Howl at the Loon (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 6) Page 10

  “I can’t do that! It’s not allowed.”

  Alec shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Leroy cavorted around Alec as they strolled away toward the cabin and Robin smiled. It was obvious that Leroy was devoted to his new best buddy. And it was sweet that Alec was so protective of the dog. Ernie’s absence was starting to go from odd to somewhat disturbing. What if something had happened to him while he was fishing? The water in the lake had to be frigid. If he had fallen overboard, he might be hurt. Or a corpse languishing on the lake bottom.

  She glanced down at Emma, who was looking a little sad that her new canine playmate was going away. Robin crouched down and scratched the dog’s ears. “Are you up for a little call-center training?” Emma wagged enthusiastically and Robin chuckled. “At least we’re pretty sure the teacher likes dogs, right?”

  After another short stroll along the lakeshore while she ate the rest of her sandwich, Robin walked back up to the building, went inside, and settled Emma back into her corner on her towel. Once the dog seemed composed again, Robin sat down at the table. She smiled at Alec as he walked in. He’d changed out of the old faded jeans he’d been wearing while walking Leroy into more instructor-appropriate dress pants. Brett had disappeared, which wasn’t a surprise given that he undoubtedly had limited interest in learning how to take phone orders for women’s clothes.

  Alec put his huge binder on the table and handed a pile of comb-bound booklets to Terri for everyone to pass around. Terri took her booklet from the stack and plopped it on the table with a thud. She glared at Alec. “So where were you when we all had to come up with words? What’s your word?”

  At the confused expression on his face, Robin said, “It was an ice-breaker exercise. We all had to say our name and then one word to describe us that starts with the same letter as our first name. For example, my word was rosy.”

  Terri said, “Mine is tough.”

  Everyone looked at Alec and Terri said, “We all had to come up with one, so you do too. Come on, what’s your word?”

  Alec put his palms on the big binder and leaned forward. “Okay. I guess I’ll go with adaptable.”

  “Oh brother.” Terri rolled her eyes melodramatically. “That’s the best you can do? What does that mean?”

  He sat down and patted the binder, “I have adapted to more things than you might imagine, including teaching this class, which I’ve never done before.”

  Terri crossed her arms in front of her chest. “That’s just great. So you’re telling us you don’t know anything.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Alec leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Most of you know that I was Eagle River’s third employee. So I probably know more about the company than even I think I know. I took orders before it was computerized and I helped Sue Lambert come up with the scripts you all use.”

  Terri scowled. “Well all that ancient history doesn’t help us now.”

  “At first, I didn’t think it would either, but it does.” He stood up and began walking around the table. “I’m going to assume you all know the basics of taking orders. I know you all already have the call scripts memorized. Someone says, ‘I’d like to place an order’ and you say ‘I’d be happy to help you with that’ and so on.”

  At the collective nodding of heads, Alec continued. “You also all should know how to use the software, because you deal with it every day. So we’re not going to talk about how the software works—or doesn’t work. I am well aware everyone hates it because it’s cryptic and completely unintuitive. All the idiotic function keys where you have to press F3 here and F4 there. It’s horrible and I get that, because I’ve used it too. But frankly, there’s nothing I can do about the fact that the software stinks. What I can do is help you understand more about the company, who our customers are, and what to do when things go wrong. I’m going to talk about what happens when a call goes off the rails. We’ve all been there. What we’re going to be talking about is the service part of customer service. If you know what to do, it’s a lot less stressful when you’re talking to an angry senior citizen in Georgia who just got the wrong size jacket and wants to take out the fact that her diet isn’t working on someone. Unfortunately, that someone is you.”

  There was more nodding in agreement, and Robin looked over at Emma. Even the dog seemed intrigued. Robin had never taken an Eagle River order herself, so she had no idea what talking to customers was like. Even Terri was smiling at what Alec was saying. He’d managed to win over a ridiculously tough crowd in seconds. Robin was impressed. Apparently, all that slow reading and preparation with Leroy paid off.

