Thoughts, Rants, and Musings

Things are still ok at work. Frank has been (dare I say) great.

I went to the meeting with the client and the city subcode officials on Tuesday. I expected to be butchered but it actually went quite well.

There is a lot that still needs to be done, and the final deadline is unrealistic.

I've noticed that Frank tends to say "yes" to the client without thinking. He committed to a redesigned parking entrance, the addition of a stair tower on the roof, and moving a generator from the roof to the floor, all without batting an eyelash. He just heaped these things onto the pile of existing work and didn't push the deadline back.

I managed to deflect the stair tower by directing Frank to the office's Change of Scope policy. This is yet another thing Frank has managed to ignore during his four years with the firm. Little wonder he has so much trouble with his budgets.

The Change of Scope policy is basically this: Anything not in our original contract is a change of scope. We can't start working on it until we have a signed acknowledgment from the client stating that they understand that it's a change, and that it will cost them more money. It's boilerplate stuff and it's crazy that Frank, at nearly 50 years of age (and practicing architecture for more than 20 years), was unaware of it.

Anyway, the beauty of the Change of Scope maneuver is that it buys us more time as the client hems and haws over spending more. So now Frank's trying to implement it everywhere. Unfortunately, in some cases (like the stair tower), it may not fly because of code requirements--which is another crazy thing: I am now doing a code review that should have been done last year, before a single line was ever drafted on this project.

How do things like this happen? I don't understand how a business can survive when things are running this way. Yet it does.

It must be a very lucrative industry.

The first time I ever smoked pot, I was 14. I think it actually happened on Valentine's Day. I was with my friend Jill. She was my age. We were with her friend, a guy known as Scully. I think he was 19. Jill knew a lot of older guys like him.

Scully supplied the weed and the transportation. We went ice skating, of all things. That memory is so old and faded. I mostly remember my anxiety and extreme introversion. And lots of white.

Scully picked us up from school a bunch of times. We usually went to his house to hang out. He smoked pot right in his house, in his room. His mom knew all about it. He had a younger sister who was 13. She didn't smoke pot. Scully's mom was mean to her, and I think he was, too. I don't really remember.

I met a guy named Dave there who was (unsurprisingly) quite a bit older than me, and who had been in some sort of trouble. I don't remember exactly what it was, but he called me one night and gave me a whole sob story. In addition to whatever his first trouble was, he had also gotten a girl pregnant. She tricked him, he said.

Dave was cute and I kind of liked him, but there was no way I was going to date him. I really didn't have boyfriends at that time. I flirted with the idea, but I didn't trust anyone enough.

One night when Jill and I were at Scully's, Jill left. I don't remember what happened. I think she got in trouble and had to go home. Her friend Nicole was supposed to bring me home later. But Nicole went out with one of the guys.

A bunch of guys were there, but I didn't know anyone but Scully. And I didn't really talk to or have a friendship with Scully. I was way too introverted and mistrustful. So, I was basically alone.

One way or another, we all ended up in Scully's basement. He had a drum set and a bunch of guitars down there. It was just a bunch of older guys trying to play Slayer songs... and me.

I was stretched out on the couch, alone, stoned off my ass, arm over my eyes, not knowing if I was in danger, trying to tune everyone out, trying not to think about how my ass was going to get kicked when I couldn't find my way home on time. Not willing to talk to anyone, or ask anyone for a ride.

At some point, two girls joined the group. They sat on the basement stairs with Dave. I tried to tune them out, too. But I heard Dave whispering to one of the girls the same exact flattery he'd laid on me. My heart sank a little, but I thought, "F*ck him" and stuck with it. I was glad I hadn't let him in. And pissed.

Then the craziest thing happened. The basement door opened and a cop walked down the stairs. I thought I was going to sh*t my pants. I was done for. But I didn't move.

There was some friendly conversation, then someone handed the cop a joint and he took a hit. I was like, holy sh*t. But I didn't say anything out loud.

The cop eventually left. Nicole eventually came back to get me. I got home on time.

But that was definitely one of the most stressful nights of my young life.

Found another half-sister this morning.

Well, she found me.

Same father. I wonder how many kids this guy has!?

Unlike my other half-siblings, she's actually excited about discovering me :)

Found another half-sister this morning.

