Frank Hardy has a plan (ivegotaplan) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-08-31 19:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | frank hardy |
Who: Frank Hardy
When: Sometime tonight...
Where: Local Irvine News Station
What: Frank does a bit of creative computer work at his place of work
Rating/Warnings: None, really... allusions to hacking
Status: Complete on posting!
It was a quarter past midnight and most of the station had headed home for the night. The late night news crew had wrapped up an hour ago and only a few lowly editors and sound boys remained. Producers and talent had patted themselves on the back for yet another job well done and while half had gone out for drinks, the unlucky half hurried to their beds in order to catch a few hours’ sleep before the morning news crew was due in before dawn. In many ways, a news station never really slept, but right now, approaching the wee hours of the morning, it was as close to dozing as it ever got.
On the other side of the station sat the rows and rows of cubicles occupied by the off-camera talent, otherwise known as the researchers and grunts. For the big shot producers and CEOs, if you weren’t on the set side of the building, you might as well not even exist. Some of the grunts tried to get noticed, to move up the ladder so that they could become the next beloved weatherman or sports anchor. Most of the time, they failed to do anything but annoy those already in charge until they either quit or were let go. Those that were left, the grunts that preferred to write and research instead of smile for the camera were usually doomed to a life of anonymity and meager paychecks until they too faced those two same options. Promotion was never in the stars for them.
Frank Hardy had been working at the new station for a little over a year now and the one thing he had learned there was that he hated the term grunt. Even if it was an apt way to describe his cubicle-mate and his preferred method of communication. The elder Hardy brother had spend month after month writing up fluff stories about everything from cotton candy flavors to berry festivals and yes, he understood that those sorts of stories were necessary for any good news company, they were just so… boring.
Several times a week Frank Dreamt of a world where he made a difference in the world around him. More than just turning people’s weekend plans away from the movies and toward the craft fair that was coming into town. He and his brother solved crimes, caught murderers, assassins, took down international conspiracies! Yet every time he tried to go over and above his normal fare, he was either shot down by his editor or the story was stolen by that thieving jerk on the other side of him. Adam was aspiring to get himself promoted to the set side of things and didn’t care what he had to do or who he stepped on to do it.
Adam had gone home with most of the late crew, but Frank knew the rat had set up a few safeguards in the form of an overnight crew member that he paid to give him the scoop on anything happening at work that was interesting or at least unusual. Frank grinned despite himself as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Let the man text Adam. Even if he was sober enough to get the text, there was nothing he could do about it.
Five minutes later it was done. By half-past, Frank was slipping back into his car. Tomorrrow’s headline remained unchanged, but the same could not be said of the political section of the station’s site. Oh, he knew that all hell was going to rain down on him come dawn, but right now, for the first time since he had arrived in California, Frank finally felt like he was doing something right. If he still had a career after this, it was going to be one that he could be proud of. Cubicles and Adams be damned.