  Alec proceeded to tell a story about a woman who had called so many times that he was able to recognize her voice. After the company grew, she continued to ask for Alec by name, even though his job no longer was supposed to involve taking phone orders anymore. He said, “Back in the early years, Gladys was Eagle River’s number-one customer. It’s possible she was just lonely and wanted someone to talk to, but I think she bought almost every product in the catalog. As you know, there is no time limit on calls. Although call time is one of the metrics we track, and shorter is better financially, because customer service trumps everything else, you can take as long as necessary to take an order. If that means you hear all about Gladys’s grandchildren like I did, that’s okay.”

  A woman with shoulder-length bleached blonde hair said, “That’s ridiculous. If we listen to people blab all day, it will take forever to finish orders. That’s certainly not how we did it at High Country. We were supposed to be businesslike and get through calls as quickly as possible. Get the order so you can move on to the next call.”

  Robin recognized the woman’s voice, partly because she spoke extremely fast. It was ambitious Angela, and given her rapid-fire speech patterns, she probably could win order-taking-speed awards.

  Alec didn’t seem phased by the outburst and picked up a pencil, turning it in his fingers. “From the beginning, Eagle River has worked hard to be the Nordstrom’s of the catalog world. Caller wait times are negligible, even though like I said, our reps can take as long as necessary to take an order. Whether someone is ordering an entire wardrobe or just one piddly scarf, it doesn’t matter how long you’re on the phone. That’s why we have so many employees at the call center.”

  Angela said, “I guess that makes sense.”

  He looked down at the pencil in his hand. “I think after the merger, Eagle River didn’t do a particularly good job of explaining what the core values of the company are. We showed you what to do—with the software and the scripts and all that—but we didn’t tell you why. I’ll get into that this week too. If we expect you to present our vision for customer service out there into the world, we should probably tell you what it is.”

  Angela looked more relaxed. “Yes. You should.”

  Alec sat down again and put his hands in his lap. “For the next few days, you’ll have the opportunity to get all your questions answered. If you’ve ever had a horrible call that made you want to scream or cry, we can talk about it. I don’t promise to have all the answers, but together we can come up with solutions, so I encourage you to share your experiences. We’ll do a lot of exercises and then go over them. If you don’t understand something I’m saying, ask and I’ll try to figure out a different way to explain it.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement. Robin looked over at Emma, who was wagging the tip of her tail on the towel. She seemed pleased too. Who knew Alec would end up being such a good teacher? Maybe even after all the issues with the lodge, this retreat wouldn’t be a disaster after all.

  After the training ended, Robin gave Emma one last walk along the lake before they had to return to the kennel. It was starting to drizzle and the clouds were looking more serious about precipitation again. Robin needed to make sure she got out there and back before dinner.

  She called Emma, interrupting the dog’s beach-cavorting extravaganza. Emma was being so good, and it wasn’t fair that Alec
was keeping a dog in his cabin. But Robin knew better. It would be just her type of Murphy’s Law to be the one who got caught breaking the rules.

  After loading Emma into the car, she headed back north through town and out toward the kennel. The rain was steady with fat droplets hitting the windshield, and Robin flipped the wipers to high. The smell of wet dog pervaded the car. Maybe after she got home, she’d give Emma a bath. All this running around in the rain and mud wasn’t improving her aroma.

  An old grayish sawhorse sat at the turn to the driveway and a man was standing in the rushing water alongside the road. The old green truck was parked on the other side of the creek. Robin pulled over to the side of the road and parked. She looked over her shoulder at Emma. “I’ll be right back, Em.”

  Opening the door, she popped open her umbrella and tucked herself underneath it. The rain was coming down in sheets. She walked over to the creek and pointed. “Hi. I need to go to the house.”

  The man was wearing hip waders, a raincoat, and a leather hat. Water poured off its brim as he looked up at her. “Sorry, but the driveway is closed.”

  As he blinked, droplets flew off his lashes. Robin had never met anyone with eyes that shade of deep green. She gestured toward the driveway. “But my dog has to stay here.”

