The Problem with Dreams

Chapter 32 - Milestones

Susan arrived at the cottage only ten minutes after dropping Zackary and Jessie off at their new bus stop on Monday morning. They'd decided over the weekend that trying to ride it from the new house to school was the best way to know for sure which bus to take home again, and so they were trying it out for the very first time that morning. That meant Susan could be at the cottage shortly afterwards and arrived well before eight on that morning. She set to work almost immediately, setting up her new office, getting things arranged and getting her computer up and running. They'd unpacked her boxes the day before and Greg had even made it a point to run the wires for her computer, so everything was plugged in. All Susan had to do was to turn everything on. She did that and was retrieving the materials she needed to work on that day from her bag when the doorbell rang. Susan went to answer it, and escorted an astonished-looking Mr. Thompson inside.

"When did you move in?" Mr. Thompson asked in surprise as he looked around.

"We've had some of our things here for a while," Susan told him truthfully. "However we just moved my office here over the weekend. It should be easier for me to oversee things if I'm actually here."

Mr. Thompson looked at the materials lying about on Susan's desk.

"What do you do, Mrs. Abernathy?" he asked.

"I'm a programming manager for a pharmaceutical company," Susan told him. "Do you have the information I asked for?"

"Right here," Mr. Thompson said.

Susan pulled up a spreadsheet template on her computer then said,

"Ready when you are. Please list the tasks left to do and their duration, in sequence if at all possible," she requested.

Mr. Thompson nodded and began to read items from a list he'd prepared while Susan entered the information into her computer. She asked questions about which things could be over lapped and which were dependent on one another then began proposing dates based on the information he'd provided for when each task could be expected to be completed.

"This puts the last day for finishing the house as October 25th. Is that accurate?" Susan asked as she looked over her figures.

"It is if we can get the inspection scheduled by then," he told her.

"What is preventing you from scheduling that?" Susan asked. "It looks to me as though most of the work on the house is complete."

"It is, but the county won't do the final inspection until it's all done," he told her.

Susan looked back through their task list.

"I see several component inspections scheduled at the end, that don't seem to be waiting for anything. Are they?" she asked.

"They are waiting for the inspector to be available," Mr. Thompson informed her.

"They're actually on the inspector's schedule then?" Susan asked.

"How do you mean?" he asked.

"If I called the inspector's office and asked, would they be able to tell me these are on their books?"

"Well no, I haven't done that yet," Mr. Thompson said.

"But you could," Susan pressed.

"I could, but what would be the point of that?" he asked.

"My understanding is, the final inspection is dependent not only on the sunroom being completed but on these prior inspections being completed as well. Is that correct?" Susan asked.

"Well yes, but there is timing to be considered around that. They generally like us to be within thirty days of finishing a project before doing that," he said.