. Ashley was happy for that rumor.
*****
At the end of the school day, Sarah and Ashley hurried to the room where they were to meet with their teachers. When they entered the room they found seven teachers there to meet with them. One of the women was someone that they did not recognize.
Jim Caldwell their drama teacher made introductions. They knew him through his wife who was the drama club sponsor at their junior high last year. The woman that they didn’t know was Mrs. MacNally, the chairwomen of the mathematics department.
“Why do you want to learn Mandarin?” Ms. Yang Ying asked them.
“We speak French, Spanish, Latin, and Russian. Sarah speaks Russian much better than I do, but we just need more practice with all of them. We read French, Spanish, Russian, Latin, Mandarin, and Japanese. Mandarin is the obvious one to learn next. We are lucky that Woodside had a class that we could take to learn to speak Mandarin.”
Yang Ying said something very fast in Mandarin.
Sarah thought for a couple of seconds then responded. “I will be communicating with doctors from China. They will appreciate that I have taken the time to learn their language. It will enhance our ability to work together.”
“Why would you be working with doctors from China?” Ms. Marsha Franklin, Sarah’s biology teacher asked.
“I plan to go to medical school and do medical research.”
“Ashley, what are your plans for college? I understand that the two of you will be taking the California High School Proficiency Examination in the spring.” Ben Phillips was Ashley’s physics teacher.
“I plan to get degrees in engineering and business at Stanford. Our choices for classes this year was to help us with our future plans. Even drama will be very useful.”
James Caldwell laughed. The other teachers looked at him. “Did you see Sarah’s first interview in Hawaii. Janet and I talked for hours about how she took over the situation and played her part. If she was not here in school this year, I would be using it to show technique for controlling your audience. This year I have them in class and they will be showing how to do it in person. I plan to help them refine their abilities and get them to participate in our presentations.”
“Yes, they both did well in the later interview.” Mrs. Helen Purcell was their English Literature and Composition teacher. “What do you expect to learn in my class?”
“We are fifteen. We may know things and be able to do a number of things well, but that does not mean that we don’t have a lot more to learn. We will learn by writing and having in critiqued. You learn a lot more about literature when you read and discuss it with a group. Most of our personal reading is technical. We plan to enjoy the change of pace.” Ashley looked at Mrs. MacNally, who obviously wanted to ask the next question.”
“You learned all of this from reading. Why haven’t you skipped grades?”
“Ashley and I enjoy being with other people our age. We have enjoyed school. If most of her family had not died, we would have probably continued in school as we have been doing. Now things have changed.”
“Why are you taking robotics engineering technology? It is not something that I expect a future doctor to be interested in.” Denise Shipwright was their teacher for that course.
“There is not much that doesn’t interest us. Robotics is becoming more and more important in medicine. Often the movements that robots make mimic human motion. Working to have a robot perform those types of motions, leads to a better understanding of what is entailed in motions for humans and other animals. Also three of our activities this year, the robotics, drama, and cheerleading, will improve of ability to work as part of a group.”
“I don’t have any more questions. I look forward to reading what you will write and hearing your comments on what we will be reading.” Helen Purcell was the first of the teachers to get up and leave. In a couple of minute Denise Shipwright and Jim Caldwell were the only two that remained.
Jim indicated for Denise to go first. “Will you participate in the robotics team competition this year? I think that you will find engineering work that we do interesting.”
Jim laughed. “Denise, Ashley Sawyer as in Mark Sawyer Industries, which is headquartered less than three miles from here. I think all the Sawyers grew up interested in things like robotics. Sarah has already expressed her interest in it. They are not taking your class to fill out their schedule. My wife Janet said that they were always well prepared at every rehearsal last year. Even though Sarah was an understudy, she worked with the other girl to get the part right.”
“We plan to participate in three extra curricula activities this year. Cheerleaders, fall play, and the team robotics completion. We won’t be participating in the later drama productions, because we will have to commit more time to robotics and our outside commitments.”
