The Controller - Installment #17 in which Allen and Jenny pray on company time

Allen drives home to his big empty house. For the first time ever, he imagines little children running to meet him, a woman standing in the doorway to greet him. He shakes the picture away.

At the office on Monday morning, Jenny has their itinerary drawn up and printed on his desk when he arrives.
“Is the schedule okay?” she wants to know.

“I’ll trust your judgement.”
“Well then, we're visiting the local outlets Tuesday and Wednesday.”
Allen nods, “Let’s plan our strategy. We can kind of experiment with how to go about this, find a best plan, and keep it in mind for next week. We can always revisit the local places again if we have to. What do you think?”

“Honestly? Do you want my honest opinion?”

“Of course.”

“We should pray.”

“Always.”

“I mean right now, here, together, about this plan. God already knows what is going on in the company. He can show us.”

“Humm…praying on company time?”

“Saves time.”

Mork and Marvel are flying cartwheels in the sky above the office. Hallelujah, all praise be to God in the highest.

Jenny and Allen begin praying in tongues. Then Jenny breaks out in English, “Lord, give us your wisdom. Show us what’s happening….give us insight into what Nick is doing….”

“And, just what is going on here?” Nick is in the office.

Startled, Allen and Jenny look up. They are both blushing a deep pink.  They can't even guess how long Nick has been standing there.

“Praying,” Allen says softly.

“This is an office. I shouldn’t have to remind you.” 

“Praying speeds things up.” Jenny ventures.

“I can see you are both getting a lot of work done.”

Jenny skedaddles to her own office, closing the door behind her.

“I’ve always thought you a man of good judgment, but now I wonder.”

“I won’t let it happen again,” Allen mumbles.

Persecution can make or break a person. Of course, this is not major persecution by any stretch of even the human imagination, but this sort of thing makes a human choose his path. 

“I’ll pretend it never happened and expect it never will.” Nick says. “I was hoping you’d be able to help me with something pronto. I went to the bank to ask for a major loan for my ‘other’ business venture and they said I could use the company as collateral. I need business statements.”

“There is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Allen says.

“Does it have anything to do with this?”

“Yes, in fact it does. Our business is showing a downturn in this last quarter. I’ll be visiting a lot of the outlets in the next few weeks to get to the bottom of it.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing a little tweaking can’t fix. How soon can you get these business statements?”

“That’s just it. The way things look at present no bank would give you a loan based on the latest figures. The direction things are headed doesn’t look good on paper.”

“Sh#% Allen, I was hoping for half a million to build that plant in Brazil. Our own refinery would increase our profits exponentially.”

“The very soonest we could come up with positive figures would be three months from now and that is pushing it.”

“You couldn’t fudge the figures just a little.”

“And, go to jail, no thanks.”

“I was kidding.”