~27~
The next morning, Steph and Manny set up their presentation in the biggest conference room in the building. She had asked Ranger to have the client team there, as well as management staff from the office. Ranger came in a few minutes before the meeting was going to start and pulled her in for a hug and kiss. "Babe, I know you're nervous, but you'll be great." She smiled and started to walk back to the front of the room when she felt Ranger smack her on the butt. She gasped and turned around to see Ranger laughing. "Babe, you need to relax." She just nodded and headed back to talk to Manny. The room filled up with RangeMen and they all quieted down when Ranger cleared his throat. "Let me introduce you to Stephanie Plum, head of client relations in the Trenton office. Steph has managed to turn around the way RangeMan is seen in the public eye. She's added more contracts in the first three months of her job than our office did in an entire year. Together with Manny, they have implemented many changes and she's here to share her knowledge and help go over what you, as the representatives of RangeMan Boston, can do so your contract area can improve and give the Trenton office a run for best office of the year. I ask that you give Stephanie the same attention and respect that you give to me."
With that, he turned and headed to the back of the room and sat down. Steph stood up and glanced at him with a smile before she started to speak. She faced the room and smiled at the guys. "Well, I think that's the most I've heard Ranger say at one time in the entire time I've known him." The guys all chuckled. "As Ranger said, my name is Stephanie Plum and I am the head of client relations at the Trenton office. As most of you know, the guys at Trenton have dubbed me the Bombshell or Bomber for short. While, trouble does seem to find me, I will tell you that most of it wasn't my fault." Ranger smiled at her and shook his head. The guys all laughed and then she got down to business. She talked for about an hour, stopping to answer questions and then let the guys take a short break. Ranger pulled her into his arms and gave her a long kiss once the room was empty. "You're doing a great job Babe. I need to leave for a different meeting, but just keep going until lunch and then I'll meet you upstairs."
The rest of the day went well for Steph and Manny. The Boston guys were onboard with most of her changes and only balked at the one about hiring a woman to help in the office. They were a man's company and while they argued with her and refused to bend, Ranger sat back and let her fight this battle. He knew that all he had to do was issue the order and the guys would comply, but he didn't want to go over Steph's decisions.
Steph let out a big sigh and looked over at Ranger. He merely quirked an eyebrow at her. She gave him a disgusted look and turned back to the guys. "Ok, so you don't want to hire a woman fulltime for the client side, but what do you do for distractions? Does one of the guys dress in drag to lure the skip out?" That earned her a full chuckles, but she looked at them sternly. "I'm serious guys. Who does the distractions?" Gunner spoke up and said, "We don't do distractions. If we need to pull a skip out of a bar, we just go in a get him." Steph looked at Ranger and noted he wasn't going to speak up.
"Ok, so you just go into the bar and go up to the skip and he always follows you out? Peacefully? No damage to the bar that RangeMan has to pay for afterwards?" Again, Gunner was the only one to answer her and said, "Well, no. Most of the time there's a scuffle and we end up getting a bill from the bar that we pay to replace what was broken." "Gotcha" Steph thought. She looked over at Ranger and gave him a smirk. "Ok, let's take a look at the bills from these captures that comes out of the capture fees in the end. Let's compare that to the cost of a fulltime female employee, who could not only work in the office and deal with clients, but could also do distractions to get the skip out peacefully. Somebody get me the numbers by the time we get back in the morning. That's it for today. See you tomorrow."
The room quickly cleared out and soon it was only Steph, Ranger and Manny left. Manny looked at her and smiled. "You know what you're doing with these guys?" Steph smiled and said, "Yep, I just hope the numbers come out like I think they will so it prove to them what a fulltime female staff member would be able to accomplish and how much the company would benefit." Ranger told Manny to take the night off and go have fun. He had some friends from his Navy days that lived in the city and was going to go see them. "See you in the morning Steph, you too boss." Once Manny left, Ranger pulled Steph into his arms. "Do you know how sexy you are when you're lecturing the guys? I was glad I didn't have to stand up for any reason while you were talking because it would have been a bit too hard to do." She laughed at him and he threw her over his shoulder and ran up the stairs to the apartment. He kicked the door shut behind them and they weren't heard from again until the next morning.
The next morning the guys came into the conference room and found that Steph had set up a white board and had listed the numbers from the Trenton office for distraction costs with and without the use of a female worker. They sat down and she started going over Trenton's numbers. Luckily, Tank was able to send the numbers to her last night and she got up earlier than usual so she could set up the board. She never realized how much of a cost savings it was for RangeMan when she did a distraction for Ranger. From the look on Ranger's face, he didn't realize how much it was either.
Steph asked for the numbers from Gunner and he handed over a sheet of paper. She looked it over for a minute and then wrote the Boston numbers in a different color next to Trenton's numbers. She asked Ranger to take a picture of the board once everything was done so she'd have the numbers for the next office on the trip. She planned to do this part of the training, regardless of the hiring of a woman. Once she had the numbers on the board, she stepped aside and asked the guys to compare, just the numbers between the offices on how much was spent without a distraction job. The two offices were pretty close in costs, with Boston being just a bit higher, which she figured was due to a higher cost of living. She talked each part of the numbers over with the guys and could see that they were still skeptical. She looked at Gunner and said, "Do you have any outstanding skips that have been researched?" He stepped out and came back in a few minutes later with a couple files.
She did a quick run through the files and then flipped the white board over to a blank side. She wrote down two names and their previous capture information. Both had been previous customers and both ended with destruction charges that came out of the capture fees. She turned to Ranger and raised her eyebrows at him. He nodded and she went on. "Ok, according to the files, both of these guys are due in the next few days. Tonight we will go after this one at the bar it says he goes to every night after work," she said, pointing to the first name on the board. "And tomorrow, we'll pick the other one during lunch, as it says he eats lunch every day at the same coffee shop near his office. I will provide the distraction for both skips and then we'll come back tomorrow afternoon and talk numbers. We'll use the hourly rate I was paid before I became fulltime at RangeMan as the cost of the female staff member." Ranger stood up and walked to stand by Steph. He looked at the guys and said, "That's it for today. Gunner, put a team together of 8 guys to work tonight and contact the bar owner and give him a heads up and that we plan to have one of the guys act as a bartender just while Steph is inside. Plan to have at least 3 of the guys working inside as customers. We'll need two outside the front and 2 outside the back door, just as a precaution. I'll be inside as well, to keep an eye on things. Now, I know that there are more of you in here than the 8 I am requesting, so we'll run both audio and video feeds so everyone here can learn. Dismissed."
The guys headed out of the room and Steph looked at Ranger with a smile. "I need to go shopping." "Babe, you brought four suitcases full of clothes and shoes." "Carlos, I don't have slutty clothes and that's what I need for tonight. The job tomorrow is easy enough, as I am overloaded with "work" clothes, but I need "slut" clothes now." Ranger let out a sigh and said, "Babe."