“Great, I will be passing the information packets out in class tomorrow. We will also need to find sponsors to help finance the material we would need. If you know anyone that can help, see if you can talk them into making a donation. We need several thousand dollars.” She hurried out of the room.
Jim was smiling. “I guess that unnamed source that is financing the drama productions this year may also be make additional donations for other activities at the school.” He looked at Ashley. “I appreciate what you have done. It is a hassle every year to round up the donations that we need. I am going to continue to make the same rounds this year but I know that it isn’t critical so it will be almost enjoyable. Do you want us to put something in the programs?”
Ashley didn’t hesitate before giving her answer. “A full page ad saying “In memory of all the people who died on August 7th.”
Jim smiled. She didn’t want to emphasize her losses. She wanted it to be for everyone that died. “I have copies of the script for the fall play. It is a take-off on the Wiz. It was done by a guy in San Jose. It has a high tech spin on it. He sent it around to all the local high schools trying to get someone to put it on. Janet and I both read it. It is pretty good. Here are two copies of the script for the two of you. Tryouts are Thursday after school. I may have to get with Ms. Swanson to coordinate cheerleading practice and play rehearsals.”
“We already got copies from Wayne. We will have it memorized before the tryouts. “
Jim was going to ask about Sarah’s comment but Ashley’s statement made him forget about it.
“Gloria was going to be getting with you on that also.” Ashley saw the surprise on Jim’s face at her calling a teacher by her first name. “I have been trying to be careful with that. My cousin proposed to her ten days ago. They will be marrying next June after school is out. Steve will be doing work for us, so Aunt Ruth is here getting things started for their new office.”
“Ashley fixed it so Steve can work for his family law firm. He was looking for another firm to join when he graduated. Gloria and Steve want to stay in the area. You see why we will have to work to remember to call her Ms. Swanson. I think that we need to wait until after the wedding to call her Gloria.”
“I think that it will be better for all three of you.” Jim wondered if they were teasing him. He didn’t think that they would make such a simple mistake.
*****
Terry was exchanging emails with Dr. Tuilier, when she saw Jim Pierce walk by. She got up and hurried to catch him. “Jim, can I have a minute of your time.” She called out as he rounded the corner.” She stopped abruptly when she turned the corner and saw the group that he was with.
Len didn’t seem upset by her interruption. Mark even looked happy to see her. “Al, this is Dr. Teresa Schultz. She is the director of Advanced Manufacturing Engineering. Terry, we were going to show them the work your people are doing on the advanced composite armor. Would you take over and explain the work that is going on.”
“Len, I have been emailing with Dr. Tuilier. We have been trying to arrange the meeting that Sarah set up. I saw Jim and wanted to ask when Sarah might be available to meet with us. Dr. Tuilier will be at a medical conference in LA the week after next. She wants to meet Sarah. I am having a hard time with translating the emails in and out of French. The Doctor needs to make her reservations.”
“Tell her we will pay for all her transportation including her flight and her stay when she visits with us. Jim, when do you thing that Sarah may have some free time to attend the meeting?”
“Between school and everything else that is going on, Sundays are the only big block of time that I am sure of without consulting her.”
“Terry, make it for a Sunday. Overtime for anyone that you want to have there. Do we have anyone else that can act as a translator for the doctor? We don’t want to tie up more of Sarah’s time than we have to.”
“No, or I would have been having them help me with these emails.”
“Maybe I can help.” Admiral Kyser offered. I speak French but my written French is out of practice. If you can call the doctor, I would be willing to act as a translator.”
“That would work better. Len, call Shen in his office. He would be best one to describe our latest attempt. We expect with Dr. Tuilier’s help we can get rid of the color.” Dr. Schultz and Admiral Kyser returned to her office.
*****
“It is all set up. She will fly in here for the weekend, then go to the conference. She will stop back after the conference and see what we have accomplished. She will then spend the next week working with us.” Terry told Len when she entered the laboratory along with Admiral Kyser and Dr. Shen Lee that they had met in the hallway.
