#frankfull

[frankfallon-blog]

#9 Five yr old Frank

A letter to my five year old self to prepare him for the world. 26 years of planet earth since my 5th birthday. Who better to give some advice. If time travelling ever becomes an option... At 5 years old I was a fearless child. Scars on my head for falling off of many a coffee tables. Bumps on the head from walking into many a Dustbins. Big, wide blue eyes full of innocence and guilt free. A smile untouched from the sadness waiting in the tabloids and the news. My best friend was a kid called Elliot, we don't speak to each other anymore. My teachers in year 3 were Mrs Smith and Mrs B something. At the age of 5 I was too tall to sit in a play car thing that other children were allowed to sit in. Frank time will exist in exactly the same form as it does now, it will travel at exactly the same speed, however as you get older and fill your days with work and other 'necessities' it will seem to fade quicker. I like the person you are now, so an in depth look in the mirror and reevaluating the things we have or haven't done won't do us any good. 31 year old me recently chatted to the person I'm managing about the kind of characteristics he and me and you have. This person liked to finish all the tasks before starting the next one. I realised that I like to start many things and maybe don't always finish them... Last year I started a sign language course and never finished it, which is disappointing but I wouldn't tell you to go and finish it. I might say put in the practise to play the guitar because at 7, having learned to play Postman Pat all the way through, I told Mam to tell the guitar tutor Graham not to come back. Thinking of the days in Brighton you'll be living in between 21 and 27 I think I enjoyed listening to people playing the guitar more than wanting to play it. Maybe when you get in to year 5 and are about 9, you could run a bit more. By that time you'll be eating KG packs of wine gums that you can no longer purchase probably due to health reasons! Maybe don't eat them all in one sitting and think more about sport and exercise than what sweets you'll be buying from the sweet shop in North Harrow. You'll start drinking in Year 8. You'll also enjoy drinking too much to get the crowd laughing. You'll still enjoy doing that in 27 years time because of it... Frank Full by Frank Fallon

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#8 Frank Fallon

To be Frank Chapter 1 (introduction about me) My name is Frank. My assumption is that you will not know who I am. Actually if you have bought this book or rented it from a library then you no doubt do know me. In the world as it is, full of silly paid footballers, Big Brother and YouTube stars, I am nobody. At least I am nobody special. Harry Potter has been known as the boy who lived. I'm currently living. My frank explanation of my 31 years thus far is to tick another box off the bucket list but also share with you opportunities that are worth sharing. Where I have been you may like to go. Where I haven't been you may like to go. How I got to where I've been may be how you can get to where I haven't been. What is good about this world full of bloggers and vloggers is that there is a platform for everything. So my being someone not so special has no impact on whether you wish to read my book, it's that me being nobody still entitles me to sharing just that. It all started in a town called Stevenage. If I wasn't trying to be Frank I could go further back and address the family tree but perhaps I will branch into that several chapters in. Stevenage was one of the first towns built after the war to house the overspill of London. It's nothing special considering how large the world is, but it has had its fair share of special events and produced some popular faces over the years. (Special events). (Older people born in Stevenage) and then the millennials including Ed Westwick, Lewis Hamilton, Ashley Young and Jack Wilshere to name a few. If you hadn't heard of any of them then this book isn't as unnecessary as first imagined. I'm on par with celebrities. I was born a massive baby in to a family life. Loving people all around me and opportunities presenting themselves to anyone who was curious. In short in the beginning everything was set as the sociology books may have written; nuclear family with support family around them. All those mentioned in full time employment. I find it interesting that society still now pictures things a certain way. I am confident that some areas in this book I can share experiences from my own or others I have worked with that says there is always another way. People fail at one thing and succeed at another. Limiting success to the achievement doesn't always suggest the level of effort gone in, those that have failed more, those that have had to make huge sacrifices and those that were written off from the beginning. As much as in a sky fall of 7 billion shining stars, my own light can't be seen all the time, it has shone for many people and over these next chapters I hope it will shine for you.

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#7 Feeling Flat

#7 Feeling Flat

I read an article about tech billionaire Elon Musk. Musk is a CEO of two companies, Space X and Tesla. In his ‘spare time’ on a Saturday he also works at a not for profit artificial intelligence company. Musk can work between 85 - 100 hours Monday to Friday, according to the Independent. Not surprisingly he usually eats lunch during meetings and only gets 6 hours sleep a night. Oh and if you thought he may find it difficult to find anytime to settle down and have children, well he spends several hours on a Sunday with the 5 of them. That’s okay though as he can still access his work email! On further research on Musk he’s worth a staggering 20.5 billion USD according to Forbes rich list! What would you do for that amount of money?

Job advertisements today are full of lucrative salaries or far lower income. For mere mortals that sleep more than 6 hours a night and have to look after children during the week too, some salaries are less lucrative but allow you to just about afford rents outside of London. Most of the roles are fixed salary and locations, fixed roles and mention hours per week, usually between 35 - 40.

However the 9-5 is no longer 9-5. No doubt anyone reading this will have a mixture of times. Some may work 9-6. Some may work 6 day weeks with 12 hour days. Some may work 'flexi’ hours so you can start at 8 and finish at 4 etc. It’s fun to have slight variations on the working week and infrastructure relies on it. Shopping on a Sunday is booming. Getting booze at 1am in some parts of the country is a joy to those that wish to partake in a slightly lengthier evening of social activity.