 

Well, she found me.

 

Same father. I wonder how many kids this guy has!?

 

Unlike my other half-siblings, she's actually excited about discovering me :)

How do you feel about that?

 

Same father. I wonder how many kids this guy has!?

 

You have the heart-throb gene. This is why you attract so many men!

Did you meet her?

How do you feel about that?

Kind of excited, kind of nervous. It's a paradigm change. Lots of unknowns. But I am definitely open to this experience.

You have the heart-throb gene. This is why you attract so many men!

LOL.... that or I'm delusional and it's all in my head

Did you meet her?

We spoke on the phone today and have been texting.

She is 26. She's actually had some interaction with our bio-dad, but she's not very fond of him. She says he was a master sergeant in the Marine Corps. He used to send her pictures from Fallujah. He was a 3%-body fat kind of guy for a long time.

I am seeing similarities between her and I already.

Even her first messages to me over the internet had an abruptness similar to mine. She simply said, "Apparently we are half sisters?" and then a few minutes later: "We share 32 percent of our DNA." And she left it at that for me to find it the next morning.

She still has a flip phone. This is funny, because my family practically had to pry my flip phone out of my hands a couple of years ago. I didn't want to upgrade to a smart phone.

Also, she plans to go back to school for construction management. She told me that our father built buildings in the Marine Corps.

That kind of blows my mind.

F*ck Face Frank is starting to rear his ugly head again. He's such a snake. Now I know he does it to everybody, not just me. I don't understand why he is still working here. What is his use? He just makes a big mess.

I worked for a few hours over the weekend. Unsurprisingly, the finance director, Paul, was in the office when I was there. I think that guy works every day of the week.

He asked me what I was working on. I said, "XYZ Project. It's about a year old. I just started--"

He cut me off and said, "Oh. That big f*ucking disaster project."

I hesitated to respond and he said, "Just say it. It's a big f*cking disaster."

I said, "Yes, the big f*cking disaster project. But I just started working on it a couple weeks ago. It's been around for--"

He cut me off again: "Oh yeah. It's been around for like two years. It's been a disaster since day one. And why is it a disaster? Because our 'director of operations' [Frank] doesn't know how to run a project."

Paul is not the only one who seems to dislike Frank. About a week and a half ago, I was in the print room trying to get the whole 135-page set printed for code review with the city and the client. I complained to the print-room guy that the drawings weren't finished and that Frank had decided not to stamp the architectural and MEP portions. But the structural drawings were stamped, so it was totally erratic.

The print guy shook his head, unsurprised. He said, "Frank's an assh*le."

I was like, "Yeah, he is."

Then yesterday, Eddie the QC guy was reviewing the set. I complained to him that Frank is completely unrealistic and unrelenting, and that there was no way anyone was going to be finished by the deadline. I don't remember exactly what Eddie said, but he basically agreed with me.

Eddie offered to go to Frank and stall the deadline by claiming that he didn't have enough time to QC the set. I knew it would definitely work. Eddie is older than Frank and has practiced longer. Frank can't pull rank on him.

We ultimately decided to go into Frank's office together, because I had just learned that two of the MEP people could no longer make the deadline. So, it was a double whammy. We watched Frank turn colors at his desk upon receiving the bad news.

Frank called the client and pushed the deadline back. I'm more than certain he told them it was my fault.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that I'm obviously not alone in my opinion of Frank.

It's still nerve-wracking to work for him, though. I think that's because it's been a long, hard fight to get where I am. I've seen people try to rob me of my goals, literally. They didn't derail me, but they did detour me a bit. I don't want that to happen again.

Found another half-sister this morning.

 

Well, she found me.

 

Same father. I wonder how many kids this guy has!?

 

Unlike my other half-siblings, she's actually excited about discovering me :)

Wow! Sounds exciting! Does she know about the other siblings too?

Ugh on the Frank topic. At least you have lots of company in your frustrations.

Wow! Sounds exciting! Does she know about the other siblings too?

Yes! I totally forgot. She knows more about them than I do. She actually went to school with one of them for seven years, but had no idea he was her younger brother. Her mother told her when she graduated. She did reach out to the family, but didn't receive much of a response.