Larry Kyser had seen the green lens that Dr. Lee had brought to the meeting. “Mark, I understand some of what they accomplished and what their problems are from the conversation that I assisted. You still have that ball bearing with you. Maybe you should show it to them.”
Mark smiled. He got the implication of what Larry was saying. He took the green sphere out of his pocket and handed to Terry.
Terry’s face fell as she realized what she had been handed. “Someone else has been doing the same research as we have been doing.” She handed it to Shen Lee.
“The color is different. This is the same as the first green material that I created. It cracks at very low temperatures. What we have now doesn’t crack or react to extreme temperatures until we reach around 9600 degrees.” Shen was thoughtful. “Why didn’t they do more work to make in clear?”
“It was used as a ball bearing. We believe that it is thousands of years old.” Mark explained.
“You and Sarah knew about this and were guiding us to make something better.” Terry looked hurt.
Mark laughed and shook his head. “Not unless she has prescience. We didn’t know about this until we were on our way back from Hawaii. We were using this in our talks with defense to illustrate that there was an advanced civilization thousands of years ago that was advanced beyond anything we can do today. You have showed that we were wrong. In fact, your people look to have done something they couldn’t do. Shen Lee, I would like you to look at a lens that is thousands of years old and give us your opinion of it. We don’t know if it even came from the same group that had the green sphere. It might have been older.” He turned to Admiral Kyser. “Larry. Thank you for recognizing the similarities between the sphere and our work. That is two favors that you did for us in a few minutes.”
“I think that is an example of the cooperation between us that Ashley mentioned yesterday. Larry enabled you to accomplish work that would have been done later, but he enabled better results sooner. I think that this also shows that you participation in certain activities of the government would be beneficial. Let us hear more about this work after which we should continue the tour. We can meet later and consider the implications of this. I think that by then Drs. Lee and Schultz would have additional information for us.” Al was finding that his visit was definitely turning out as he had been advised it would.
Len looked at Mark, who nodded. “Shen and Terry, let us follow Secretary Simpson’s suggestions.
*****
It was the first time that Ashley had eaten dinner with the Pierces since her family had died. She and Sarah had eaten dinner with each other’s family at least once a week for years. Now she would be eating dinner often with them, but Sarah would not be eating home cooked meals with her and grandpa. The three of them weren’t into cooking. They knew how, but they had never felt a need to prepare a sit down meal. They would grab something to eat and go back to what they were doing. Maybe she should start to do that. It would be nice to sit down with grandpa to eat and talk. It would also be good to practices for the future when she got married. Maybe she would need to start that sooner. Grandpa was definitely looking young and healthy. He would soon look not many years older than she did. When he got over the loss of grandma, he may find someone. Stop. Start being part of the conversation or they will think something is wrong.
“It is odd to have my little sister in two of my classes with me.” Jimmy looked at Ashley. “Ash is only in one but she is a friend and a pretty one that the guys keep asking me about. It will be worse when their grades are so far above mine.”
“It should be a little motivation to work harder.” Jim told his son.
“See it is already starting.” Jimmy looked at his mother, but he was smiling.
“Well, I am sure that they will tutor you if you are having any problems.” Sally said without looking up.
“I was thinking that we could discuss our reading assignments in English Literature.” Ashley looked at Jimmy and winked. “More than half of what we have to read is by men so Sarah and I may not understand the male perspective. Having a man to discuss it with would be very helpful.”
“Stop, you will not chase after my brother at the dinner table. He has no chance to get away since he has to eat to keep up his strength.” Sarah added to the bantering.
“Speaking of strength. What are your chances against Pal Alto on Saturday?” Jim asked.
“The team has improved a lot from last year. Coach Marraccini has us working hard and it has brought the team together. We’ll do a lot better than last year. I think we have a good chance to beat Pal Alto but Mountain View the week after is supposed to be stronger than last year when they were undefeated.” Jimmy looks at Ashley. “Jenny says that someone has donated enough money so that they can expand the cheerleading squad. She says that they expect that they may be able to win the regionals. You wouldn’t know who might have done that?”
