Chapter Eleven
Clarity read the employee report that Heather had placed on her desk the day before, while sitting at home in her cozy apartment, before going to work. She was getting good appraisals in customer service relationship, diligence, and general understanding of gardening products, but Brock had assigned below average assessments in initiative, autonomy, and dealing with conflict. The Atkins complaint issue was beginning to undermine her position as teleoperator. She knew it was the reason for the report.
She grabbed a tea cup and sipped her favorite blend of earl grey tea made by Fortnum and Mason, British providers by official appointment to her majesty Queen Elizabeth II, grocers and provision merchants. Cynthia knew all the luxury brands made for the wealthy or near wealthy, and she had an extra bag of loose leafs which she gave Clarity inside a pear-shaped mahogany tea caddy.
She skipped the lengthy paragraphs from Heather which talked about collaboration at work with colleagues, and glanced at the overall assessment on the last page. Prospects for promotion: not favorable. She kept reading the report, looking at the additional comments section written by Brock, which said, will be supervised for any further inappropriate behavior similar to the photocopying incident over the next eight months. Clarity began thinking that Brock was stretching the case, bringing the complaint out of proportion, and making an issue out of nothing.
After work, she walked to Darrell's bathroom and shower accessories store, Le Water Boutique, inquiring with Darrell about the providers of the horizontal shower of the roof top area at Stevenson. The shower installation repairman explained that Bormbayle was a local manufacturer of shower accessories, and that they designed their own shower models. He showed her their catalog, thinking that Clarity might help him get more shower installation or maintenance work at Stevenson.
"The side jet model is not profitable, they're thinking about selling the design to someone else." Clarity took a closer look at the shower design, a vertical shower using five thick jets flushing out water sideways.
"You can sell shower designs?" asked Clarity. Darrell nodded, showing her a file which had shower design transactions amounting to between fifty thousand and five hundred and fifty thousand dollars. There was a transfer of intellectual property in the transactions involved as well, which included payment to own shower head patents, and recirculating shower device patents.
"What are you thinking exactly?" asked Darrell. Clarity took one last look at one of the transactions, showing a blueprint of the design, taking a closer look at the asking price by Bormbayle, and thanked Darrell.
"Thanks Darrell, bye."
She searched Bormbayle on the web and found the address of its plant, near Calabassas. She drove her pink chevette to the plant and walked into the hallway, greeted by a friendly hostess.
"I'm just a customer, we use one of your showers, I'd like to see how the side jet shower is made," said Clarity. It was an unusual request, and the hostess led Clarity to a waiting room, saying someone else would be with her shortly. Peeking out of the room after a few minutes, Clarity saw no one and began walking towards a large two-panel door labeled no entry - warehouse and manufacturing area. Surrounded by aisles filled with plastic panels, she kept walking towards the center of the plant and came face to face with the foreman and several workers.
"Are you the new shower tester?" said the foreman, named Joe.
"Y...yes," said Clarity, caught offguard. Joe led her to an area showing four showers side by side. One of them was the side jet shower, the other three were different.
"Go ahead," said Joe. He pointed towards the testing area.
"Like this?" asked Clarity, pointing to her clothes.
"No, without clothes, Ashton said you had no quibbles about getting naked."
"Yeah, no, right, all right, I'll test that one," said Clarity, pointing to the third shower, the one she had seen on the catalog.
"Got to test all four, I'll be over there regulating water flow and temperature, just let me know how it feels, all the showers have microphones and speakers inside."
Clarity took off her clothes and stepped into the first shower, barely escaping a look from intrigued factory workers. A stream of water shaped as a cylinder one foot in diameter fell on her head immediately. The water from the shower head was cold. She reached for the yLarsson interphone button.
"A bit cold Joe." Joe adjusted the temperature and the water became hot, very hot, boiling in fact. The sudden heat startled Clarity, who stepped into shower number two to prevent her skin from being burned. The second shower had a wood floor, it was a shower meant for the outdoors. A high pressure nuzzle hit her back unexpectedly, right on the sacral area of her spine.
"Ouch, less pressure Joe."
She moved into shower number three, the chrome brushed side jet shower mentioned by Darrell. This time, Joe adjusted correctly and five streams of warm water coming from the shower walls massaged her body from each side. She looked at the shower design name, Kauai Bianca, and stepped into the fourth shower. The last shower she had to test was not working, but she was greeted by three plumbers working inside on the pipes, who weren't unhappy to see her. She stepped out of the testing area naked, breathing deeply, giving a thumbs up sign to Joe, before realizing she was not wearing any clothes.