My half-sister was apparently the product of an extra-marital affair. This surprised me, as I had the impression that our father was happily married with an idyllic family life. But according to my half sister, our father was away from his family for long periods of time, living with a roommate at Camp Pendleton (1500 miles away from where they live).

I don't know if he was faithful while he was in California. But he obviously wasn't faithful when he was at home. My half sister grew up in the same community, knowing some of the same people. Our father's wife's best friend lived on the same street as my half sister when she was growing up.

We have been texting back and forth, but I haven't spoken to her on the phone since last Saturday. That conversation was tough because she was wrangling her kids and preparing to go away for the weekend. I also think she was with a friend or possibly her boyfriend at the time. She was pretty distracted and there was a lot of background noise. It was a little hard to hear everything.

But why did she say "We share 32 percent of our DNA." It's not 50%?

But why did she say "We share 32 percent of our DNA." It's not 50%?

Dias, I think a full sibling would share that percentage, but a half sibling would be lower.

Dias, I think a full sibling would share that percentage, but a half sibling would be lower.

Interesting, there must be some kind of scientific explanation for the 18% that got lost along the way.

What interesting is that a half sibling would be expected to share about 25% genes, but this half sibling shares 7% more. I don't know my science, so it must be an inexact number that occurs each time. But there would likely be many shared qualities with a higher shared percentage.

What interesting is that a half sibling would be expected to share about 25% genes, but this half sibling shares 7% more.

Yes, 25% is the average. I can't find good information on what the typical range would be around that average.

I think it depends on the recombination of the DNA across the chromosomes. We each inherited 50% of our father's DNA. But it's a random sample. We can end up with different mixes from our father, or a similar mix. It seems we sampled some of the same genes.

Maybe we come from slightly inbred people.... lol

Yes, 25% is the average. I can't find good information on what the typical range would be around that average.

 

I think it depends on the recombination of the DNA across the chromosomes. We each inherited 50% of our father's DNA. But it's a random sample. We can end up with different mixes from our father, or a similar mix. It seems we sampled some of the same genes.

 

Maybe we come from slightly inbred people.... lol

 

Okay, that makes sense. I never did well in Biology...

Mark's stepson, Dan, interns in our office on a weekly basis. They haze the sh*t out of him. It's pretty funny. Fortunately, he's a good-natured kid and he takes it all in stride.

A couple weeks ago, Ivan send out an email to the entire staff, laying down the law about the equipment in the print room. He said something like, "Unless your name is John, Michael, or young Dan, DO NOT touch the equipment."

He said "young Dan" to distinguish him from the older Dan in our office. Many of us found this moniker entertaining.

Later that day, Mark hosted an office-wide staff meeting. During this meeting, he referred to his stepson as "Young Dan" and everyone laughed.

The next day, Young Dan came into the office and learned (to his dismay) that he had been renamed.

I only tell this story so that I don't have to introduce Young Dan in the middle of the next story, which is (unsurprisingly) a continuation of my ongoing work-saga.

Our project's deadline was moved from last Friday to this past Monday. We had two get two 130-page sets printed, signed, and sealed. One of those sets had to be scanned, page by page, onto our server.

It sounds like a simple enough task, but it gets surprisingly complicated. Ordinarily, we send jobs this size out to another company to do the printing and scanning. But our deadline made that impossible.

Fortunately, I have some really great coworkers who buckled down and got the job done.

On Wednesday, I digitized Frank's signature so that it would print as part of the title block. The alternative would be to chase Frank down and force him to sign 130+ pages. Seriously, I would have to chain that ADHD mofo to a table for that to get done.

On Thursday night, I started printing drawings as they became ready and set them aside in ordered piles for Damien to begin scanning.

On Friday, I continued printing and helped Young Dan scan and stamp the set. It was four hours of solid work for him. Frank sealed himself in his office with the door closed for the whole day.

On Monday, the structural guy got his set done and he helped me get it coordinated and bound with the rest of the drawings. We made our deadline.

However, all of us knew that a lot needed to be fixed before the set could be sent out for bid.

Well, all of us knew this but Frank. He came to my desk that afternoon, wanting to put me on another project.

I resisted and he started to get peevish.