  “Are you Robin?”

  “Yes. I took my dog Emma out for the day. She’s staying here. Who are you?”

  He splashed toward the edge of the creek and clambered out into the sodden weeds alongside the road. “I’m Joel. I live here with Kat.” He turned and pointed toward the creek. “The culvert got crushed completely when a truck went over it, so there’s a crater where the driveway used to be. It’s pretty deep. We’re going to have to dig out the culvert and replace it, which is going to take a while.”

  Robin shook her umbrella. “What should I do? Emma isn’t supposed to stay with me.”

  “I’ll carry her across and take her back to the house.”

  “All right. Let me go get her.” Robin turned and went back to the car. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Hiding Emma with her in the cabin was looking more appealing. But if she got caught, Robin could lose her job. And she was supposed to be available to everyone during meals, where she definitely could not take Emma. There were health regulations about that, weren’t there? Ernie would have a fit, assuming he was still around somewhere and not dead at the bottom of the lake. She opened the car door and clipped the leash on Emma. “Sorry Em. I guess you have go with this guy.”

  Emma wagged her tail and jumped daintily down from the car. At the sight of Joel, she ran to the end of the leash, obviously eager to see the man again. Robin smiled. “I guess she knows you.”

  Joel said, “Emma is a great dog. We spent some time hanging out together.”

  Robin crouched down next to Emma and hugged her, even though her fur was getting soggy. “I’ll see you in a few days, Em. Be good.” She stood and handed the leash to Joel. “I’ll call Kat and see how she’s doing. If you get this fixed later in the week, maybe I can take her for the day again. We had a wonderful time.”

  “Okay.” Joel walked down into the creek and once he was in, he pulled the dog closer to him and gathered her in his arms. “Let’s go Emma.” The dog squirmed a little during the ferrying and happily leaped down on the opposite shore. Joel clambered up and waved at Robin. “See you later.”

  Robin watched as they walked to the truck. He hoisted Emma into the cab, got in, and turned the truck around. Robin waved as they disappeared around a bend into the deeply forested property. Emma was muddy and the truck cab would be soaked by the time they made it all the way back to the log house. She shook the umbrella in annoyance. Horse hockey! She’d forgotten to ask about an animal shelter again. What was wrong with her? Well, if she couldn’t find anything in the phone book, she’d ask Kat the next time they talked. Leroy’s owners might be frantic by now, particularly because of the rain. They probably thought he was shivering out in the cold somewhere. Fortunately, in reality, the dog was enjoying the good life in Alec’s messy but warm cabin.

  Robin got back into the car and drove up to the next driveway where she could turn around and head back south toward town and the lake. As she drove down the misty country road, the rain began to let up. The weather here certainly was fickle. In Portland, she’d experienced a long winter of perpetual gray, usually accompanied by dreary, methodical rain. Right before she left to come to the retreat, the flowers of spring were starting to appear, which gave her hope that the dismal weather finally might be subsiding. Everyone said that Portland summers were glorious, but far too short.

  In Alpine Grove, the weather was more capricious. Within a few hours it could go from pouring rain to glittery sunlight. No matter what the weather was doing though, it always was beautiful to Robin. Something about the lake, trees, mountains, and the long, winding rural roads gave her a sense of peace.

  If she was going to have to manage a retreat with a bunch of contentious people at a dilapidated old lodge, at least she was getting to do it in a gorgeous place. Maybe after she’d earned enough vacation time, she could come back here with Emma. If she planned ahead, she might even be able to convince a few of her friends from Spokane to come too. She’d love to be able to really enjoy the area, relax, and have some fun.

  Kat sat on the sofa reading a novel. She started and uttered a small yelp as a cacophony of barking erupted from the downstairs hallway. They certainly never had to worry about burglars here. The outside door to the hallway opened and closed and Joel said something to the dogs before opening the gate and coming upstairs.

  He stalked through the kitchen toward her with a grumpy look on his face. Presumably he’d been wearing a raincoat, but he looked like he’d been on the losing end of a carnival dunk tank. Kat put down the book. “How is the culvert?”