“Aunt Ruth handed Principal Schott a check for that this morning when we met with her. Gloria Swenson is engaged to my cousin Steve.” No lies there. Mrs. Pierce is having a hard time keeping a straight face.
“Ms. Swenson is marrying your cousin. She is my Statistics teacher, but you know her. Is that how you two got on the squad?” Jimmy’s smile showed that he knew that it wasn’t the reason.
“No, we didn’t figure it out until after the tryouts. She and Steve were there for the dinner that Mark had last week.” Sarah smiled at her brother. “You and Jenny should have stopped by after practice.”
“No, we grabbed something to eat and went and listened to Benny’s band practice.” Jimmy hesitated. “There is a rumor that the two of you have jobs at MSI. One of the guys father said that you both were there this weekend.”
Jim laughed. “Did he mention that I was there also? You have been out with Jenny so much that you haven’t kept up with what is going on. The two of you need to have dinner here once in a while. We would like to get to know Jenny better.” He glanced at Sarah. “Would you fill your brother in on what he has been missing?”
“Let’s see. I have three jobs and Sarah has four jobs.” She took a drink of milk.
“How can you do that and still go to school?” Jimmy looked from one to the other.
“I have a very understanding boss.” Sarah smile said that there was more.
Jimmy realized that he was being teased. “Who is your boss?”
“The new chairwoman of Sawyer Holdings is my top boss, but I also have one employee and two doctors working with me.”
“You’re the chairwoman of Sawyer Holdings.” Jimmy stared at Ashley.
“Yes, I ended up with more stock than grandpa so he said I had to be the chairwoman. Please do not tell anyone, I don’t want guys after me for only my money.”
“From the comments that I was hearing today neither of you have to worry about that being the first reason for a guy talking to you or asking you out. I think having you as freshman being in the same advanced classes with them may dampen that a bit but I had to tell one guy that he was talking about my sister. Should I let them know that you both are taking martial arts?”
“No, wait until next week, then you can tell them that we have black belts.” Ashley suggested.
“Already?”
“No, we are testing Saturday morning before the game, but both Master Lee and Cindy say we will have no problem. We just held off so that we can throw the other competitors off at the Golden Gate Championship.” Ashley looked at Sarah. “You and Jenny should come and watch at least the finals. I will pay for the tickets. Sarah will need a shoulder to cry on when I win.”
“You got an unfair advantage with your island get-away vacation where you had all that time to practice. I have been putting in a couple of hours of practice before breakfast since we got back put I don’t know if I have to catch up.”
The two girls laughed.
“Seriously, you and Jenny should come and watch. I will just get a couple of more tickets. Do you know if Maria Cuervo is dating anyone? I would like her to come also.” Ashley had remembered that she had not found out much about Maria’s personal life. What she would need her help with in the coming weeks might impact it.
“She and Benny have been dating. It has been sorta hit or miss because she has to work so much and Benny’s band has been playing at places that you have to be old enough to drink to get into. She had to miss Benny’s practice that Jenny and I went to last week. She told him the day before that they had gotten a last minute catering job.”
“Oh! That was my fault. I need to talk with her. She should tell me about when things conflict. Her family catered the dinner that we had.”
“I am missing something here. Why are you so concerned about Maria?”
“I hired her as my assistant. She was talking about how her catering work was going to interfere with cheerleading. We checked out her grades and her test scores and found out how smart she is. I needed an assistant and if she was working for me she wouldn’t have to work when we had cheerleading practice or games.”
“Ashley, why do you and Sarah need assistants?”
“Sarah doesn’t have one yet. I probably don’t need one but Maria has already been a big help. She will be doing things that will give her a step up when she gets to college. Jenny is in my physics class. Maybe, she could be your assistant.” Ashley turned to Sarah who was sitting next to her.
