BOST MOTORS

Scott looked down at his cell phone. NO SIGNAL was flashing in the upper right corner. No wonder he had never heard that sound before. Scott had never left the city of Detroit…at least not without a cell phone. Scott pressed the button to lower the window so he could confirm the sound of sirens; he knew he had heard something. He heard emergency sirens from vehicles all over the city. In fact, Scott had just decided to peer into his side-view mirror when a fire truck came ripping up along the left side of the road. Its lights and sirens blazing as loud as they could go. Scott quickly rolled up his window, threw his cell phone on the seat next to him, and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. There were only two things Scott could think about: something was definitely wrong and he needed to get to the factory. “Scott!!” The room contained four others, Scott being the fifth. Chris, JoAnne, Sue, Al and now Scott. “Glad you could make it.” Chris smiled. “Sorry, for some reason my phone isn’t working.” Scott reached for his cell phone again and looked at the screen. One bar displayed nine voice-mails. “Oh wait! I have service now! That’s weird.” “Yeah, it's intermittent at best, Scott. No worries.” Sue held up her phone up and looked at Scott in frustration. “My Blackberry is barely coming through for me and most of the time it's just out of service.” “Sooo…someone attacked our satellites and the U.S. is scrambling to figure out how to handle it right now.” Chris passed Scott a piece of paper with printed outlines on it. “JoAnne compiled a briefing for us and the company in regards to poor communication and the successful operation of an automotive factory. There are a few bullet points I wanted to look at a little closer.” Scott smiled when he quickly glanced at the paper. He looked up at JoAnne, and she was looking straight at him with utter confidence. She smiled, looking back toward Chris as if knowing deep within that she had just surpassed Scott by a complete lap had it been a one mile race. Scott chuckled to himself and admired her confidence. She always seemed to be a step ahead, prepared and precise in all she did. “I’ll outwit her one of these days,” Scott thought. He knew she couldn’t always be that good. She must have typed this up before the state of current affair, but why? How? Scott briefly read through as Chris droned on. “So it looks like hard line phones are still okay, cell phones are pretty much out of the question, and emails are going to be the main form of communication.” Al suddenly decided to pipe up. “Okay, that will work well for the floor then, we just won’t be able to determine call-ins and such. So if people begin arriving late or completely no-showing, we’re just going to have to deal with it. Chris nodded toward Al. “Copy that.” Al snickered and shook his head. He knew his employees well. The meeting continued like this for several hours before everyone finally began reaching their levels of exhaustion. The five employees talked about loading the trucks, communication on and off the highway, factory controls, speed and efficiency of the assembly line, fax capabilities, email, phones, and everything else that seemed necessary to successfully operate an automotive factory under limited communication. Once again, between Jo Anne and Sue, their expertise was as if they had previously undergone a similar terrorist attack on the nation’s satellites. They'd planned well, strategically, had thought of everything imaginable and then added extra precautions. There was only one thing that didn’t get discussed one thing that was entirely over-looked. Even Sue Sandy, the automotive guru never considered it. JoAnne Young, the company’s very own automotive litigator never thought about it. Al Musgrove, the one individual who actually operated the factory, couldn’t imagine it. Chris, the company president, may have thought of it, but never mentioned it. And Scott himself would have never thought in a million years the one detail that plain and simply put, was never expected.