I said, loudly, “I can stop working on this, but there are problems with this set. I got the impression from our last staff meeting that they don’t want bad sets going out any more.”

That made him pause a bit, but then he started to hound me about how long it would take, that we were out of time, that we had no more budget. He didn’t even want to wait for me to make a list. He just wanted me to mark everything up, I guess in a mad rush, with as little thought as possible.

I told him I needed to meet with Joe about the structure. Frank looked like he was going to explode, like he couldn’t understand why I would do something so stupid.

So, I said, “Let’s talk to Eddie.” Eddie told me last week to come to him if Frank tried to pull me off the job. Also, I knew Frank would have a more difficult time dismissing everything I said if someone else was there. Especially if that someone was a man.

So, we went in to Eddie. Frank listened a little bit, then reiterated his “we have no more budget” complaint, along with his typical dismissive “draw a couple of lines” and "it'll take 10 minutes" comments. Eddie said, “I don't give a sh*t about the budget. That's not our fault. That’s the fault of whoever made up this proposal. Our responsibility is to turn out a correct set of drawings.”

Then Frank said, “I don’t think Eddie should look at these drawings at this point. Someone who knows the project should mark up the set. Maybe if I marked it up, it would go faster. What do you guys think?”

All I could think of was when Frank repeatedly told me he’d review the disaster-project set, that it would take him 5 minutes to design the whole building, and then avoided doing so for weeks. Then, during the two times he actually did review the set, he needed me and Catherine to sit there with him. Like bookends.

Both times, it took hours, and it was totally pointless. Totally. Pointless. Waste. Of. Time. He’d claim to have a solution, and would then then have to be wrestled back to reality about some part of the project that he hadn’t considered.

Anyway, I stayed silent on that point and before I knew it, it became my responsibility to review the set.

Horrible idea to have the same person who worked on the set then review the set. The point of a QC review is to have a fresh set of eyes, to see the set the same way a contractor might see it.

My plans to meet with Joe the next day remained intact. Although, the idea that we would be meeting seemed to offend Frank. Maybe he felt excluded? When Frank and I were talking about it with Eddie, Frank blurted out, “And I wasn’t invited?” Eddie and I both said, “You’re welcome to come.” But Frank said he was going to be out of the office all day, and to fill him in on my meeting with Joe.

Then he apologized for ‘redirecting’ everything, "but this is what I want."

My whole face felt itchy after that exchange, like I'd broken out with hives.

http://i63.tinypic.com/sbljed.jpg

A couple years ago, right around the time that my boyfriend moved in with me, our property manager cut down the shrubs in front of our apartment building. In doing this, they evicted a family of doves from one of the bushes. I noticed their plight as I drove away to pick up my boyfriend from somewhere. I caught movement in my periphery and saw a father dove frantically sheltering the two baby doves under his wings.

When I returned with my boyfriend about an hour later, the doves were in the same area. However, they were separated. That side of the building was now in full sun, and all three doves were huddled in the two tiny of scraps of shade that could be found. The father and the larger dove baby shared one shady spot. The smaller baby was left by himself in the other shady spot. It seemed the father dove had made his choice to abandon the smaller dove baby and protect the larger one.

I went into my apartment and grabbed a shallow Tupperware container, a small cardboard box, a couple of pencils, and a long length of toilet paper. I wound the toilet paper into a nest shape and placed it into the Tupperware container. Then I cut one side off of the box and brought everything outside to the doves. The father dove fussed mightily and tried to distract me with the ol' injured-wing bit. But I ignored him and worked quickly.

I turned the box upside down and placed it on the ground. I drove the pencils through the box flaps, into the ground, to keep the box from blowing away. I grabbed the dove babies and placed them in the Tupperware container on the toilet paper nest. Then I slid the Tupperware like a drawer into the box-shelter via the opening I'd created by cutting off one of the sides. It worked great, and later that night, I even saw the mother dove in the box, brooding on her babies.

The next day was cold and rainy. My boyfriend checked on the doves when he got home from work. He found the smallest baby dove lying on the ground right next to the Tupperware, near death. He called me at work to tell me about the dove. I could tell he was really stressed out. He said, somewhat defiantly, "I brought him inside the apartment and put him in a box. I don't know if he's going to live, but if he dies, I want him to feel warm and loved."

