keep on learnin'

I guess this is a good place to point out that I knew, that morning, very little about K’s realm and all that it entails. I had no idea how things are interconnected, and how the key ingredient to the whole thing is a series of interpersonal relationships. I had no idea how many different businesses K is involved in, and I didn’t have any idea how much he knows about all of them. My aim in writing about these experiences is to try to capture not just the amazement, but the underlying facts that awe and inspire me. The relationships, the interdependence, and what K mockingly calls the “synergistic convergence” are worhty of my study.

. . . . . .

We walked into the busy, bustling little restaurant and every single employee in the place beamed when they saw K. That was a heart stopping thing. Who does this? Who is so liked by people at a job that they are all genuinely pleased to see him? I now know that the place we stopped to visit was a small family owned diner owned and operated by Martha and Starr, a mother and daughter who’ve been in the restaurant business forever. Starr lives with Timbo, who manages a bar, and helps out with running the restaurant, which has twelve employees. Starr and Martha both gave K huge hugs and wet kisses. RayGun and Bumps get hugs too. Martha hugged me, despite us being complete strangers. After K and Ray greeted all the employees and half the customers, we all settled in at a corner booth. K demonstrated his unique style of introducing people with a brief summary that also serves to bring everyone up to speed on key issues he plans to discuss, at the same time it sets the table for proposals he plans to offer up.

Martha and Starr and Timbo were all at crossroads. Martha is 60 and has mentally decided to retire from working every day. She is convinced that her life’s work is over, and ready to leave without any money, beyond her savings and social security. Starr is very good at running the diner and actually wants to expand. The obstacles to that expansion include no room to grow at their current location, and a ten year lease which is due to expire. The current landlord has declared his intention to demolish the building and replace it with something newer. Timbo has been running a bar for two men who are increasingly becoming less interested in the business they own, both preferring to persue varous vices instead of focusing on their business. K tells all of us at the table that he has set up this breakfast meeting to see if we can’t all find a solution that works for everyone.

There is plenty of tasty food, and a lot of laughs. But also a good bit of trepidation, as few are clear on K’s ideas. He set the table by telling us, mostly me, I guess, about how wonderful and honest and hard working and smart the other three people are. K goes to church with the three of them and they are all friends. He mentioned that they Starr had asked him to pray that the Lord would help them find a solution that everyone would like. K said, “I am not God, and I can’t pretend that I was inspired by Him. I am not really sure where I got this idea, but I want to put it out there.”

He asked them if they would be interested in a proposal where he becomes an investor in a restaurant with Starr and Timbo. They will buy out Martha’s share, giving her a very nice nest egg for retirement. K’s group will infuse cash that will finance both a lump sum and continuing stream of payments to Martha. K will also finance a number of improvements, and even expansion of the business. He mentioned one possibility is for his group to purchase the building the restaurant is in. They all seemed please with this plan. Then he raised the bar. He outlined a much grander vision that incorporated elements from talks he has had with Starr and Timbo about their “ideal” jobs. K proposes to sell the existing restaurant (the name and equipment) and relocate it to the mall. He wants to open a new, much larger restaurant in a different part of town. It will be custom built to house not only Starr’s ideal restaurant, but also her catering kitchen and medium-sized bakery. The kicker is the plan for Timbo. K wants to build a bar, that will be owned by K’s group and Timbo. It will share a kitchen with Starr’s place. The two places will be right next door to each other.

Everyone was sold on the idea right away. The smiles on their faces resemble kids on Christmas morning. K told them to think it over. All three of them said they don’t need to. Martha cried. K let Bumpy spell out the plan that involves Martha getting some tax free cash, shares in the holding company (which will give her a continued flow of cash), and free health care benefits for the rest of her life. Tears streamed down her face as she explained that she had no decent retirement plan, only some savings. She hadn’t set aside monies for health care and life insurance in her golden years. Timbo and Starr were so excited, they asked when they could see the location. K invited them to come right then, but they eventually decided to meet up in the afternoon. As the three studs and I walked across the parking lot to the bus, I told K that I was amazed by what had just happened. Raygun said, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” K threw back his head, shifted to his best Al Pacino and said, “I’m just gettin’ started!”

Turns out, he was right.

First STOP.
Before we reach the target property, we stop at a surprisingly busy neighborhood sandwich shop. Despite the fact that the shop is only a mile from my house, I have never stepped foot inside it. I say something about regretting this and it causes the others to laugh. I guess it is pretty dumb to think I have some obligation to know every business in my neighborhood. As we exit the vehicle in the parking lot, I think I’ve figured out why K told me not to eat breakfast this morning. I know nothing about this shop, beyond the obvious fact that there are many customers hustling in and out. Based on the remarks from the three men in our group, it appears we’ll be eating here, and enjoying it.

Our OBJECTIVE:
The primary objective of our outing this morning is to perform a preliminary site inspection of a commercial real estate property that K has identified as a potential acquisition target. During the trip, we will pay a visit to three businesses that are part of the umbrella company. This is all I know as we start the trip, naively thinking our outing will be relatively short and fairly straightforward. I have so much to learn.

