Chapter 5 – The Emperor of Broadcasting

Setting his canteen of coffee on the roof of his car and setting his large stacks of folders and papers next to it, Jake opened the door and began to load the items into the car. He looked over to his son and smiled gently at the boy's raised eyebrows. Jake almost instantly knew what he was thinking, why the hell was he hauling around all of that work if he was the CEO and Chairman of the Board? Didn't he have underlings to do that, in fact he had several tens of thousands of people to do work that he didn't want to do, but Jake wasn't that kind of CEO to sit in his office, only pay attention to the very big designs and otherwise sit and collect his check. He took on all matters, from the concerns of Janitorial Staff to the color of the manual for the entry level employee, "I read everything that is sent to me, I read every letter and I respond to it, I obviously can't do that with over 41,000 people, but I try to do it."

"Don't you have other concerns to worry about?" Shawn asked, getting into the passenger seat of the Mercedes Benz, "I wouldn't be able to get it all done."

Jake slid his keys into the ignition and pressed the garage door opener on his dashboard and when the garage was open, he began to pull out, "You know what the firing rate and the resignation rate in INGB is? 5 Percent and 3 Percent, I've kept it a policy to getting to know my employees and personalizing my relationship with them in the best way I can. Before you were born, I took the heads of all divisions and departments of the entire company and ordered them to appoint a representative and the representatives would make annual reports to myself and the rest of the c-level. It was hard to build, but I did it and I get most of the employee's opinions and concerns, it's done."

"You sort through it all?" Shawn was literally was in awe of his father.

Jake nodded, "It was much easier when I was just the American Dragon, then I was just getting my ass kicked by your mother every other day, that was much easier then shifting through thousands of papers a day."

OOOO

"What's going to happen when I get into the office is the following," Jake said as he pulled into the parking garage, he was still getting used to the fact that he pretty much owned everything besides the sidewalks and the streets, "My secretary is going to hand me a fresh, steaming large cup of coffee and my itinerary of the day and when I go into my office, my CFO, COO, CMO and Head of Employee Relations will be in there to brief me on what the big issue of the day is. As you can probably guess, the big news of the day is the issue of the General Benefit and Retirement Plan for a certain segment for our domestic workforce, that's all employees whose salary is $100,000 or lower."

Shawn scribbled his notes down and looked back up to him, "What about the employees who make $100,000 or more?"

"We divide that section down into five more groups," Jake said, cursing inwardly when he tried to run though where the fuck they had designated his parking spot to be, "$100,000 to $250,000 earners have an accelerated retirement and life time benefit package, $250,000 to $500,000 earners have an even more accelerated package, $500,000 to $1,000,000 Earners have a standard insurance plan that covers just about everything and they'll have it for the rest of their life, and they are usually given a retirement package of 10 Percent of what they earned over their career each month, when for everyone else it's 50 Percent of what they earned. For the highest earners: $1,000,000 and over, all they have is lifetime insurance and a minimal retirement benefit, however we occasionally give retiring high level officers a going away present of a maximum of $5 Million Dollars. We're fair from the top down you see."

Shawn nodded, "What would you get in a severance package for example, and not just any high ranking officer, just you, personally you."

Smiling, when he found his parking spot, he put the car into park and stopped for a moment, "For me personally, I have full coverage of insurance for the rest of my life, when I leave I'll receive the maximum package of a $5,000,000 Dollar payout and I will get to keep all of the shares that I own in the company, however, I will take a nonassertive role which means that when I retire and keep my stock, I'll be the main shareholder but now Chairman."

He smiled at his father, "Something that you put into the agreement didn't you?"

"When I retire, I want nothing more to do with the company, when I retire for good, all I want to keep is the stock and the insurance. I have $20 Billion Dollars in stock invested in the company, I'm the largest singular share holder of a company on earth and I intend to stay that way," Jake said, grabbing his papers from the backseat, "In my will, I've dictated that it will be divided between my children and grandchildren all equally, however in the event that one of my children or grandchildren for that matter succeed me as CEO, 70 Percent of the shares will be given to that person so that they'll be CEO and Chairman, and the other thirty percent will be dictated between you kids and your kids."

"So I'm going to be rich," Shawn did a small little happy dance, "Provided that you want me?"

Jake smiled and opened his door and as he gathered his contents and set them on the roof of his car, he kept his eyes on Shawn, "Last night, you opened my eyes to it and I've made a mental note. However, your mother is adamant that you go to school and personally I'm not going to force you to do it, but it would make your mother happy and it would strengthen your position if I put you up for candidacy on the Board, I still need the Board to confirm you."

"So is this my confirmation?" Shawn grinned at him.

