M.Y.T.H. Inc. In Action

Chapter Seventeen;

"Ya gotta speak the language."

-N. WEBSTER

"HEY, SWATTER." Shu Flie sez, lookin' out one of the warehouse windows, "do you know there are a buncha wagons and drivers sitting outside?"

"No," I sez, "but if you hum a couple bars, I'll fake it."

Okay, so it's an old joke. Like I've said before, the army runs on old jokes. Unfortuitously, this particular joke is apparently a little too old for our farm-raised colleague.

"Say what?" he sez, lookin' kinda puzzled.

"Strike that," I sez. "Are they army or civilian?"

While it is procedure to have army wagons and drivers take shipments out of the supply depot, deliveries from suppliers is done by the supplier's own transports, and are therefore civilian.

"Civilian," Shu sez.

"Are the wagons full or empty?"

"They look empty from here."

I look over at Nunzio.

"Think it might be the teamsters we're expectin'?"

"Easy enough to check," he shrugs. "Hey Shu! What are they doing?"

"Nothing," the Flie brother reports. "They're just sitting around and talking."

"Sounds like them," Nunzio smirks. "I think it's your deal, Junebug."

As you might be able to detect from this last comment, we're all occupied with our favorite pastime, which is to say, Dragon Poker.

"Shouldn't one of you go out and talk to them or something?" Shu sez, wanderin' over to our table.

"It wouldn't do any good," I sez, peekin' at my hole cards. "They'll talk to us when they're good and ready ... and not before. Pull up a chair and relax."

As it turns out, it is several hours before there is any contact with the drivers. When it finally comes, it takes the form of a big, potbellied individual with a tattoo on his arm who comes waddlin' through the door and over to our game.

"Hey, hey!" he snarls, "is somebody gonna talk to us or what?"

Now, just because Nunzio and me is big guys what get our way by tossin' our weight around does not mean we are particularly tolerant of anyone else who does the same thing.

"We figured you guys would talk to us when you were good and ready and not before," Nunzio sez, gettin' to his feet. "You got a problem with that?"

"Oh yeah?" the guy hollers, goin' nose to nose with Nunzio. "Well for your information, we'll talk when we're good and ... and ... oh. Yeah."

It takes a little doin', but I manage to hide my smile. This guy is already at a disadvantage in the negotiations, as my cousin has beaten him to his own punch line. Havin' lost the edge in the bluster department, he retreats to his secondary defense of indifference.

"We ... ah ... heard around that you guys was lookin' for some civilian transport, so we thought we'd drop by and see what the score was for ourselves."

"The stuff's over there on the loadin' dock." I sez, jerkin' a thumb in the appropriate direction. "And here's the list of where it's supposed to go. Bill us."

I nod to Bee, who hands the guy the papers for the shipments we have selected. Like I say, we'd been expecting them.

The guy looks at the list he's holdin' like if s a road kill.

"Just like that, huh?" he sneers. "Don't you wanna talk about our haulin' rates?"

"No need for that," I shrugs. "I'm sure you'll charge us a fair price."

"You are?" he sez, squintin' suspicious-like.

"Sure," I sez, givin' him my best collection agent's smile, "especially seein' as how the rates is gonna be reviewed ... and if they look outta line, there's gonna be an investigation,"

"An investigation," the driver sneers. "We get Royal investigations all the time ... and we ain't changed nothin' yet. If they give us too much grief, we just threaten to shut down haulin' all over the kingdom."

"We wasn't talkin' about no Royal Investigation," Nunzio sez. "We was thinkin' of another judgmental body."

"Oh yeah? Like who?"

Nunzio winks at me, and I take a deep breath and give it my best shot.

"Don ... de don don. Don ... de don don Bruuuuuce!"

Though my singin' voice is not what you would call a real show stopper, the guy gets the message. His smile droops, and he swallows hard ... but he's a fighter and tries to rally back.

"Yeah, okay, so you get our 'special' rates. Just don't expect any express delivery."

Now it's Nunzio's turn to show off his grin.

"Friend," he sez, "if we wanted efficiency, we wouldn't have sent for the teamsters."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the guy bellows, gettin' back some of the color he lost when we mentioned Don Bruce.

