She woke up with her mouth tasting sour and a throbbing headache. Looking around the room, there were an assortment of people in various stages of undress spread out around the hotel room. Various half-filled cups and room service trays littered every available surface.
Moving aside an arm and a leg draped over her, Hallie dragged herself out of bed and to the bathroom, claiming the complimentary mouthwash before any of these other freeloaders could find it.
It was just another Tuesday in Washington. Many of the members of congress would show up on Tuesday and receive briefings before putting in one whole day of work on Wednesday before flying home on Thursday. As a result, the younger staffers tended to party from Thursday through Monday. There were always some lobbyists who would pay the bills and organize various social activities to keep on good terms with the people who actually wrote the laws and talking points that would shape policy. Some of the congress members were more hands on and most of them were unpleasant to work with. Mostly they were concerned with how many favors they could work into the laws that would satisfy various donors or activists. They would often vent about constituents complaining about various issues or events, and the more talented staffers knew how to work in language that seemed like it was addressing these complaints.
A lot of the staffers were idealistic and would add in items that advanced causes they believed in, but they knew it all boiled down to securing votes. Social functions tended to be a mix of self-justification and high-minded idealism, along with the occasional juicy scandal.
Hallie had been a staffer once, but she realized she could make a lot more money hanging out with staffers and selling information to companies struggling to deal with the government. She was a lobbyist, but she was tied into the lower end of bureaucracy instead of the big names and power brokers who were on seven figure retainers with global conglomerates.
She found a quiet spot on the balcony, with only one person passed out nearby. These younger types tended to have more access to agency heads and elected officials who like to be surrounded by young, attractive people. It was useful to keep these contacts, but exhausting.
Hallie preferred dealing with the middle-aged staffers who handled a lot of the legal and technical minutiae that went into contract reviews. They tended to be detail oriented introverts with low self-esteem, so they really appreciated anyone who made an effort to be a friend. These mid-level bureaucrats could turn a thousand-page law into fifty thousand pages of rules, guidelines and forms, which kept the city's growing population busy along with millions of government employees around the country.
Checking her laptop, she spent about half an hour answering a detailed email from someone named Melinda White, who was paying $20k for about 40 hours of consulting services. She basically wanted help finding and winning government contracts related to construction projects. Hallie gave her a list of the certifications that were frequently requested in the requirements. Melinda sarcastically replied that she had the internet too and asked if Hallie had any way to get information on what prices were bid for different types of work.
Hallie replied that bids were all considered public information, and information about specific bids could be retrieved just by asking for it. Her phone rang.
“Sorry, can you help me get access to all the data for bids in the past five years, or introduce me to someone who could help with this?” Melinda asked.
“I know a guy who works on some of the IT systems. You’re asking for a lot of data. It’s public but getting it to you is not something the system supports. Besides, you would have a hard time sorting through all that information or even tying it back to the data in the awarded contract system.”
“Yes, I didn’t think it would be easy. Do you know someone who can expedite my request for information, or do you think I should file a lawsuit to get it?” Melinda asked.
“I’ve heard a lot of the IT staff doesn’t really do much all day. The trick is getting them motivated, and unfortunately you can’t just bribe them to do their job.” Hallie replied.
“Any suggestions?” Melinda said.
“Well, they aren’t afraid to lose their jobs but if a manager pesters them enough, they will get it done, just to avoid the hassle. Most employees there have 6 or more people who could be considered their manager, so we might be able to find someone. I’ll make some calls, but I might need more consulting hours and expenses if I need to take someone to dinner or a sporting event.” Hallie wondered how deep Melinda's pockets were.
“OK, you are authorized for another 40 hours of work if needed and up to $10k in expenses.”
Hallie was very satisfied. She could milk this for $50k for two weeks of part-time work, and she wouldn’t even have to do anything unethical.
----------------------------------------
“Good morning Scott!” Melinda said cheerfully over the phone. Scott was in a bed in the Merida Hyatt, waking up around 11AM after their epic celebration. He saw light green hair on one pillow, next to another girl with dark hair he recognized as the girl Carmen he had spoken with at the party. Unfortunately, Scott himself had been sleeping on the floor. Glancing around he saw a guy who looked like one of the Mariachi’s asleep on a chair and for some reason there was a chicken investigating some crumbs on the floor. Scott remembered getting some large dividend checks, followed by dancing and possibly swimming? Whatever happened after that he had no idea, and at this point he didn’t even care with the stabbing pain in his head.
“Uh, is it?” Scott moaned. “Are we in trouble? I don’t remember that much.”
“Oh Scott, make sure you drink some water and get some food. I have a project for you to work on, but you’ll probably just want to recover today. From what I saw, things got a little wild once you and your little gang headed out to the pool.”
“How much did you see? I don’t think I’ve blanked out on a night like this since Freshman year.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“I went to bed a little after midnight, so I’m sure I missed most of your antics. As far as I know, the only sober people were the bartenders and lifeguards. I’m not really sure how sober they were, but I think the hotel manager would have told me if anyone drowned. We are going to overrun the budget a bit on cleaning charges, but I’ll just send the bill to Barry. He can afford it!”
“Yeah, I forgot to thank you for those huge dividend checks. Getting Sergio to hold them for us was a smart move.”
“Wait! You gave your checks to Sergio? I haven’t seen him since early last night.” Melinda said, sounding concerned.
“What?!!” Scott sat up, suddenly much more awake. The Mariachi guy grunted at him then went back to sleep.