"I'll begin training you if you're up for it," Jake smiled back at him and locked the door before picking up his papers, "You'll start out as a paid intern to me directly – but if you accept this, I expect you to go to school Shawn. It's very important to your mother and your mother will kill me if I tell you that you didn't have to go to school. Oh, and I have to warn you that anything you hear today, you need to keep the sensitive details private, not in your report."

He was too blindsided to respond for a moment and then he smiled and nodded, "I'll go to college if you'll train me for the job, I've always wanted to run the family company – I've never been all that keen on college but-…"

Jake held his hand up, "Say no more, we'll talk about it later because I can guarantee you that your mother will want in on this conversation, but let's worry about it all later. I have to get up there for the meeting."

OOOO

"Good morning Mr. Long," Jake's Secretary told him as he and Shawn stepped off of the elevator. She held a steaming cup of coffee in her hand and a single paper in the other. When both of them arrived at her desk, Jake took both from her hands and began to scan through the paper. He seemed to sense the girl's confusion at the appearance of her son, but he smiled when she continued to inform him, "I've copied and filed the itinerary this is a Venti White Chocolate Mocha, with two shots of espresso and extra whipped cream as you like and I have to inform you that the Head of Employee Relations is not here, he had an appointment at his daughter's school, she beat someone up."

Jake looked up to the girl with a smirk and then looked back to the amused expression of his son because that was fucking hilarious to them both. The fact that the Head of Talent Relations was his son in-law and that girl was his daughter and thus his grandchild was amusing. Rose always said that their eldest grandchild always reminded her of herself, "Well then, we'll press on, and could you bring me some intern papers for him, this is my son by the way."

The young girl turned and smiled at Shawn, and in a moment of pure surreal silence when he watched his son blush in the face of his eighteen year old secretary, "I'm Shawn."

"Maureen," She smiled and nodded before turning and walking back to her desk.

Tapping his son on the shoulder, Jake smiled, he was highly amused. He'd never allow it, it would be inappropriate. Not that Maureen wasn't a smart and good girl. Those were the primary reason that he had hired the first year junior college student right out of her High School days. The girl had showed an aptitude for Economics throughout High School, he had read over shining recommendations from all of her teachers and Jake had given her the job then. At first, Maureen was his secretary as Chairman of the Board, but he had changed her job description yesterday in fact. He hadn't told her yet that he was doubling her salary from $40,000 Dollars a year to $80,000 and increasing her benefits across the board. Quite honestly, that would make her the best paid secretary in the company and arguably one of the best in the world, "She's a smart girl, and I have high expectations for her in the future."

"You certainly know to pick them Dad," Shawn said absently.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, I just want to hire exceptional people," Jake smiled as they reached his office and opened it, "Speaking of which, it's not going to happen, your mother would gut her before you got a chance."

OOOO

Jake took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair as he looked at his head officer's reaction to the news that he had told them. As Trevor had gone down roads that he never expected to go down, Jake was too with this.

"You know that I've never accepted business this way," Maxwell said, contemplating what Jake had just told him, "But I suspect that we'll need to do this in order to get that money back."

He and the team of his top officers had been discussing this latest ploy to blackmail the Attorney General of the United States. He and his peers had been suspicious of the idea, but they gradually understood that there was a method to his madness. You need an ace in the hole and this was it. Shawn sat in a chair that was pulled up the side of his father's desk and watched what was going on intently and he knew more than ever that he wanted to be in that environment. He wanted to be sitting in his father's chair, "The Attorney General should be here in two hours, I placed a call to the President's re-election committee and to his superpac and told them both that if I didn't have the AG up here by noon, then I'd pull my donation from his campaign at the $50 Million from his superpac and they called the President immediately, I want you all here for the meeting, there should be some interesting things said."

OOOO

"That's right," said Trevor, leaning back in his chair at his stock readings, he needed to start pulling in some extra cash, "Liquate 150,000 Shares in Apple."

That was nearly half of all his holdings in that company, and the payoff would be enough for him to survive in the world that he lived in if suddenly he found himself lacking his fortune. Those 150,000 shares in Apple immediately gave him $87.3 Million Dollars to fall back on. He was anticipating his father's actions to reach him fairly soon and when that time came, he'd need a lot of cash to pay off the fines and to have a footing when he was free of trouble. Of course he'd be blackballed and probably looked at by the Government for the rest of his professional career, "I'll have it wired to the account that you set up this morning Mr. Long."

"Good," Trevor acknowledged and hung up on his stock broker.

He had done what Mr. Marcus wanted, he had managed to skim the difference off of the other clients and very soon he expected the long arm of the law to break through the door.

OOOO

Authors Note:/ I'm considering doing away with this and to revamp it and to resubmit it later… tell me what you think?