I LIVED OFF EASEY STREET - CHAPTER EIGHT

By Steve Gray

This is the last chapter...make sure you have read the other chapters.

One afternoon, it was two days after we came up with the story idea and we had put together a few key words, key projects and so on. I was visiting a signwriter, high end stuff, 3D signs, blowmoulded plastics and so on. I’m chatting with one of their sales people, Alan, about a new project.

In the process we had a bit of small talk and mentioned my idea of a story to find a ‘genius’ to fill a high level role. For some reason he seemed interested. He asked some deeper questions about what we wanted and so on. I obliged, he then added His wife is part of a writers group, mostly retired people and so on, but they were always looking at ways to add to their creative development.

A day later and Thelma turns up at our door, Alan’s wife, She called first to make sure I would be in and introduced herself. I said ‘I can send you the details via email…’ She said, ‘Yes, yes do that, but I want to get a feel for the place if I can?’ 

She turned up and chatted, met Glenda and Damon, then Louis the handy guy, wandered in for some reason, Thelma got a lot of information from us that day, and said she would love to help us nut out something, at no cost, her group loved nutting out creative things and thought the idea was fascinating. She was gone in no time.

I emailed the key things we had brainstormed already, that was fine, then she called and said it was done, barely a day and a half later. I read the email that afternoon and printed it out, it was more of a piece of prose I guess you could say, a few pages.

On the phone Thelma said the group felt that it might be easier for the reader to respond to a ‘prose’ piece rather than a standard story. She was right. It was a one and a half page piece that certainly got some responses.

We set up an email address specifically to cater for the responses. Not sure why now that I think about it, but it was easy enough to do so we did it. 

Some people had a whinge, ‘Why not just advertise it as a job like everyone else does!’ We had a few of those, we had a good response to that, ‘Because this job is not like everyone else's job, and neither is the company.’ Boom! 

Some people just sent a resume in, some did a cover letter as well, the instructions were clear, create the last part of the ‘story’, with you in it. Then we would look at resumes if you get that far.

We set a cut off date and just as we were about to close off on the day I got a phone call ‘I just saw your story and found out through a friend, but I can’t submit until tomorrow, ah, can I get an extension.’ I thought yeah of course… but then I thought further and said ‘Well why should I do that?’ the voice at the other end cleared and warmly said. ‘Opportunities to explore creative roles in a business environment don’t come along very often and being able to craft something wonderful would be tantalisingly illuminating… I have so much to say but I want to make sure I say it right.’ 

I was captivated at ‘Tantalisingly illuminating,’ Now, rather than going on further and trying to beg at some deeper level the voice paused. I was wanting more but something about the pause was just right. I said in a slow drawl, ‘Alright… Let’s see what you’ve got.’

I remembered in the info on the story page, we had put little in the way of a job outline. The pay rate simply said ‘professional salary commensurate with skills ability and depth of creative communication dexterity.’

The business had done well enough to be able to pay the right person well over $100k even with handouts to myself and a bit to Ben, who was now getting a pittance in comparison to when he was full time.

The next day a delivery driver turned up out the front and I got a phone call, ‘Are you in the office?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, and the caller then hung up. I could see the delivery driver get out of his van with an assistant, they stood out as they had bright yellow hats on, printed on the front was ‘Aha’ in BIG red letters.

The side door on the van slid open and a tall timber box, wrapped in that shrink wrap style plastic, was carefully put on to a trolley. I called Damon and Glenda to have a look. The box was more of a ‘crate’ than anything more boxy I guess, I recall thinking I wonder if I have the tools to open this package?

We had a sense that something was about to happen but not sure what. Together they opened the door and carefully navigated their way into the reception area.

Glenda started to film the delivery on her phone. They had an obligatory old style clip board with an official form that I had to sign.

The pair stood back as they finished taking the plastic wrap off. Then the driver said, ‘We are now instructed to open this for you, is this an okay place to do that? I said, ‘That depends on the contents?’ it turned out the contents weren’t heavy or messy, so I said ‘Yep go ahead…’ 

On the outside of the box was a delivery label and a ‘This way up’ symbol and a small metal compliance plate that had some small text on it and the further you tried to read the text the smaller it got. Like that scene out of the film, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ where the contractual text all the children signed was impossible to read.

The drivers assistant hurried out to their van and came back with a battery drill and some  other tools, they undid about eight screws and took off the top and one side then continued on, the contents were wrapped in more plastic and newsprint, all we could see was that the contents of the box was triangular, the timber sections were soon set apart, then the contents carefully moved off the base.  

On the top was an arrow that had the text North printed under it in big letters, the Driver got out his phone and used a compass app to move the object into the right orientation. They then took off the final wrapping.

It was a large white acrylic 3D letter A with a plus sign added to the top side. It stood at just over a metre tall and about two hundred millimeters wide. The assistant started to take the wrapping out to the van, the driver then handed me an envelope. They walked out and came back in with a smaller box, one of those fancy boxes you get high end luxury goods in. It has a magnetic flap and the contents are packaged beautifully etc… like a designer watch or some such.

