Romantic Acquisition Page 0,24
to the Maryland stores and I’ll take the Virginia sites? We’ll meet back here tonight to discuss any issues we find.”
Kate wanted to argue but Carlo didn’t give her a chance. He ignored the shocked look on her face as he put a hand to the small of her back and led her quickly out of the room and into the elevators.
Kate fumed all the way down, not willing to talk to Carlo at all. Once they reached the parking lot, she headed for her car but Carlo chuckled and turned her towards his own.
She started to protest, “I can drive myself. We should just meet at the store instead of being….”
He ignored her protests and opened the passenger side door for her. He settled her inside the passenger seat without any acknowledgement of her statement.
He walked around to the driver’s seat and got in, laughing at her mutinous expression.
“Believe it or not, Kate, I always do thorough inspections of every aspect of the business I advise on ATI buying. This isn’t out of the norm for my operation,” he explained, then started the powerful motor. “Which way?” he asked.
Kate directed him to the nearest store besides the flagship store which he’d already gone through. The next one was in Arlington, Virginia. It was one of the larger stores and one of the more profitable ones. It was surrounded by several large companies so the store drew a lot of lunch shoppers during the weekdays as well as the suburban crowd on the weekend that wanted to get to the larger department stores but not actually go downtown to Washington, D.C. where the traffic could be difficult at any time of the day.
Carlo and Kate walked through the aisles of clothes first. He asked her questions about the different styles at this site versus those at the Washington, D.C. store. She was impressed that he’d noted the subtle differences and proceeded to explain the different demographics of the shoppers. She also filled him in on the shopping trends for suburbanites.
They went through every department and spoke to as many of the employees as Carlo could, depending on the volume of shoppers. Kate hung back, listening to the answers and trying to give him as much freedom as possible. His questions were unique but pertinent to the sale. He wanted to know how the management of the store treated the workers, what kinds of hours they worked, what times they’d prefer to work, what kinds of benefits they’d like to have to make their lives easier. The questions were endless and Kate wondered how he could store so much data in his mind because he didn’t take any notes. Between interviews, he discussed their answers with Kate and was always able to reference the employee’s name and quote them, referring back to statistics he had to have garnered from the reports she’d given him earlier in the month.
His patience was also endless. No matter how many times he’d asked the same question to various employees, he genuinely listened to the comments of the workers. Kate was surprised by some of their answers. She hadn’t realized that so many of their benefits had been dismantled in the past five years. Apparently David had been a very busy boy, she thought to herself. He’d cut costs, definitely, by eliminating the benefits for the store employees. But he’d done it at the expense of morale which was always a dangerous thing to do. If the employees weren’t happy, they didn’t treat the customers well. If the customers weren’t treated better at Jamison’s, they tended to investigate Macy’s or the other May department stores. Retail was an extremely competitive industry with customers that were fickle with their loyalty at the best of times.
It was nearly six o’clock in the evening when they finished going through the Arlington store. He called Jeff on his cell phone and questioned him on his findings. Kate couldn’t hear the replies but Carlo’s expression showed that he was not impressed.
“Okay, meet me at my place in thirty minutes. The four of us will go over our findings together over dinner.”
Kate was concerned. “I guess Jeff found the same situation at the Maryland store?”
Carlo nodded. “What’s up with your boss?” he asked, turning the Porsche to the left to head in the opposite direction from Jamison’s headquarters.
Kate sighed and nodded her head, understanding his question and ignoring her supposed loyalty to the company. She didn’t feel disloyal though. She loved the