Been a while since I last blogged but I thought my urban encounter with a frog would be a good come back post :)
Upon closer inspection it turned out the pebble was in fact a little bright green frog. He was sitting there quietly but keeping a close watch on everything around him.
Why do these things happen on a Friday evening? Just when you want to go home to prepare for a dinner with friends.
You cannot just leave the fellow there, because in a few hours the cleaning team will probably apply measures too harsh for Yupie (name given to froggy). Given the wet floor, you consider if this leakage of Bank resources with such serious consequences shouldn’t be immediately reported to the VP of INT (Institutional Integrity). But, you know, he will then invite you for a coffee and after that nothing ever happens. Calling GSD (General Services Dept) is also not an option because they should have addressed the leakage days ago and from experience you know that they will just put a plastic bag over the problem for a few weeks, as they did last year, apparently hoping the problem will go away by itself. Calling Security and informing them about the incident just one floor directly below the President’s offices would mean a huge embarrassment for the elite corps. How could they have allowed such a visitor into the building without a pass? So, for sure they would just deny the problem.
So what do you do if no one will believe you or address your problem? At least you want to have a witness, so you take a colleague and a camera to the bathroom. We did. But then? Then what?
You can’t take him outside in the cold and drop him in the snow or the freezing waters of Rock Creek. Therefore, we considered dropping him in the pond in MC-C2. Although that blue sterile pond could use some flora and fauna, its water is probably chlorinated. Not good for our fellow. So, we went to the nearby offices of ED James Hagan. Maybe our froggy escaped from there. You can imagine the expressions on the faces of his staff, when I asked them if anyone there had a pet frog in the office.
So in the end we decided with a few colleagues (thanks Lori and Reema!) to build a little aquarium for the guy to help him at least through the weekend. A plastic box, the size of those at the salad bar, helped us out. With some room temperature water from the fountain, some leftover salad, a few cookie crumbles and a little soapstone hippo from Zimbabwe we built together a nice new home…. so we thought.
As soon as Yupie jumped out of the coffee cup into the aquarium, he desperately swam to get out of the water and tried to stick to the slippery wall of his new home. He clearly didn't like the water. Only then we realized that his claws were not webbed and that he must be a tree frog. (It is embarrassing but I must admit: too many Bank projects are being prepared without proper appraisal!) So we removed most of the water and then left him with a DO NOT TOUCH sticker in my office.
Back home, I found out that our fellow is probably an American Tree Frog, common in the southern United States. He likes a somewhat moist terrarium and eats mosquitoes, moths, and crickets, in summary anything that bugs him (*wink*). That’s what he got.
I must say, in the process I started liking the little fellow a lot. He is so dapper. I admire his courage, his tenacity, his adventurous nature. What brought Yupie all the way to the 11th floor of the World Bank, downtown DC? What is his mission? What does he want to tell us? Is he a messenger of climate change? A whistle blower of leakage? Or does he want to encourage us to always think out-of-the-box? He certainly tried to jump out of it! I thank him for choosing us and nominate him to become the mascot of HRSVP if not the whole Bank!
ps. major part of this post is written tongue-in-cheek esp when 'teasing' the practices of the WB
One Friday evening not too long ago, just before taking off from the Bank for the weekend - at least so I thought - I made a quick stop to the bathroom where my eye caught a strange pebble laying on the wet floor.Upon closer inspection it turned out the pebble was in fact a little bright green frog. He was sitting there quietly but keeping a close watch on everything around him.
Why do these things happen on a Friday evening? Just when you want to go home to prepare for a dinner with friends.
You cannot just leave the fellow there, because in a few hours the cleaning team will probably apply measures too harsh for Yupie (name given to froggy). Given the wet floor, you consider if this leakage of Bank resources with such serious consequences shouldn’t be immediately reported to the VP of INT (Institutional Integrity). But, you know, he will then invite you for a coffee and after that nothing ever happens. Calling GSD (General Services Dept) is also not an option because they should have addressed the leakage days ago and from experience you know that they will just put a plastic bag over the problem for a few weeks, as they did last year, apparently hoping the problem will go away by itself. Calling Security and informing them about the incident just one floor directly below the President’s offices would mean a huge embarrassment for the elite corps. How could they have allowed such a visitor into the building without a pass? So, for sure they would just deny the problem.
So what do you do if no one will believe you or address your problem? At least you want to have a witness, so you take a colleague and a camera to the bathroom. We did. But then? Then what?
You can’t take him outside in the cold and drop him in the snow or the freezing waters of Rock Creek. Therefore, we considered dropping him in the pond in MC-C2. Although that blue sterile pond could use some flora and fauna, its water is probably chlorinated. Not good for our fellow. So, we went to the nearby offices of ED James Hagan. Maybe our froggy escaped from there. You can imagine the expressions on the faces of his staff, when I asked them if anyone there had a pet frog in the office.
So in the end we decided with a few colleagues (thanks Lori and Reema!) to build a little aquarium for the guy to help him at least through the weekend. A plastic box, the size of those at the salad bar, helped us out. With some room temperature water from the fountain, some leftover salad, a few cookie crumbles and a little soapstone hippo from Zimbabwe we built together a nice new home…. so we thought.
As soon as Yupie jumped out of the coffee cup into the aquarium, he desperately swam to get out of the water and tried to stick to the slippery wall of his new home. He clearly didn't like the water. Only then we realized that his claws were not webbed and that he must be a tree frog. (It is embarrassing but I must admit: too many Bank projects are being prepared without proper appraisal!) So we removed most of the water and then left him with a DO NOT TOUCH sticker in my office.
Back home, I found out that our fellow is probably an American Tree Frog, common in the southern United States. He likes a somewhat moist terrarium and eats mosquitoes, moths, and crickets, in summary anything that bugs him (*wink*). That’s what he got.
I must say, in the process I started liking the little fellow a lot. He is so dapper. I admire his courage, his tenacity, his adventurous nature. What brought Yupie all the way to the 11th floor of the World Bank, downtown DC? What is his mission? What does he want to tell us? Is he a messenger of climate change? A whistle blower of leakage? Or does he want to encourage us to always think out-of-the-box? He certainly tried to jump out of it! I thank him for choosing us and nominate him to become the mascot of HRSVP if not the whole Bank!
ps. major part of this post is written tongue-in-cheek esp when 'teasing' the practices of the WB
1 comment:
this has to be one of my favorite posts from you. Lovely writing. thanks for sharing.
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