Her idea began to materialize as she grabbed a towel and donned her clothes. Stevenson had to get into the shower business as a new line complementing their garden line of products. There was nothing wrong with the garden products or the way Stevenson was selling them. But simply, the company had to sell something more expensive to raise their revenue. The testing feature at the plant gave her an idea for a luxury shower product: building a shower itinerary, a sort of aisle covered by jets where people would shower-as-you-walk, towards the pool area. Obviously, you needed to be wealthy to pay for such a water aisle, but areas like Beverly Hills or Orange County were there, there was a market for luxury ideas. And it would all start with the side jet shower. Stevenson simply needed to buy the design and the patents of the shower.
"Come back tomorrow, number four will be fixed," said Joe.
"All right, see you," said Clarity.
Clarity drove back to work and shared her idea on the phone with Cynthia, who wasn't against it. She went to her friend's home after work and walked upstairs to Cynthia´s room. Her friend requested the price of the design that Clarity wanted to buy.
"Five hundred thousand dollars? That's getting a bit high. What did you get on your employment report?"
"Unfavorable for promotion, I need something additional to bring value to the eyes of Stevenson. I know I can do something else, this is a good way to try something different."
Clarity lied on Cynthia's bed, holding her hands behind her head, looking at an aerial photograph of Pepperdine university, the place where she couldn't afford to get a degree. Cynthia was chewing on the back of her middle finger, reflecting.
"I can't help you with that amount," said Cynthia, "I'm going to get into trouble. If you use my user access code, I'll have to say to Brock and Heather and to my father, that I didn't know about it." She moved towards her closet to check a new top for the evening.
"No worries, I'll do it myself, how much is in the cash account of Stevenson?"
"I think there's some commercial paper maturing, something like a million dollars my father keeps to buy out other companies or in case the company runs out of cash."
"Perfect, I'll use that," said Clarity.
"If my father sees half of that is missing, he's going to go nuts. You're going to get fired." Clarity insisted that her idea was good, and that she was willing to give it a try. She shared her idea with Taimi, and asked her to come with her for a 'delicate assignment' as shower tester at Bormbayle the next day.
"No problem," said Taimi, "I'll ask Flake to fill in for me at the pool, he won't mind."
The next day, Brock called her on the phone, to discuss a proposal sent to Atkins to drop the complaint.
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"No hard feelings on the report?" asked Brock.
"No, you're just doing your job," said Clarity. Brock turned to the complaint and insisted on her being with him to meet Atkins, setting up a meeting on the same bench as the previous time. Atkins came ten minutes late, walking unconcerned, hands in pocket. Brock left a space to his right, pressing Clarity towards the end of the bench, so that Atkins would seat beside him.
"All right, you called, I believe," said Atkins.
"I'd like to make another deal to stop this complaint, we think this is going too far, it's disproportionate." Brock explained that Stevenson was a legitimate company, workers were doing proper work, and there was nothing out of the ordinary happening inside the office building.
"All right, yeah, I mean, except for your clothing optional day. Fine, I'll ask my father to drop the complaint, but I want access to Stevenson's information, customers, things like that, I'd like to build a company on my own." Brock looked at Atkins, and then stared at him as though he was usurping all of his 401 k plan from him in one go, leaving him without any retirement money. He shook his head and backed the motion with his index finger moving sideways.
"No, no, no, Atkins, you can't do that, that information is confidential, it's private." Atkins held the stare and said nothing, which told Clarity he was coming up with some type of insidious idea.
"All right, you're right, let me think about it, I'll let you know tomorrow." Atkins got up and walked away, leaving Brock somewhat unsettled. He turned to Clarity.
"You think he'll do something sensible this time?"
"Looks like it, yeah."
The next day, Brock called Clarity into his office. The mayor had sent a document to Stevenson legal counsel Lareya Marquez, on behalf of his son, sueing for damages, damages to his reputation, as a result of the bum photos sent to him. Clarity watched Brock hold the document sent by the mayor like some type of ilicit item which should be placed in the fireplace, to be destroyed. The head of human resources bought ten shares of google in one go, in order to get some sense of reassurance.
"This is crazy, he wants a million dollars in damages," said Brock.
"You did better this time though," said Clarity, "he said you were right, it shows he respects what you say."
"Yeah, but then he does something else, he doesn't keep his word, this guy just keeps lying." Clarity nodded, Brock was right about Atkins. She became somewhat reassured that the mayor's son would also get an unfavorable review like her, if he were an employee of Stevenson.
"What are you going to do?" asked Clarity.
Brock moved his financial screen to the right, away from him, because google share price indicators were turning red, showing the price was going down. Apparently some people were complaining that no one was answering their emails requesting assistance, that there was no support at all in the giant analytical information search behemoth, no people at the other end of the service line.
"Lareya is working on this, she's trying to find where the legal fallacy is with all of this complaint issue."