[November 20, 2018] I was laughing, the kind of laugh we rarely have, while my good friend Frank was telling me about the people where he worked. You see, Frank is a “character” himself and to hear his stories about acquaintances at work was really entertaining.
You see, Frank calls those who he works with, “slackers, cowards, and dummies.” There is no mistake about where he stands with them nor is there any mistake about his judgment of their work abilities. I’ve been convinced for a long time that Frank himself is a conniver; always trying to blame others for his failures and for trying to get out just being plain lazy.
One of his favorite stories is about when he was guarding a supply of expensive equipment his company had just purchased. It was an easy task but he insisted another employee help and so both were to stay overnight at the company’s warehouse.
His buddy immediately went to sleep and Frank, being who he is, decided to light firecrackers to scare the sleeping employee; which it did. But the firecrackers also set off the fire alarms and sprinklers. The police and fire trucks showed up within a few minutes and then the senior manager. Frank lied and said some kids had done it. In the end, Frank was not fired or even reprimanded. So he says.
There are more stories about the idiocy of Frank and his sleeping buddy getting away with wasting money, resources, and putting the police and fire personnel at risk at other times; all because Frank likes to play jokes on others. And it’s Frank who is the one telling me that his friends at work are a bunch of slackers, cowards, and dummies.
Does Frank still work there? Nope. He was in the National Guard and because of some incident that happened while he was guarding a bridge in Manhattan, New York, Frank got PTSD.1 Now Frank is on 100% disability by the U.S. Army and is not allowed to work. Of course, Frank is violating the rules by working under the table. If he gets caught working, Frank’s disability payments will cease. And we wonder why there are so many slackers, cowards, and dummies.
Good leadership at Frank’s company would make a difference. Allowing him and his buddies to get away with destructive mischief only encourages more of it. Leaders at his company wanted to be the “good guys” and so decided not to press charges on Frank and the sleeping buddy or to reprimand them. We can all just shake our heads at the lack of basic leadership.
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- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder#1
I liked your approach to a serious topic and one that is transforming America from within. The movement of the anti-freedom Millenials continues without letting up. I’m not sure we are ready for what awaits when we reach a culminating point.
Lots of good info and comments from readers that make reading your blog this morning worth it. I think that we will find more and more people are ‘slackers, cowards, & dummies’ because we let them be such. We lack the moral courage to do anything substantive about it.
Another great article on overlooked topics. Today, no one is willing to discuss this type of problem in the workplace and leaders don’t want to deal with it because the PC crowds will come after you just like the Nazi brownshirts.
Yes, I agree. 🙂
Thanks Kenny for making a point I was going to do. The political correctness problem has gotten way out of proportion and has created an anti-freedom movement, especially among the Millennial generation.
Good luck with individuals like this. Where I work there is no tolerance for this type of behavior. I work in a medical facility and this type of immature behavior would bring immediate termination of employment.
These folks are always trying to take advantage of the system. They like welfare (in its many shapes and sizes) because they see it as “getting over”. There are plenty of these people around and just enough like your friend Frank. The fact that the VA pays him full time for something he got in peacetime is incredulous.
I’ve had to live with a Frank at my workplace and while he was a funny guy, he also created problems for everyone. He was unpredictable (which made him funny and harmful), always doing crazy stuff. But there was a flip side too. He would do anything for you.
The world is full of crazy people, good and bad. Just be careful which one you’re around.
Good point, same here. They can have good days and bad. I too knew a “Frank” but he was a great guy to his family.
Good article, funny and to the point. Thanks.
What we are really saying here is that there are people with weak minds who do not follow the rules. They make life and work difficult. If Frank is your friend, you should dump him.
Although we cannot choose our family, it is said we can choose our friends. But that is not completely correct either. At work, the other workers are not in our responsibility to choose. Thus we interact with those anyway. Changing them is not worth the effort for the average worker.
Part of this is learning about how to get along with others in the workplace. Managers (read this as leaders) need to be aware that folks like Frank will always try to throw a “monkey wrench” into the gears of any smoothly operating system. Watch out for them.
There will always be Franks in the world but why they act up like this and put others in danger is perhaps the purview of psychologists. Regardless, ignoring them is not the right answer.
I think there is another point to be made here. Without sounding to inhuman, there are many people who are in fact slackers, cowards, and dummies that have far too much allowance to let them do what they want. Those like Frank and others should be fired, re-educated, or re-trained in how to stop this childish, although predictable, behavior.
Well said. Thanks Tracey.
Spot on comment.
You do have a strange set of friends, especially in this guy Frank.
Yes, funny!
I think humor is the point.