  He stopped at the hallway that led to the bedroom. “It’s dead. And I need towels. Lots of towels. Emma has returned and she is sopping wet.”

  “I guess it’s still raining?” Given that he looked like a surly drowned rat, it wasn’t much of a guess.

  “Yes.” He went into the bathroom and yelled back, “It finally started to let up right when we got to the house.”

  Kat got up off the sofa as he walked back out with a stack of towels. He was scrubbing at his hair with a threadbare old beach towel that sported a faded image of a beer bottle. He handed it to her. “Let’s go dry off that small smelly canine.”

  They went downstairs and Kat bent over Emma and began rubbing the towel over the dog, who writhed with glee at all the fun. Kat handed the sodden towel to Joel, who handed her another. After Emma was somewhat less soggy, Kat paused and stood up. “So what do you mean the culvert is dead?”

  “It no longer serves its primary purpose of transporting water under the driveway.”

  “Oh.” Kat dropped the towel on the floor to mop up some of the water from dog-shaking activities. “That sounds like a problem.”

  Joel leaned against the door frame to his office. “When the logger called to let us know his truck might have damaged the culvert on the way out, he didn’t go into detail about what that meant. In this case, damaged meant killed.”

  “So does that mean the driveway is completely flooded?”

  “Flooded and gone. There’s a big hole where the driveway used to be.” Joel gestured toward the door. “I’m guessing the guy neglected to mention he got his truck stuck in there. Maybe he winched the rig out somehow. I don’t know. I put an old sawhorse at the end of the driveway, so people won’t try to cross.”

  “How did Robin get here?”

  “She didn’t. I carried Emma across the creek and she rode with me in the truck, which now smells like wet dog.”

  “Well, to be fair, it didn’t smell that great before.”

  “The scent of used motor oil and a few decades of dirt was better than wet dog.”

  “I suppose I can’t argue with that.” Kat pushed a towel along the floor wi
th her foot to sop up some of the dog-shaking spray. “It sounds like we can’t go anywhere. How are we going to fix this if we can’t get out? And who fixes culverts? I doubt there’s an entry for culvert repair in the phone book.”

  “No, but I’ll call the hardware store and find out what culverts cost. Maybe I can get Jack to pick it up. We’re going to have to get a load of rock to go on top of the culvert, but no one will be able to come out here with it until they take load limits off the roads.”

  “So you’re going to fix it?” Kat bent to pick up a dirty wet towel. “That sounds horrible. It’s going to be expensive too, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so. And no, digging out an old rusted culvert is not my idea of a good time.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “That would be great. In the meantime, think sunny thoughts. All this rain isn’t improving matters.”

  Kat gave him a thank-you hug and picked up the towels so she could throw them in the laundry. Emma had curled up into a small ball and was working on a nap. If they didn’t get the road fixed, Kat might be stuck caring for this dog forever. Emma was nice, but the last thing Kat needed was another dog. After starting up the washer, she returned to her office to work on her article. It was time to get busy making some money.

  Later, Joel stood in the doorway of her office and tapped lightly on the door. “Your dogs are becoming obnoxious.”

  She looked up from her monitor. “Why are they always my dogs when they’re obnoxious?”

  He gestured at the dogs milling around his legs. “You may have noticed that they would like their dinner.”

  Kat stood up and stretched in an effort to get rid of the crick in her neck. “I know. I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to figure out this stupid software. Trying to write a how-to article about software I don’t understand is an exercise in frustration. The help file is not helpful. In fact, it’s actually un-helpful.” She pointed at the monitor. “I want to commit bodily harm against the incompetent tech writer who wrote that worthless pile of drivel. I mean, who writes ‘A view of the page is shown in the page view’? Gee, how illuminating. Not to mention it takes advantage of some seriously awful passive tense. Really? Are they kidding me? And yet, there is no explanation of what you might actually do using the various screens. Nowhere. Nothing! As a recovering technical writer, I am offended. This is a disgrace to my former profession.”