“Just kidding!” Melinda laughed. “I knew you idiots would be flashing those around and someone would kidnap your sister or something. Sergio doesn’t drink anymore, and he’s really reliable.”
“Right, thanks for almost giving me a heart attack.” Scott said, “So can you tell me more about the reason for this early morning wake-up call?”
“Well, it’s almost afternoon, but I have a job for you this week. I talked to my lobbyist in Washington, and she’s going to get us a data dump of all the government contract bids for the last five years. I need you and some contract programmers to put together a system that will scan them and link to another database of awarded bids. We will need to mine the data for what makes a bid more likely to win and what ranges of prices are bid for various services.”
“Sounds interesting. What’s the timeline?”
“I just said ‘this week’. Getting similar data for state and local government projects is harder since they are not standardized, and lobbyists might not even be available to help. I’m working on this, but there will be even more opportunities in the local projects. The government is voting on a massive stimulus bill - over $5 trillion, so there is a huge opportunity. The economy is completely broken right now, so a lot of potential competitors are struggling with financing and supply chain issues. We need to act quickly. I’m hearing rumors about civil unrest and outside Washington people have very little confidence that the government can fix their problems.”
“How bad is it?” Scott asked. He hadn’t really been keeping up with current events, although he had heard a lot of people mention the bad economy.
“A lot of banks and financial firms have failed. They suspended foreclosures, so most banks that survived are only hanging on because the Federal Reserve went to negative interest rates. Most large city governments have also gone bankrupt. States are not allowed to go bankrupt, but several have defaulted on their debts, which is something we haven’t seen since the great depression.” Melinda explained.
“That sounds bad.”
“It is getting serious. There is also talk of going to war with Russia, and I’ve even heard some people in the press have picked up our story of the Russians attacking a US company in Mexico, although they have all the details wrong. The politicians need something to blame and distract the people, so who knows what they will do?” Melinda continued.
“I get that we want to make money, but is there anything we can do to help?” Scott asked.
“I think a lot of the contracts we bid for will be low-income housing. Building nicer places for less money can help people get through this. I’m starting a new company and all our businesses are hiring. It’s not much, but I’m looking into other ways we can help.” Melinda said.
“Another company?” Scott said. Could even Melinda manage that much?
“Yeah, I’m anticipating one of our biggest expenses building the habitats will be ordinary stuff like plumbing fixtures, electrical, appliances etc. We have cheap energy, raw materials and robot labor, so I think we can compete aggressively. It will also increase the value of our cargo shipments if we include some finished goods.”
“Sure, my dad will like that, and it could make a lot of money, but it sounds like a complicated business to run. Can you even handle that with everything else you are doing?” Scott asked, concerned.
“No, I couldn't possibly handle it!” Melinda agreed. “I’m going to let someone else be the CEO. A guy named Trinidad Franco who lives in the Congo. He runs a local company that builds various hand made products sold locally or exported as high-end African themed designs.”
“Hey, I think I remember that guy. He was my second choice for CEO, but I picked you because he didn’t speak English.”
“Right! He was the highest ranked potentially available and lowest cost person. Obviously, I’m no longer low cost - you guys are going to have to pay me the big bucks after my first year is up.”
“Well, I'm not looking forward to that negotiation. Any chance
“Oh Scott, you are such a dear! Trinidad has a strong opinion about speaking English, so we are hiring a translator for him. He’s going to merge his company into our new Genysis Consumer Products. You, Barry and Matt will of course have some equity since your various tech is essential and that’s just how I run things. The rest will be split between me, Trinidad and Angela Stein and some of her Wall Street friends will again be providing start-up capital. She has been begging me for another company to invest in. I think she really enjoyed bragging about how her last investment just paid out a generous dividend despite only being six months old and surviving an attack by Russian commandos.” Melinda was on a roll now.
“How much equity are we keeping?” Scott asked.
“You get your standard 25% and Matt and Barry have 12.5. I get 5%, so our little group maintains control. Trinidad keeps 25% and the investors are putting in $10 million for 20%. I’m sure you could handle the math if you weren’t hungover, but your holdings are valued at $12.5 million.”
“You said Trinidad merged his company. Are we keeping his operations in Congo running?”
“Good question, Scott,” Melinda said encouragingly. “We won’t be manufacturing there, but most of his people will continue working on artistic design and prototyping of products. I’m upgrading their equipment and facilities and encouraging them to use Glitch_HR skills training to grow into their new roles. I showed Franco your program, and he was very excited the interface could translate into Kituba. He was even more impressed with how it would help run his company. His current employees will be given target skill levels they need to reach to fill the roles needed, and they will get a good boost in pay and bonuses if they perform.”
“You’ll get to meet Trinidad soon. He’s coming here to help supervise getting some factories up and running. We’ll probably start fairly small on a property inland. Traffic is becoming a real problem here. I spoke with the mayor last night, and he indicated that even if we pay for highway improvements the issues of land eminent domain, environmental protection and labor issues mean it could be a few years before we can get a road or elevated railway built. Which leads me to my next idea.”
“Aww, my head still hurts. Were you working the whole time during the party?” Scott asked.
“Of course! Anyway, I need you to work with Matt, Barry and Zaliha and come up with some freight vehicles that can handle vertical take-off and landing. It will be much easier to get tied into air traffic control compared to getting right of way on land.”
“Sure, let’s just start another company because we don’t want to wait 3 years for a road to be built,” Scott said sarcastically.