Sarah new that Ash was teasing her brother. They had already discussed that Sarah needed someone with medical training. Not a doctor but possibly a nurse or someone that was familiar with the medical field. “I would think that Jimmy and Jenny would work better as a team. They have been at Denny’s working together for almost two years and they haven’t let their romance interfere with their jobs.” She looked at her brother. “We need to get things started but we will need some help in one of the companies that the two of you should find interesting. Of course, people may think that you are a little crazy just as they will be thinking of Ash and me, but that is the appearance that we want to give.”
“Yes, my inheriting a bunch of money and spending a bunch on looking into Atlantis and other myths will be good cover. That I have to hire high school students to do the work will show that I cannot get adults to take me seriously.”
Jimmy was totally confused.
“I think that might work. Jimmy, bring Jenny by for dinner and talk with Sarah and Ashley about what they are doing. I think that the two of you can be a big help to them.” Jim told his son.
“Why are they looking into Atlantis?” Jimmy looked at his mother who had not said anything yet about what the girls were doing.
“Not Atlantis, but they can tell you better than I can.” Sally smiled at her son.
“Mark has some items that are thousands of years old that could not be made by the technology back then. One of them, a green sphere, is something that we cannot produce even now with what we have learned.” Sarah saw her father smile and shake his head. “Does the government have a secret project?”
“No, MSI youngest consultant got our people and a Dr. Tuilier in Paris talking together before she ran off to Hawaii. Doctor Lee produced a material similar to the sphere, but the green color made it unsuitable for his optics, so he improved it. When Dr. Tuilier visits, they hope to be able to figure out how to make it clear. They want you to be there to consult with them. I told them that you should be able to be available the Sunday after next.” Jim saw the look of surprise on Sarah’s face mirror on Ashley’s.
Both girls shrieked then hugged each other then Sarah got up and hugged her father.
After they calmed down, Jim finished the story.
Secretary Simpson is going to recommend that cooperation with Sawyer Holdings be started as soon as possible. That still probably means weeks if not months but he has something tangible to show to the people back in Washington. I got the feeling that they have things that they have been trying to duplicate but they have had no successes. That we have not only duplicated but improved upon an ancient design, show that we will be a very valuable ally.”
“Dad, it was just luck that what they were working on was similar to the green spheres.” Sarah knew that they had not been trying to duplicate the material.
“Sarah, that makes it even better. If we can do it without knowing of the green spheres, what can we do if we actually are trying to duplicate an ancient technology. Dr. Lee examined the lens that is in the other artifact. He was excited. He says that the material it is made of can take extremely high temperatures. He asked Mark if he could take it out of the necklace so that he won’t melt the metal.”
“Yes, I understand why Al would want to give us access to more of the ancient artifacts.” Ashley turned to Jimmy. “We have ancient items that couldn’t be made by the civilizations that we know about thousands of years ago. From things that were said, we believe that the government has many more. They have not been successful in finding out about them. We have just started looking into our items and we are having results. There is more to it. Some of it we do not need people with degrees for, just smart people. That is what we would like you and Jenny to work on. Maria will be working on a number of things directly for me, not just the ancient artifacts. We need people that we know and can trust. That we don’t have to go out and recruit these people is a benefit since we want to create a low profile. That it will look like I am throwing money that I just inherited at things like Atlantis and other ancient legends, will make a lot of people ignore what we are doing. Sarah and I have been sweeping this house and grandpa’s for listening devices and other surveillance equipment. Don’t talk to Jenny about what we want you to do unless you are here. I know this is pretty paranoid, wait until we have a chance to sweep you and her before we talk to her. We had a lot of problems with that when we were in Hawaii.”
“You are not kidding.” Jimmy looked at the girls then his parents.
“No, we are having a meeting tomorrow to discuss security for the girls. This could affect Jenny also. I know you are supposed to work tomorrow, but I think that it is important that the two of you be over here for dinner so we can discuss it.” Jim realized that things were starting to get out of control.