The driver held it and said ‘Flip the lid boss.’ I did, inside was black packing foam with a glassine paper liner I had to flip open. In the box was a small battery operated remote control.

I had already opened the envelope which simply said, ‘Welcome to the next chapter of your business. Press the green button on the remote to start.’

We were truly engrossed by this point. The driver then put the empty box on the reception desk. I pressed the green button and the whole thing lit up, led lights inside in an array of colours. The plus lit up as well, the whole thing flashed for about fifteen seconds and then some music started, a short soothing but triumphant piece played, the music faded and a voice chimed in. ‘Welcome to the future, If you get things positioned right, then good things can happen.’

It went on to say, 'There's more in the bottom of the remote control box.’  Damon was the closest so he grabbed the box and yep, there was another letter.

It had a print out of our original ‘prose story’ piece with an extra paragraph added in a different colour, It read. 

‘As you head your business into the future and seek the right direction, your choice will be a wise mix of a person who can navigate the vagaries of life and do so with humor and an incredible blend of creative and practical skills. When you want an A Plus result, I simply suggest you ‘head north’.’ 

Just then a tall gent walked in, a bright yellow bowler hat on, with the same message as the delivery guys ‘Aha’ printed on the front of it. Smart deep blue suit with a gold tie. And an old style compass in hand.

He smiled widely and said out loud, ‘It’s a jungle out there, when you need direction you need a reliable compass…” With that he shook our hands, one by one and then said ‘Hi everyone I’m Glen, Glen North.’ He then pointed to the compass and said “Aha, True north!’ And pointed north.

Well that set us all off, we clapped and said ‘Bravo!’ Glen got full points for his efforts, the chat afterwards was a mix of intriguing questions, std interview questions and a bit of exploring how he came up with the concept for his presentation.

Glen knew what we did, he had a friend who worked with one of our main architectural firms, he had made architectural models in the past, had done some extensive travelling, and had a strong sense of what art and design was all about and a range of other creative industry jobs and projects.

Glen was a keeper that’s for sure. Well it was about two hours later before we wrapped things up and got back to work, but the rest of the afternoon was punctuated with various answers he had to the questions we posed as well as the questions he asked.

He sent us an email that was more than just a resume and cover letter, it read more like a creative manifesto. With statements from coworkers about their experience with Glen and how he solved various challenges at work. 

Next up came a youtube video of Glen in action, as if an artist with a sporting streak, It combined fake headlines from magazines that talked about gold medal performances. An athlete in a suit with the bright yellow bowler hat. It was clever, creative, gave us more information about him and his stance on things. We all said he and his presentation was very creative and certainly left a solid impression.

It was as if someone had flipped a switch, no more applications of any worth came in. They all avoided the ‘brief’ we had set out in our social media and website info. So the occasional resume and cover letter but mainly resumes only.

Glenda said, ‘What do we do next boss?’ Do we drag things on, or offer him the spot? We had to think about it. I told Kari about how the day went, she was amazed, but then said. ‘What if it’s all some crazy charade?’ 

So there was about an hour of chatting about why he would do that, how it might turn out, what might be wrong with what he did. I decided, something that good, it had to be good, and if it was just as half as good as what we saw, then he would be DARN good.

Glenda did the same with her partner, who allegedly said ‘What’s the catch?’ Damon on the other hand simply said his whole night was spent thinking about what could be done with a bright yellow bowler hat and how it could be used as a marketing ploy of some kind.

We were certainly thinking.

Damon had a suggestion and the next day at work, he said, ‘Perhaps there’s a whole new target market we haven’t really explored, the advertising industry… and maybe Glen’s the guy that can help us explore that, because, let’s face it, he had us in the palm of his hands with his approach and the effort and got the message across.’ Damon was right, he certainly had our attention.

It needed some thought, but a useful idea, Glenda then said, ‘But what makes the most money? In terms of what we have done, most of our jobs pay well. Would another avenue, in this case advertising, be equal or better?’ 

The business was floating along nicely in terms of its income and how we felt about creating the things we did for clients.

I then said, ‘So what’s the downside? We can appreciate the upside to some degree at this point but is there a downside?’

There was a pause and Glenda chimed in with ‘What if he’s a one trick pony?’

Good point, how would we test that and what would be the next step.

Damon said, ‘Let’s look to the future, if we take him on and Tod fades out from his role, and if Glen worked out really well, what would be different? Would things be better and if so how?’

I added, ‘Well that would depend on our goals, would we be able to readily achieve the next goal, and how would that goal be different to where we are currently at?’

There was another pause, the phone rang and we were all sidetracked for about an hour. 

Reenie walked in, she had a technical question about a sculpture she had in the gallery. She saw our A+ sculpture left over from Glen’s visit. ‘Oh that’s interesting,’ I then operated the remote control and she stood mesmerised by the light and sounds. There were a range of questions about who, how, why, what and where… She listened to my responses and said, 'If you can afford this level of talent, pay him and get started, stop umming and erring!’

Reenie gave me a direct perspective that I valued greatly. I wandered off with her to look at the sculpture in question.

