Friday, January 14, 2005

Little Voice

This is the second installation of employee profiles. This one is about FRANK. Technically, he's "a step above me" in the latter of hierarchy but I personally consider him my equal and some days (alright, most days) I'm superior.

Frank has no nickname because it's almost as if he doesn't need one. The tone of the voice that I use to say his name is enough to distinguish him from any other name I say. There is no one word to describe him except...LOUD.

For his New Year's Resolution (see "Portrait of THE DOLL"), Frank has said he will try to use his "little voice" more often. For those of you who don't work with short, spikey-haired, loud Italian men, their voices carry...all the way throughout the office. He doesn't know how to whisper. I've actually had him try.

I think the volume of his voice is supposed to be making up for a deflated ego, small weeney (ew!), mother issues or problems at home. On the other hand, his short stature is probably to blame. For a man, he could technically be considered a dwarf. A loud, red-faced dwarf.

Frank also has a little bit of a temper. "Short fuse" is an understatement. About once every few weeks, he will throw papers or call someone a c*cksucker or completely lose his cool and then lock himself in his office for an hour. Then The Doll will go in and they will have a heart-to-heart and then Frank apologizes at the next company meeting...for losing his temper. It's an endless cycle. And by the way he swears, you would think he was a sailor or some sort of pirate in his past life. I have never heard anyone say the F-word more times in 5 minutes.

Moving on. Frank is a text book sexual harasser. He used to come up behind me and start massaging my shoulders while I was sitting at my desk. He made that mistake only once after which I enfored the "No touching in my personal space" rule. ewwwwwww. I catch him looking at my boobs quite a bit. In his defense, they are large and at eye level. I would almost never try to get him in trouble for his sexual harassment unless it made me really uncomfortable. It just makes me squirm, like a small animal has just crawled up my ass.

I've never met anyone more dramatic. If he is missing an email, a voice mail, a piece of paper, the whole office knows about it in a matter or seconds. Everything is the biggest deal ever. Nothing is minor and nothing is a non-emergency. I feel like I'm constantly on terror alert. Not only that, but he's an "interrupter." Any conversation with Frank is Frank talking and me attempting to talk. If I get an entire sentence out all at once, it's a good day.

I have pondered how Frank would react in an ACTUAL emergency. Would he go stone-faced? Would his head explode? Would his eyes pop out of their sockets? Whatever it is, I want to be present when it happens.

Added to all of the above, he is completely two-faced. Not only will he throw you under the bus, he'll do it in a company meeting and without even being prompted. He'll go on and on about how much he can't stand the Doll but then brown nose for hours. Part of me feels bad because he will never work anywhere else. But part of me just wants to kick him in the face and tell him to calm the f*ck down.

He makes me nervous. And I'm nervous enough already.

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