What we are seeing more of is the hours of work never really being set, mostly in favour of the employer. Your job role will have specific responsibilities and requirements and in order to get those done you may be expected to work longer. Eating a sandwich at your desk is also appreciated in favour of meeting deadlines.

For people like Musk there must be some desire, some personal gain and self satisfaction that comes well before the reward of money. Maybe when he rises early and skips breakfast he can drive to work in a super car but what else can you enjoy when working 80 - 100 hours a week in an office. You can’t holiday. You can’t watch your home cinema.

I’ve worked with passionate people in lots of different sectors and I myself have worked tirelessly into the eve. I read an article about people who come to the office sick, no doubt under pressure to complete tasks. It said that not only is that unfair on on the people around them, who could also get sick but also on the people around them who would then be encouraged to work when they are sick.

If you are in a job that you enjoy and feel passionate about, so much so that you are happy to delve into personal time and finish late, or skip lunch, then I’m very happy for you. If you aren’t and but feel you are rewarded enough that you are happy to delve into personal time and finish late, or skip lunch, then I’m very happy for you. If you are having to do it because you feel you risk losing your job, which many people are, then you should seek advice. Unfortunately we live in a climate where the employer or owner will try to have a workforce that does more for less. A society where profit margins go beyond job satisfaction. In a western world we measure success by how many things we own, multiple times.

Musk and other people who can count their success in to the billions no doubt have to work hard at it. To be working in the modern world as a mere mortal, one who potentially can’t afford their own home, or to eat, or to look after their children, then working solidly for 8 hours must be hard enough. To be required to work through their lunch and into the evening is staggering that people feel justified to request this.

This could lead into politics, or unions or mental health and wellbeing. This could ask a question of whether you are happy in your current role, whether you are being valued, whether you are being treated fairly. For me, I wonder whether I will ever be able to work a 3 day week and be rewarded far greats than what I am now during a 5 day week.

Frank Full by Frank Fallon

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#3 Friday Feeling

Counting down the days is a youthful blunder. The calendar, mine has photos of New York, holds events all year round, some more significant than others. A birthday, more and more weddings, a trip to Comicon and even just a Friday or a Saturday. Ticking off four to five days a week can have a knock on effect, when suddenly life seems so precious and there is a longing for more time. Not many people in their earlier years truly recognise that more time would benefit us greatly. To my knowledge only Romeo, of So Solid Crew fame, at a young age was wise to it. When given 21 precious seconds, he complained "I need more time, give me 29, seconds to chat this rhyme." People, those we know and those we merely witness living their daily lives, always offer phrases we think we can relate to; Live every moment, make the most out of every minute and so on. Pick them apart though and can we actually live by the motto?! The daily grind including but not limited to an hours commute on the tube, stairwells at the tube station, tourists on the stair well in the tube station and the temperature of the underground. Imagine trying to make the most out of every moment when upon entering the central line at Ealing Broadway, the journey not ending until Liverpool Street station 45 minutes later, your bladder notifies the brain it's reached its limit. What does a Monday have to offer and why has it been imprinted that a Monday is full of negativity, hangovers and sometimes guilt? The Monday commute as far away from an expression of fully immersing yourself into every minute as humanly possible. In other countries around the world, such as Bangladesh, the weekend does not fall on a Saturday and Sunday, thus, Monday is another beautiful day. Working the 9 to 5 as Dolly Parton would have wanted us to, or the 8 to 6 that your charity sector CEO getting paid the big bucks would have wanted us to, or the 12 - 16 hours if you're NHS staff working under a Torie Government would have wanted us to, is part and parcel of the daily grind. Only 3,600 Lotto millionaires don't have to work having won the lotto, the rest of us even some of the 1 per cent have to do something at some point throughout the day to earn some money to pay for everything bar the air you breathe. Food, water, shelter and the necessities to live and then your TV, internet, phone and all the things which the media media make you think you need to live all make those hours a little bit more bearable. Counting down the hands to the end of your shift means you're proactively clocking up the younger years and checking out of some of the good bits. Your Mother or father, carer or housemate that is forever warning you to 'make the most out of it' is not trying to get you to see the best in everything but merely trying to get something out of most of it! Your *insert coffee provider here* coffee in the morning, the meme that tickles you on Facebook, completing a level on Candy Crush, the deers relaxing under a tree on your lunch break, the act that your friend at work hates everything more than you and so on an so on. Putting value on your day and appreciating it rather than looking on to the amount trip in 3 weeks time hopefully means that you'll slowly ease yourself in to being 80... Maybe you would have been too busy to really appreciate Netflix and when you finally are allowed to retire and if the Government haven't squandered away all your pension on brokering DUP deals and such like, and you can afford a TV you will not look back and how short and sweet life was but still be embracing the now. I've been caught up on the horrendous Love Island. I never thought I would say that. I've been sober for three weeks and my favourite thing to do is watch Love Island at 9pm and go to bed after. I'm embracing it. I had a costa today and the last couple of days I've had Tdziki. I wore purple socks, the same pair, two days in a row. I don't write home about it but I'm not sitting waiting for the morrow. The morrow waits for no man. Frank Full, by Frank Fallon