"Just that your normal delivery schedules will suit us fine," I sez, innocent-like. "Know what I mean?"

"Yeah ... well ... I guess that's settled," the guy sez, lookin' back and forth between Nunzio and the men. "We'll go ahead and get started."

As he is goin', I find I cannot resist takin' one last dig at him.

"Say, Nunzio," I sez in a loud voice. "What do you call a teamster in a three piece suit?"

"The defendant!" Nunzio shoots back just as loud.

This humor goes right past the others in the crew, but the driver gets it. He breaks stride, and for a second I think he's gonna come back to "discuss" it with us at length. Instead, he just keeps on goin' and contents himself with slammin' the door for his witty response.

"You know, Guide," Nunzio sez, goin' back to studyin' his cards, "special rates or not, eventually we're going to have to pay these jokers ... and we do not currently have access to the funds we are accustomed to operating with in M.Y.T.H. Inc."

"Relax, cuz," I sez, seein' the current bet and raisin' it, "I got an idea for that, too."

I have a chance to try out my plan that afternoon when a shipment arrives from one of our suppliers. I wait until the unloadin' is almost complete, then amble over to the driver.

"Say ... you got a minute?" I sez, friendlylike.

"Okay," the driver shrugs. "What's up?"

"Well," I sez, lookin' around like I'm expectin' a cop, "I got some information you should pass back to your outfit."

"What's that?"

"There's a rumor goin' around that the queen is callin' for an audit on military spendin'," I sez. "Somethin' about a lot of our suppliers chargin' us more for supplies than they do civilians."

"An audit?" he repeats, suddenly lookin' real nervous.

"Yeah, scuttlebutt has it that any outfit caught gougin' extra profits out of army contracts is gonna get shut down and their entire inventory confiscated by the government."

"Is that legal?"

"Hey, we're talkin' the queen here. If she sez it's legal, it's legal."

"When is this gonna happen?"

"Not until next month, the way I hear it," I sez. "I just thought you might like to know a little in advance. You know, so just in case any of youse guys' prices should need some quick readjusting youse could do it before the audit started."

"Hey thanks! I appreciate that."

"Yeah? Well, let your management know about it and see if they appreciate it, too. If they do, then maybe it would be a good think if in addition to adjustin' their prices, they made a little refund to postdate the price change ... like maybe you could drop it off here when you make your next delivery?"

"I'll do that," he sez, noddin' vigorously. "And thanks again. We won't forget you."

Things went pretty smooth after that. We only had to plant our audit rumor a couple times for the word to spread through the suppliers, and soon there was a steady arrival of "refunds" ... more than enough to pay off the teamsters. What's more, Bee's plan for reorganizin' the warehouse worked well enough that we ended up havin' a fair amount of leisure time each day, which we devoted to sharpenin' our Dragon Poker skills ... as well as to our new hobby: Creative Supplyin'.

This pastime proved to be a lot more fun than any of us had anticipated, mostly because of the rules we set for ourselves. Since we agreed to only botch up one out of every ten orders, we have a lot of time to decide exactly which orders will get botched up and how. You see, to keep ourselves covered, we decide that it is best to switch items that either had identification numbers close enough to each other that the error would seem like a simple misreadin', like a 6 for an 8 ... or that were of a similar nature or appearance so it would just look like we pulled the wrong item, like sendin' summer weight uniforms to an outfit requestin' winter weight gear.

My personal favorite was when we sent several cases of Propaganda Leaflets to an outfit that was desperately askin' for toilet paper. It seemed somehow appropriate to me.

Like I say, it was a lot of fun ... so much fun, in fact, I had a sneaky feelin' that it couldn't last. As it turned out, I was right.

The end of the festivities came when I got an order to report to our commandin' officer.

"Stand easy, Sergeant Guido. I've just been reviewing your unit's efficiency rating, and from what I'm seeing, it looks like it's time we had a talk."

I am more puzzled than nervous at this, as we have not been forwardin' the required copies of our paperwork ... mostly because we have not been fillin' out the required paperwork at all. This is confirmed by the officer's next words.

"It seems your squad is not overly fond of filling out the supply forms required by regulations, sergeant."

