the saga of dashing don part VII: when all else fails it's china tyme

yes, after a week of don's absence, during appropriations time no less, we deduce that he has left the country on a delegation to china sponsored by what appears to be a chinese business government relations firm. we have a week until he returns.

yes, the due date for fiscal year 2006 appropriations has come and gone and only don and jesus (allegedly) know what (if any) projects we've submitted. the phones are ringing off the hook, i might add, from city and state government officials, other lobbyists and so on who had lobbied our newest ex-pat with funding requests.

by now the four office cell phones purchased for office staff so that they can communicate without funds coming out of their own shallow pockets have gone missing. they have been missing for months in fact: for during my tenure at the front desk don had gradually acquired them all, giving me and only me the knowledge of which he was using that day so that no one could contact him. by the time the crazy train derailed he answered none of them, nor emails sent to his blackberry.

add to all this the timbuktu fiasco, the rampant missing of scheduled meetings, and general creepiness, and we are finally able to convince the MC to take action. her first order? that the cold cowboy become the new systems administrator and cancel all of his access to the server. meanwhile my coworker nadia is to cancel all cell phones, blackberry, and access to the office credit card account.

nadia and i schedule a secret meeting with outside contractors in the cafeteria during business hours, not yet having realized don was weekending in the orient. we strike a deal with them for computer and web site support and cancel our contract with don's pals at war profiteerz, inc. in the middle of the night we bring them into the office and crack his access, giving them administrator status before eliminating don's own access. they spend three hours wading through boobytrap after boobytrap he has planted in the event of such a coup, but are successful. don, of course, does not show up. he is in shanghai. now that i am systems admin, i request an audit of our server. the result is an abyssmal failure of nearly every security and ethical standard measured by the audit. one of the first things we do is change our password - setting it ourselves this time. we also change don's password so he can't login through the VPN client from his laptop(s) or tablet computer(s) at home and/or in china.

and ha-ha-ha, nadia's audit of our finances uncovers the following items purchased on the office account that are unaccounted for: four (4) laptops, one (1) tablet computer, one (1) ipod purchased in 2001 including accessories totalling $800 in value, one (1) industrial office printer valued at well over $1000. in all, several several thousands in hot, steamy merchandise. all hanging out at don's bungalo and/or flying with him in the Middle Kingdom.

meanwhile i have discovered the following: on every workstation, the inbox and sent folders, calendars and contacts in each staff member's outlook has had don added as an owner. this means of course that don has read each letter received and each sent by each staff member for shit-knows-how-long. his own account features everyone's mailbox alongside his own so that he might read them at will. our first clue-in to this trick was the discovery in the fax machine of an already-faxed sheet of paper printed out from outlook with don's mailbox name at the top. the email itself was written from the boss to a staffer in the district office who happens to be one of the most irritating people i have ever met..we'll call him lionel. the text of the email is, generally, as follows:

Lionel-

Three people - Three - came up to me seperately yesterday complaining about your BODY ODOR at the event yesterday. Please, please, please, Lionel. For God's sake take a shower.

-"MC"

don, in his madness, had forgotten to remove the evidence from the fax machine. who really knows to whom he was sending this unauthorized (albeit highly entertaining) document.

i am given access to don's email and network harddrive. there i discover: 1) recent crudely written cover letters and embellished resumes for chief of staff jobs. missing of course is any mention of a reference from the office he works in currently. we all hate this man. 2) a concealed list of all included approps requests, which i immediately distribute to the office. we discover that he has added a paltry number of requested projects and has left out the most important projects at least on issues of concern to the cold cowboy. i am to this day meeting with city officials to apologize for their previous relationship with mister mcnuts.. and for not getting them those millions that would have been a piece of cake had some jackass bothered to fax them over to committee instead of faxing emails about lionel's stinky pits to the FBI or whoeverthefuck. 3) a solitary small-and-creepy black-and-white jpeg of a grimacing, spread-eagle topless woman with comically fake breasts and a black leather garment that could only loosely be considered "underwear" that succeeds only minimally in hiding her pubis from view.

ok, there's more and more. to be continued.