I laughed to myself. Obviously he didn't know that he was talking to a woman who had been adopting injured wildlife for her entire life. Of course the bird could stay.

When I got home, I went right to the dove. He was lying on his side in a big box, barely alive. I picked him up. He fit right into the palm of my hand. He was so young that his first pin feathers were just starting to poke through. He was freezing cold. I covered his little body with my other hand and took a seat on the couch. I really had no idea what I was doing. I just wanted him to be warmer.

After a few minutes passed, I noticed that he started to move and make faint little whistling sounds. Pretty soon, he went from lying on his side to sitting upright in the palm of my hand. We were elated. It looked like the little guy was going to make it. We went to the pet store and bought a birdcage and baby bird food. We googled how to feed a baby dove. For the next two weeks, Arnold raised the little guy. For a guy who doesn't want kids, he took his fatherhood duties extremely seriously!

The dove grew unbelievably fast. He looked like an adult dove by the end of the second week, and was able to fly. We knew it was almost time to set him free. But we did not feel comfortable releasing him outside of our apartment building. We live in a relatively urban area--too dangerous for a little dove that was raised indoors by humans. So, we brought him to a well respected bird sanctuary and dropped him off along with a donation.

The following Monday, Arnold called to check up on the dove. He was told that the dove was doing fine, but was a "a bit goofey" because it had been raised by humans (Arnold's fault--he totally over-mothered that thing lol).

A couple of days later, he emailed to follow up. He was told that the dove had a broken wing, that there was no hope of repair, and that they had to put him to sleep.

Arnold called me, quite upset by this news. I wondered how the dove could have a broken wing when he was able to fly up to the top of our kitchen cabinets. I said, "Do you think they might be confusing him with another bird?" Arnold replied to the sanctuary and asked them to double check.

Within minutes, he received an apologetic reply from the sanctuary. Arnold had given them the wrong admit ID! The number he gave them was for a blue jay. The dove was doing fine--eating on his own and gaining weight. Pretty soon, he would be moved to their outside dove cage.

That's where we left it.

The picture above was taken a couple of days after we took the dove in. Arnold is feeding him, using the typical bag-method. In just a few days, the dove went from being almost completely naked to having feathers all over his body and a tiny stub of a tail. He flapped his wings when he ate, so it was hard to get a picture that wasn't totally blurry.

The pictures below show the rapid growth of the dove over then next week and a half. I swear, you could practically see him growing. I'd come home from work and he was a completely different bird than he was when I left.

http://i68.tinypic.com/2im8goy.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/2j47k3a.png

Awww, sweet story, J.

Thanks for sharing.

That is so sweet! My friend's daughter works with birds at a facility. So cool!

Do you think it is still alive, a few years later?

Do you think it is still alive, a few years later?

Hard to say. From what I've read, it seems that doves only live about 2-5 years in the wild, but can live longer in captivity. That little anecdote took place about four years ago, and I assume they re-released him.

I've always had my fingers crossed for him. I guess now it's getting to a point where I can uncross them, because at this point he will have had a pretty long life (if he's still alive).

I've always hoped that they kept him captive, due to his 'goofiness.' I know they do occasionally keep a few birds as 'surrogates' to help raise and teach babies to be a proper bird (instead of creating dopes like we did lol). I'd like to think he would have done pretty well in this role.

On the work front, I have to say that things are stressful but not terrible. I have not borne the brunt of Frank's frustrations since that blow-out with Ivan. I have seen the beast rear its ugly head, but I have not truly been the victim. In fact, in some ways, I've found myself feeling somewhat sympathetic towards Frank and all of his (self-induced) stresses.

Also, in the last couple of weeks, I have seen Frank's interaction with others, and have learned that he is an arrogant ass pretty much across the board. In other words, it's not just me that gets the brunt of his bullsh*t. There's A LOT that I can say on this topic, but I will leave it there for now.

I am writing because today, he told us (my neighbors and I) that he isn't taking any ancestry/DNA tests because he doesn't want to find out that he has any children out there.

How amazingly revolting he is!

It actually makes me laugh.

That is true entitlement for you.

I would feel sorry for any of his children, should there be any.

Anyhow, he could still be potentially identified, if his close relatives did testing.