Employed 14 Part 2

Thom was planning to open a store on the four acre property with a five-bedroom, three bath house at the Northwest corner of Moorpark Ave. and Winchester Blvd. First, he wanted me to hire and direct an asphalt contractor to pave and mark parking spaces,walkways and driveways. That finished,he wanted brother Irvin to select an aluminum building contractor and direct the construction of ten free-standing models and a half-dozen attached covers at the new location. Thom would pay Irvin $150. a day. His hand-picked crew would receive the highest rate per square foot. Thom wanted Patio Village to be Northern California's leader in recreational aluminum buildings. He was considering approaching the board of directors to ask them to change the name of the company to "Patio Village". The name was changed before the store at Moorpark and Winchester was complete and doing business. Thom's vision for the place would transform the neighborhood. The huge house, near the center of the property, was completely sided with aluminum panels, matching the material and colors of the awning and patio cover models, including the houses's roof. It seemed comical in concept, but when Irv and his crew finished it, it was fantastic, a real attention-grabber. At Cal-Lum's Bascom Ave. location we almost never had drop-in prospects; at Patio Village we had a regular stream of walk-ins. In fact, all of the ten salespersons volunteered to man the store, one evening in ten days to convert walk-ins to people with presentation appointments. As the construction of Patio Village progressed, Thom spent more and more time on the site. He liked the general lay-out (he mostly liked Irv's beautiful and unique way with aluminum panels. Irv had plenty help,too. So the most difficult steps in construction almost seemed to fall together on their own. A week into the project he was a day-and-a-half ahead of schedule. At completion, he was nearly two weeks ahead.Over the time taken to build the place, Thom got the San Jose bug. The first week we were open, Thom spent four nights at a Best Western in Santa Clara. He had a great time that week.For years, while he was Nor Cal GM, he had closed next to no customer contracts, but he closed nine customer contracts for screenrooms and more than a dozen awning contracts in the four days that he was "one of my salesmen".(He insisted that since he had made his sales in my store, I was due the overides). How could I argue with that? During that first week, at Patio Village I made more money (legally) than I ever made at any other job in a week's time,than in any week of my entire working life.Counting commissions for my sales and overides for ten sales- men (plus Thom's overide) my net check for the week was $8,668.00. My last week's check from Firestorm, before Thom "rescued" me, was $104. (these are all 1964 numbers) I remember the 8668 because because of it's 2 86's mirroring each other. We all know it takes only one 86 to get us thrown out of a bar (or basketball game) but, put a dollar sign to the left of the number; loser becomes win- ner. When I first saw that 8668 check, l thought of the day I came home from Firestorm in mid-afternoon to find Thom parked on my driveway. He had said that he thought he could help me (find a way out of Townhouse city).I knew what he meant, in general, but I had no idea what was coming, opr the scale of it. We gave notice at the beginning of the next month and soon moved to a 3Bdrm, 2 bath apartment on Williamsburg drive, a block from Winchester Blvd. and less than two miles west of Patio Village, essentially walking distance. (I did walk to work and back the first day we were at Williamsburg Drive. After that I would make that walk about eight times a month. I should mention that the winchester mystery house was (and is, to this day) was, and is, to this day located about half-way between Williamsburg Drive and Morepark Ave./Patio Village. Just so you'll know where we were in 1964. In the car, home to work it's four to five minutes. A very comfortable home, very conveniently located near (very) the workplace. A great setup. We had been in the townhouse in North San Jose for only a few months,but our stay on Williamsburg Drive stretched to a little over three years. That place was convenient to more than a few places where I found employment later. Thom was determined to have a big success with Patio Village in SanJose and then to follow that with repeats in other California cities. He didn't tell me that in so many words,but that was easy enough to see in his total devotion to making his newest (and best) location big, beautiful and lucrative. We hadn't parted on the best of terms when the Bascom Ave. store was closed. But, as we worked together to build the first Patio Village and talked about eventually putting them in many California cities, we came to be pretty good friends. In the Fall of 1964 a third baby girl joined us almost in the very middle of September.We named her Tess, after somebody's grandmother or other. Her just-older sister, Sarah, was only 14 months old at Tess's birth. Tess didn't like her name and changed it to Aleda before she was out of high-school. I say more power to her; some of my favorite people have re-named themselves. We had opened for business a few weeks before Patio Village was completely constructed (at least for in-house presentations). When we were fully opened we were able to close presentations in our offices. Something that was not done at Bascom Avenue or at any other Northern California branches.At our party to kick off Patio Village's grand opening, Thom told us that Arden Stark,Cal-Lum's CEO at the time, would soon retire. Thom would,of course, succeed him. Nothing was said about who would take Thom's position. I got a little rush when it struck me that I was probably the most likely candidate. When I told Dahlia the news later that evening she also figured me for the job. And she was stoked;"How much does Thom make, do you know?" "I would think at least a hundred and fifty K,but they're not going to pay me that much." "Why not" ". Thom has been Nor Cal GM since 1958 and he is truly great at the job. I think Ican do better man- aging Patio Village, San Jose. Remember, opening week I made over Eighty-six hundred bucks. Half that much per week would amount to more than 200K annually and the way Patio Village is coming along, I'm very optomistic. Besides, I like San Jose, and I don't like Hayward. I like doing presentations and closing contracts and I especially like meeting new people every work day.And I like working with other front-line salesmen like myself. Sure enough, once Thom was ensconced in the CEO's office, he called me and said he'd like me to come in for a talk. I asked what the subject would be. He said there was a staff opening in Hayward and he'd like to get my take on how we might go about filling it. I told him that my wife thinks that I should apply for that job. "And You?" "I think I would be honored to have any job that you had held and I think I could do it. Just not as good as you. Now that I think of it, one of my new salespeople, Alice Johnson, strikes me as being a few cuts above the rest of us (her percent closed number currently beats everybody at Patio Village and this is her first try at direct, in-home sales)". And Howard; his percentage is close to Alice's, but he has a way that is confident in himself and his plan. I know he could do my Job. With your direction I think he could be your successor." "But my job is in Santa Monica, now." It was clear that Thom didn't want my recommendation for his replacement. He wanted me to want the job and to appreciate his offering it to me. I would have, if I could do the job from my new office in San Jose. But I knew that was not a possibility. I half-expected Thom to take back my new job as Patio City's San Jose Sales Mgr, for declining the promotion.I don't know why, but he didn't. Not then. Not a few weeks later,not, in fact, before I decided to leave Patio Village to take another position some months later. When Irv and his crew finished the display part of his Patio Village contract, he and his friend Adolph, whom he met in Alberta while traveling in Canada.Some months later when we startedconstruction Irv had hired Adolph to be part of making the 5 bdrm house into a sales building with a large entry and reception area and ten salesman's offices. The large manager's office doubled as a conference room with twelve chairs around a large table that was also my desk, at one end. I know it sounds kinda weird but it looked great and especially as conference room, it worked great. When Patio Village was completely constructed, Irv got back to his world travels and Adolph became our installation chief supervising five crews. I'll tell you this: we were cuttin fat hogs in the ass in a wholesale way, but chargin retail prices. What could be better? Even though we were making relatively much money again, rather than go out and buy a house, right away, we played it cool and stayed in our very comfortable (and reasonably priced) apartment until we left San Jose altogether.