Greg:

I was trying to leave you alone through all this reporting nightmare, but Shankman said you are looking for a diversion so I'll set up a time with Liz.

FYI, in Chicago we currently have 3 employees and 12 contractors.  We are budgeted for a big increase in contractors in 2002, but in reality that will never happen.  If volumes actually demand that many customer service reps, we would outsource the first call response to a 3rd party call center, and keep Chicago for questions that couldn't be answered simply and for dispatch.  Also, we are working on technology which should increase the dispatcher efficiencies.  If volumes don't materialize, downsizing contractors is easy.  The budget has the contractors in it as a place holder for costs associated with transaction growth.  One way or the other, we will have to bear the marginal transactional costs.

On the space issue, we do have extra space available, but its really close to a free option.  We decided last spring to sub-lease out the webmodal space in Lombard and move to the Enron space downtown.  When we looked at all the support costs and the marginal cost of occupying the extra space downtown it was basically a wash.  The extra seats are there if we need them.

I'll explain more when we get together.


Regards,

Dan