"Well, sir, we've been pretty busy tryin' to learn the routine. I guess we've gotten a little behind in our reports."

"'A little behind' hardly describes it," he sez, tightenin' his lips a little. "I can't seem to find a single form from your supply depot since you took over. No matter, though. Fortunately there is sufficient cross-reporting to give me an idea of your progress."

This makes me a little uneasy, as we have figured there would be several rounds of requests and admonishments on our negligent paperwork performance before any attention was paid to the actual performance of our jobs. Still, as I am not totally unaccustomed to havin' to explain my actions to assorted authority figures, I have my alibis ready to go.

"Are you aware, sergeant, that your squad is performing at ninety-five percent efficiency?"

"Ninety-five percent?" I sez, genuinely surprised, as our one-in-ten plan should be yieldin' an even ninety percent.

"I know it sounds high," the officer sez, misunderstandin' my reaction, "especially considering that sixty-five percent is the normal efficiency rating, even for an experienced supply crew. Of course, a practiced eye can read between the lines and get a pretty good idea of what's happening."

"Sir?"

"Take this one shipment, for example," he sez, tappin' one of the sheets in front of him. "It took a shrewd eye with attention to detail to spot that this request for winter weight uniforms was actually several months old, and to realize that substituting summer weight uniforms would be more appropriate."

A small alarm started goin' off in the back of my head, but the officer was still talkin'.

"... or take this item, when you substituted cases of these propaganda leaflets for toilet paper. Everybody's heard about the morale problem of that unit, but it seems you not only had an idea about what to do, you acted on it. It's worked, incidentally ... word is, their esprit de corps is at an all-time high since receiving your shipment."

As he is speakin' I am starin' at the leaflet he has shoved across the desk. Now understand, we had sent this stuff out without openin' the cartons, so this is the first time I am seein' one of the actual leaflets. It features a large picture of Queen Hemlock, who is not a bad lookin' broad normally, but looks particularly good in this picture as she is wearin' little more than a suggestive smile. Underneath the picture in large letters is the question: WOULDN'T YOU RATHER BE ON MY SIDE? Though I do not pretend to be a sociology expert like my cousin Nunzio, I can see where this would perk up a depressed soldier.

"... But I'm getting bogged down in details," the officer is sayin'.

"In addition to your shipping efficiency, are you aware that the turnaround time for an order at your depot is less than a third the time it takes to get an order through any other depot?"

I am startin' to see the direction this interview is goin', and needless to say I am not enthused with it.

"That's mostly Private Bee's doin' sir," I sez, tryin' to get the focus off me. "He's been experimentin' with a new organization system in our warehouse ... as well as a new 'reduced paperwork' trackin' system."

"Private Bee, eh?" the officer sez, makin' a note on his pad. "Tell him I'd like to see him when you get back to your unit. I'd like a bit more information about this experimental system of his ... and speaking of experiments ..."

He looks up at me again.

"I understand you've been using civilian transports for some of your deliveries. Is that another experiment?"

"Yes, sir," I sez.

I figure he'll be upset about this, so I am willin' to take the blame. It seems, however, that once again I have misjudged the situational.

"You know, sergeant," he sez, leanin' back in his chair, "the army considered using civilian transports for the disbursement of supplies, but abandoned the idea as being too expensive. From the look of things, though, you may have just proved them wrong. Of course, you should have cleared it with me before implementing such an experiment, just as it was beyond your authority to authorize Private Bee to change established procedure, but it's hard to argue with your results. Besides, it's a rare thing these days to find a soldier, especially an enlisted man, who's not afraid to show a little initiative."

I experience a sinkin' feelin' in my stomach.

"... And if there's one thing an organization that's growing as fast as ours needs ..."

I close my eyes.

"... it's leadership. That's why it gives me such great pleasure to approve your promotion to lieutenant, and ..."

My eyes snap open.

"Wait a minute!" I sez, forgettin' all about the proper modes of addressin' a superior. "You're makin' me an officer??"

My reaction seems to take the officer by surprise.

"Well ... yes," he sez. "Normally we'd require your attending officers' school, but in this situation ..."

"That does it!" I snarl, losin' my temper completely. "I QUIT!!"