Battle Between Register Execs and Peons Takes a Spanish Turn

Clockwork feels obliged to point out the latest comments left on our recent blog posts about the continuing turmoil within the Grand Avenue headquarters of the Orange County Register.

Horne

To recap, it all started with our March 9 "Publisher to Register Employees: Let Them Eat Hawaiian Bread," which detailed the different messages publisher Terry Horne was giving to editorial employees (your salaries are frozen, your colleagues have been let go and you have to work harder) vs. top executives (we're partying hearty on Maui!). That was followed March 12 with "Source Says Furloughs Will Be Forced on Register Employees," which upped Clockwork's batting average when it comes to items that actually come true. Finally, to point readers to various comments to those posts, came March 30's "Insiders Take Potshots at Freedom Communications."

Where we'd left off with these was with Freedom employees blasting similar trips among the corporate suits in the Bahamas, president and CEO Scott N. Flanders earning $5 million while being exempt from mandatory employee furloughs aimed at saving $3.5 million and other executive perks seemingly spared the budget axe.

Flanders

R.C. Hoiles, who in this instance is not the Register's long-dead founder but an "ad gal" with a Freedom paper that is not the Santa Ana flagship, comments this week on the furlough post that even if Flanders did take a furlough, his hard landing would be cushioned by the compensation he receives sitting on six corporate boards. She calls Flanders "a hack and a loser," a description seconded by "Hank Paulsen," who nominates Flanders for the CEO position at General Motors before thinking better of it. "He wouldn't have time, too many boards to be on, as his own ship is turning round and round and round and round and round......."

The latest vitriol is even more intense in the comments section of the insiders post.
The faux Hoiles strikes again, explaining, "If it seems quiet around the country clubs of Orange County this week, you're not imagining it; many of the hard working suits for Freedom Communications have jetted off to Spain to lavish themselves in yet another free trip all the while employees back home are figuring out what bill not to pay because they are on furlough." She also shares this Blackberry-composed email "blowing along the gutters of Fitch" (the Irvine street where Freedom's offices are located).

Colleagues:

Valentines Day began well for me but it didn't have a great finish as I spent a less-than-romantic night in Intensive Care at Mission Hospital.

Yesterday afternoon, since it was such a fine day, (spouse's name)and I took a short motorcycle ride to do some errands.

Not far from home, an elderly woman pulled right out in front of me and I hit the back end of her car.

The motorcycle and I did a flip and landed on the pavement.

I was wearing full leathers and a full face helmet and didn't get so much as a scratch.
However, I did break my pelvis and have some internal bleeding.

They did a procedure last night to stop the bleeding and that seems to have been successful.

The orthopaedist was in a little while ago and said hour he didn't the break warranted surgery.

Further tests today will answer that question.

In the meantime, I am here in ICU growing fond of my morphine drip, which helps with the pain but not my typing on th Blackberry.

If all goes well, I will be moved to a regular room tomorrow.

The doctor says I may have to be here a week to 10 days and that I should not fly for several months. So that takes care of Las Vegas, Naussau and Spain. You will have to fly the flag for me there.

In any event, I don't want fllowers or anythiing here.

As you see, I do have my Blackberry for calls and messages.

More later

Regards / (guess who?)

Not R.C. Hoiles suggest OC Deathwatch run a contest where people can guess who the individual is. "Evil Knievil" adds, "Guess he shouldn't have taken off his training wheels from his bike." Next comes some back-and-forth between the players regarding other Freedom executives.

One would suspect management's response is best summed up by "Be Happy You Have a Job":

How dare the employees complain at this point in time. The Hoiles Family hasn't taken an income for more then a year. The ones who stuck around, instead of selling are about to go broke. How about being glad you whiners still have a job in the newspaper biz.