The new home of "The Frank Report."

links open windows

  The Feds are currently standing around the copier trying to figure out why it isn't working. Still in April Fool's Day mode, I've resisted the impulse to point out that it isn't loaded with paper - something that's blatantly obvious since the paper tray is made of clear plastic. For the past hour, people have come up, tried to use the copier with no result, fiddled with the buttons and drawers and walked away confused.

So if you're thinking of turning some aspect of society over to the government, heads-up, this is what you'll get.

One of my co-workers suggested that maybe they have mistaken the copier for a Star Trek-style replicator, you know, something that makes coffee out of thin air...just speak your request into the comm panel.

Thank G-d this week is over.

posted at 2:00 PM

  Finally after many, many hours of arguing my case, I've stumbled across someone in the hierarchy who is sensible and reasonable: our COO. Who'da thunk it? Turns out he understands the situation perfectly including breaking down our conversation into "on-the-record" and "off-the-record" portions.

On-the-record, I have been reprimanded and told to use better judgment in the future.
Off-the-record, the situation was blown way out of proportion and never merited this much drama to begin with.

Crisis averted. Looking forward to getting some sleep tonight.
posted at 12:47 PM

  Round one:

The language used in the apology letter to my co-worker was approved. Delivered it at 11 this morning, had a brief conversation (more like Q&A) where I agreed with everything she said (as instructed for fear of sending her to the fainting couch). New details came out this morning (the issue continues to morph and evolve). Apparently my co-worker feared for her life and took the gun picture as a direct threat against her. That not only pushes my frustration factor up another notch (why is this only coming out now?) but begs the question: if you think I'm going to snap and kill co-workers, why haven't you fired me? (note: I do not own a gun and have no intention of killing co-workers.)

Round two is this afternoon's meeting with the corporate head. Have to run out and get a shoe-shine so I can like all sober and cool professionalism. Tonight its a reception up on the Hill with Loyola alumni and local representatives.


posted at 8:15 AM

  More information continues to come to light...

I was yanked out of a staff meeting today by a concerned co-worker when I learned that my humorless co-worker from yesterday was on the warpath: taking statements and preparing a grievance document - that she was preparing to send through the Federal chain of command! As a contractor, all our employee disputes are supposed to be resolved quietly and internally. I immediately grabbed my supervisor and her supervisor and had them stage an intervention.

It continues to snowball out of control...

The entire IT department of this agency is aware of the situation as are several of the major department heads, alerted no doubt to her screams (yes, you read that correctly: screams) on Tuesday morning when she came in and saw her cubicle. (I'd like to point out that only a few pictures had been replaced. It's not like I toilet-papered the place.) She is still "shaken" and feels "violated." (As if I had put pr0n or severed horse heads in there.)

After digging by several parties (feigning concern) the real issue is that she doesn't feel my apology was sincere enough. (Grrr!) I'm working on my "apology letter" now. There's a meeting of all the senior corporate VP's for tomorrow to discuss the issue and a disciplinary letter may be put in my file. Opinions fall pretty much in line with age: those over 50 are shocked, those under 50 are confused at the fuss.

Now many in the company are concerned about whether our "fast and loose" style is going to end with another one of us being hauled off to the woodshed.

It goes without saying that for most of us our productivity today is down to near zero.

posted at 11:44 AM

  It took me almost two hours to prepare last night and wait for people to leave their offices so I could set-up for today's pranks. For the shortest guy in the office, I took the wheels off his chair and moved his seat to the lowest setting. All the clocks were put to different times. All our posters about "Does this look like work?" had their images changed from "dream jobs" to "slackers at rest." The list goes on and on and the calls have been coming in all morning from people saying "good job" and getting a hearty yuckle over the zingers.

Except for one (and there's always one).

Our resident New York sophisticate has pictures of art, her family, and Gotham all over her cubicle walls. I took some of the pictures down and replaced them with cut-outs from "Field and Stream" and "Guns and Ammo." (You can see where this is going.) When she comes in this morning, she sees that her cubicle has been "violated," immediately freaks out and calls security who see one picture of a gun and...the rest is pretty predictable.

After a brief chat with Security about "heightened alert" and "no gun pictures" (and their confirming that I had pranked over a dozen people today, bore my co-worker no ill will, and that yes, it was in fact April Fools Day), I was let go. Let go as in "return to work" not "fired from job."

Every year there's always someone with no sense of humor who pitches a fit and makes me reconsider whether to keep on celebrating this very dubious holiday. But like I tell everyone: if I didn't care about you, I wouldn't bother putting in the time and effort.

posted at 8:57 AM

  After several weeks of on-again/off-again riding lessons due to various factors, I'm finally back to where I want to be - competency wise: able to make turns again, able to transition from a dead stop to a walk and a cantor, able to approximate a figure eight. Carol, my instructress extraordinaire, wanted me to experiment with getting the horse to walk sideways, but we both agreed that that was stretching things a bit. Still haven't gotten used to going down and scraping horse sh*t out of the hooves by hand (and not having a sink and soap to wash up with afterwards) but that will come in time.

When I arrived Saturday, the barn was deserted except for two of the students, so I had to go out, find Cash myself and get him to the barn. When I walked into the enclosure, the horses froze, looked at me, looked at each, looked at me again, and then walked over in unison - something they've never done before. I thought for sure, I was about to get "rubbed out" - horse-mafia style. Turns out they were curious and friendly. I've never gone into their enclosure alone before. So they spent a good ten minutes sniffing me up and down and tonguing my sweat shirt (a smell that pleased the dogs immensely when I got home.)

Otherwise it was an uneventful weekend: balmy and sunny on Saturday, cold and snowing on Sunday. (!!!)

I'm starting to zero-in on a happy medium for my workouts: stiff, but not crippled; sore, but not in agony. It almost feels like cheating if I'm not exhausted and hobbling around but it's nice to be a fully functional human on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

posted at 11:08 AM