Today, we are traveling in the “land lab,” his nickname for the big Motor Home that serves, among other uses, as a rolling self-contained office. Our party numbers four people, the lowliest of which is yours truly, the brand new apprentice applicant, whom the others in our group have taken to calling “the aspiring padawan.” I am exploring this opportunity because it is an amazing chance I’ll not likely encounter anywhere else. Still it is difficult for me to dampen my body’s involuntary reactions to him. As my aunt blurts out between delight filled cackles, K and I have “carnal knowledge” of one another. K has even let his guard down and referred to me as his girlfriend a few times. It’s difficult to describe to you now, the emotions I battled as I sat on the couch across from K, terrified, unsure of what awaited me, but involuntarily turned on by being only a few feet away from the most amazing lover I’ve known. Visions of his naked form hovering over me will not leave my brain. Part of me wants to fast forward to the day’s end so that I can peel off his clothes and jump his bones; another part of me reminded myself to keep those feelings in check and try to absorb as much as I can. I am in the presence of three clever businessmen who have offered me the rare chance to see them apply their considerable talent in ways I know nothing about. At the time, as I settled onto the couch, I thought it would sound silly to others later on (like right now) to admit that I was very excited – almost like a kid on Christmas Eve, as we pulled the large land cruiser out of the parking lot, into morning traffic. I’ve told my mom and dad and a couple of friend, after the fact, and they all said I was right to be excited. My pop, the wise and worldly physician, admitted he would be excited in my shoes.

It helps with my nerves that the other two people in our group are great guys whom I adore. We’ve already developed a friendship that I am confident will endure. Their friendliness is a part of what attracts me to the job. Ray, now dubbed “RayGun” is the closest thing I’ve found in the organization that approaches being aptly described as being K’s “right hand man.” A 44 year old dark-skinned black man, whose shaved head and lean, muscular body gives him the appearance of an athletic man closer to 30, I am constantly aware of his magnetism which attracts interest from women of all stripes. I won’t be going there with him, but his general sexiness and flirtatious manner do make this the funnest group of coworkers I’ve ever had. Ray worked with K years ago where the two of them developed a hilarious, infectious interplay that makes just being near them fun, and that spills over to everyone in the vicinity. Ray has been part of the umbrella company for a year and a half, during which he has mastered an intimate knowledge of the firm’s overlapping holdings while he has cultivated personal relationships with nearly every important person, and quite a few lesser important people in our organization. Ray, dressed in his normal impeccable combination of tailored charcoal dress slacks and long sleeve button down white dress shirt, tuned out with all the little touches, including ostrich skin shoes and a custom-crafted gold wrist watch, smells and looks good enough to eat. He sits at the “dining” table, pecking away at the laptop, with the TV remote in his other hand. If it isn’t immediately noticeable, anyone who spends more than just a few minutes around these guys sees that they have merged so many of their mannerisms and phrases, that it sometimes seems like they are biological brothers from some bizarre science experiment gone awry. K and Ray are busy chatting a mile a minute, changing topics as fast as Ray flips channels. K works the stylus on his crackberry, and his laptop, lying on his lap. The other brother of these three Siamese triplets separated at birth is outside performing what he calls a “pre-flight” check of our coach.

The “other brother” is Bumpy, or Bumps, or Bumpers. He is an attorney, properly licensed in several states, who no longer labors at the bar, but instead plies his mastery of the law as inside counsel and roving advisor to this intricate web of interests. Bumps talks even faster than the other two. When he enters the cabin, the speed of conversation accelerates from very fast to dizzying. I look Bump over and am reminded that he always wears nice, expensive, trendy clothes, which do not quite fit him right. That and his perpetual motion make it easy to forget that he is more super genius than super-geek, admitting those are not necessarily mutually exclusive descriptors. Bumps is also a wonderful guy. Like the others, he is pretty good looking, to boot. Bumps loves to drive. He loves to drive as much as K hates to. Driving also gives him something to do with his hands and feet. He straps into the pilots seat and begins our journey.

The “title” I used for this blurb is one of the phrases HE repeats frequently. There are different variations, all used to explain the way he has organized his business interests. When I first heard him say this, like so many things he says, it left me confused and wondering. Over time, as I began my apprenticeship and learned how the different pieces fit together and complement each other, while often remaining quite separate, I came to understand the weird saying a little better. I believe I can illustrate by describing, over the course of a few postings, the “Wrong Way” Strip, a typical “pie.”

My INVOLVEMENT:

Just a few days earlier, during a conversation about my future plans, he had invited me to “test drive” an apprenticeship program. The way he described it seemed terribly stimulating and I saw little down side. He assured me that we could pursue a professional workplace association, even if our budding romantic relationship fizzled out. I trusted that assertion, even as I was terrified that I wouldn’t like the apprenticeship, or worse, that I would suck at it. It didn’t help my lack of confidence that he persisted with warnings that it was not the sort of endeavor everyone finds enjoyable.

My task for the day was merely to ride along with him, observing. That was it. My one word mission for the day was “observation.” From his office, four of us rode in the same vehicle, climbing in for what I expected would be the ten minute drive to our target. He explained to me that we were going to “taste” (another of his quirkish sayings, which means to closely examine something) a potential investment project. Laughingly, he added, “It has layers.” We had watched Shrek the previous evening, I laughed at his remark without thinking that it meant anything beyond a silly, easy punchline. Bumpy, who was driving, announced that we would be making a couple of stops along the way.

I was scared at the same time I was silently hoping I wouldn’t be bored to death.