“Let us have dinner at grandpa’s.” Ashley understood what was troubling Jim. “We need to have others in to discuss it also. Cindy, Maria, Steve, and Gloria need to be there. If there is anyone at the security meeting that would be able to help explain what we will have to be doing, would you ask them if they could be there. Mrs. Pierce, would you help Sarah and I prepare dinner? I realized earlier that I was going to have to learn how to do more than just throw something together to eat. It looks like I need to start learning tomorrow.”
“Ashley, I will be over after work. After dinner, I can go over what we will need. Jimmy, I will need you to pick things up at the store.”
“You are serious about the jobs.” Jimmy looked at Ashley.
“Fifty percent above what you and Jenny were earning plus benefits once we have the company set up. That will include support for college. We need to get HR support from MSI until we have our own. Jim, would you talk to Len tomorrow and tell him that we need to get set up faster than we were expecting. It is going to be hard to find people that we can trust with all these secrets without letting on that we have secrets.”
All four Pierces laughed.
“Ash, mom is the HR manager at LZX. Make her an offer that she cannot refuse.” Sarah realized that Ashley had known even less about what her parents did than she had known about the Sawyers.
“Mrs. Pierce, what do you think would be a fair starting salary for the head of HR for Sawyer Holding? We are small but we are going to be expanding pretty quickly. We need to make sure that we get the right people and keep them happy so that they can tackle the work that we will be doing.”
“Well, the fifty percent increase that you offered Jimmy and Jenny, would be too much to offer someone that is already doing the same type of work. Now the fact that Sawyer Holding is a new company with no track record would normally mean that you would have to offer more to get someone that already had a job, but I find that knowing the board members negates that uncertainty. I would say a twenty percent increase is what you should offer. More if you wanted the person to start on very short notice, but I do not think that is the case here. I think a two week notice to LZX would be acceptable especially as I don’t see any conflict in my assisting LZX if they request my help until they get a replacement. You should run it by the other board members.” She saw that both girls had their phones out.
“Grandpa agreed. He said that we would review all salary again once things go going. That included Jimmy and Jenny. He also thinks that you should start as soon as possible.”
“Len agreed with the need for an HR department. He thought mom would keep the startup problems down. He told me that he was not giving up dad.” Sarah glanced at her dad. “Mom, when we are fixing dinner tomorrow, we can talk about the other positions that we will need to fill.”
“No, we will talk about your day in school and other things that are not work related. We will probably end up talking about that after dinner.” Sally wanted to keep the girls life as normal as possible though she knew that it was going to be hard.
“Jenny has questions, but I told her we would discuss them tomorrow before dinner. She said that we needed to call in and tell them that we have gotten another job. I only mentioned the salary, not the benefits. I figured that she needed to talk to HR about that.” He looked up from his phone. “You girls are not the only ones that can use a phone while we are talking.”
“Jim, can you get some copies of what MSI offers. I need one for the basis of what we will do but it would be good to have ones for the others. Ashley and Sarah telling them that they are hired and all is OK but having some idea what the benefit package might be like would be helpful. How much time are you expecting your part time workers that are going to school to put in per week?”
Her question surprised the girls.
“It is going to vary. Sarah and I will be putting a lot of time in but I see us as being management with a fixed salary. Others like Maria or Jimmy will not be working as much and they are definitely part time. I don’t want it to interfere with school. I hope that they will want to stay with us when they graduate college, so I want them to work hard in school. I guess that we will need to have a lot of help here in setting this up right. I don’t think that Sarah and I know enough to do it right at least to start off. We need someone to handle that and teach us what we need to know. I’m not sure if Grandpa has recent experience in managing people, he was not spending a lot of time at MSI the last few years.”
“Mom, we need help.”
“I will make sure that we get the people that you need.” Sally was happy that the girls were realizing that they were getting into more than they had expected.
Young Again SF Story 