On return, the guys were chatting at the whyteboard, they had figured that the goals we set seemed to merely happen, rather than being planned. That’s a fair statement, things landed in our laps often and we would either run with it or dismiss it, mostly we would say, ‘We can do this,’ and then get on with doing it, if it was a dodgy thing we might up the price to make it a worthwhile project financially.

I then said, “What would Glen do?’

The others stood silently, Glenda finally said, ‘That’s a good question actually…’ Damon added, ‘Perhaps that should be his first ‘assignment’ to come up with a plan for the future?’

I nodded in agreement. And jumped up to start scribbling on the Whyteboard, Probation period, planning, exploring creatively and so on. There were a bunch of other things, we crafted that into an email, discussed the details and we all ended up saying ‘do it!’

Email sent, it was late in the day… The next morning Glen’s email response was short, he said ‘okay.’ with a start date two weeks away.

The whole team were excited, in the background we figured we could work on our own plan, then take his and see what fits. Half an hour each here and there and we had a plan. By the time Glen started we had negotiated his salary and conditions, all that went well.

We set him up with a laptop and he worked away asking various clarifying questions along the way. He would head out the door every now and then to get some fresh air, coming back with a bunch of small cakes to share from one of the cafes up the street sometimes. Five minutes here, fifteen minutes there. Part of me started to wonder about how all this was going to pan out.

Halfway through his third day he called a meeting. And put a movie on the computer. Incredibly simply it was a visual delight, graphic and direct. The guy was a genius, the plan included a new staff member, from a virtual office who would do more of the connecting and actual hack work so we could explore more creative options. Glen could then explore ways to sell ideas to executives in a range of industries. 

It gave us leverage and a renewed strength. The plan was simple and happened a LOT faster than we had expected. There was a graph and a spreadsheet that plotted projected sales and revenues.

It was a no brainer, ‘Just do it!’ Glen then made a phone call, sent an email and had the ball rolling.

We ended up with two virtual assistants, a pair of sisters working together to make things happen. They were very good, and if one was not available for whatever reason, the other was available, and knew what was happening.

A list of prospective clients was developed and various pitches created, Glen had a good grasp of Ai and could whip up compelling pitches, ideas and concepts fast. He did his best to think one step ahead of the prospective clients. Glenda took a liking to the idea and Glen taught her how Ai worked, in the end we were all fascinated.

It took a while for new work to come in from the new target clients, but when it did, it was lucrative. The two virtual assistants were worth their weight in gold and were definitely part of the team.

Six months in I was still there full time, it was twelve months before I was able to cut back on my days. Glenda said Glen was a delight to work with and it was as if he had been born to take on this role. Good with the customers, good with the staff and good with our suppliers. He had a different creative streak to Ben, Glenda, Damon and I, but what mattered was that it worked.

If ever I missed the place it was just across the road, so I could drop in at any time, and I did. Then there were the openings at Trev-rod and Reenies from time to time.

Jon stayed for a long while, until things changed. Being newly mobile I travelled with Kari, did a few cruises and flew interstate to look at galleries and other points of interest. Day trips out of major cities were interesting, then overseas to check out all the bits of Europe you see on TV. Simply fascinating. There’s a whole other book in doing all that.

Jon didn’t like being in the house on his own so much. Even though he was hooked up with Susie and spent most of his time over at her place. I asked him once if he was ever going to marry the girl, he said ‘Nah why spoil a good thing.’ I found out later from Kari, that Susie thought the same. He then moved into Susie’s place.

I finally talked Kari into moving into my place, she was used to more modern amenities and was thinking more about a new house out in the suburbs. That move came after about another 12 months in the old place. We spent a lot of time cruising the new estates and doing our best to find a good mix of new areas with reasonably set up amenities.

We looked into building a home and getting things just how we wanted, but then a property came up that fitted our needs. The previous owner had it built, but the mortgage crippled them so they had to sell. We moved in, fitted solar panels and a battery and haven’t looked back.

Kari and Susie had built their business to perform at dizzying heights as well; that meant they could both operate the business from anywhere and not be stuck with having to face a constant commute to the office. Like our business they learnt to run it without them being there.

I found out an interesting thing, Ben owned the whole warehouse, well his family trust did, therefore they made money from all the businesses that leased space. Ben said to me one day, ‘There’s more than one way to make money on Easey street.’

I passed the business on to Glen, Glenda and Damon. They were a great team and deserved to reap the rewards.

I let Chris know we were going to be on the move and gave him plenty of time to figure out what he wanted to do next. I still keep in touch and as much as Kari’s folks are good and all that, Cait’s family will always be my first inlaws.

Living off Easey Street was an amazing time. Lots of fun, good adventures. The business earnings were very fortunate and it meant that our house in the ‘burbs’ would be mortgage free. So we would then be living on ‘easy street’, based on earnings from Easey street.

I sometimes wonder if I hadn't met Cait how things might have turned out. Perhaps I might have moved on to another job? Who knows, In my heart she will always be a part of me. Funny thing from that, Kari suggested a holiday one time and put up the idea of a trip to Bali, I simply said, no thanks, the pain would be too much. We’ve been to lots of places over the years but Bali is not one of them.

THE END