Corporate America

I truly feel like I love him, even after 10 years together, which is quite amazing. I really miss him and suffer more from his sufferings than my own. It is not the first time I do this to him, I left for Brussels a long time ago. History definitely repeats itself in my case, however maybe this time around it will actually lead me somewhere interesting, with happiness at the end of the tunnel.
This morning I thought that if anything was going to happen to me in this lifetime, it will be in L.A. Not only that, I thought that I could not possibly have lived this life without having lived in Los Angeles for a while. I need to integrate this in my experience, use it in my books. Even if this is just for my own satisfaction that I led an interesting life, beyond anything I was even dreaming of when I was just a teenager.
Now, what I don't understand is why I still have the same feeling of wishing to be hit by a car? I think it is all down to the people I have to deal with on a daily basis. Since forever I have always been unlucky and had to survive quite a huge bunch of horrible people making my life a misery.
Not sure if there is something I need to learn about this repeating pattern, to love the devil perhaps, learn to not be frightened of the dark side, but I sure failed at every level and I will again. Meaning that I will be stuck repeating this pattern over and over again until I die. At least the scenery changes after each five to ten years, now I am in L.A. How nice to suffer like hell in so nice a city! It makes it almost bearable.
24 November 2005
Racism and homophobia at work or just personality conflict?
It has been hard this week. I am on holiday for four days, I miss my baby very much. We could go around town together, at the moment I don’t feel like going on my own. I’m sorry I’m responsible for making him suffer, I suffer too, and I wish we could be together. I would love to take him in my arms. I hope he will find ways to forget suffering about me being here.
It is ridiculous, it has been only three weeks, but it seems like forever when he is not around, and that I am all alone. Maybe Isabella will become my friend, I would like that. She is very funny.
I went to McDonald with Isabella and her son yesterday after work, the girl from San Salvador, the one who baby sits my bosses’ children. Apparently everyone is given too much work and are questioned when it is not done. It appears to be a management trick to get people to work harder. I suspected that much, I feel better now that it has been confirmed.
It means that they only pretend to be disappointed and to be expecting more in order to throw us into panic mode so we work harder and harder, even at home. I also believe that even if they were impressed or happy with my work, they would not say so, so you never really feel like that now you can relax, you worked well.
I felt right into their trap, letting it get to me and allowing it to emotionally kill me. Unfortunately these mind games, even though they are as old as capitalism, are still working fine, and I can’t just cure myself from this stress. I still feel like I am not good enough for them.
If I knew that my reports were appreciated (except the last one), it would make me feel better. I need to read that last report again, maybe it was not that far from the truth after all. I just hope in time they will agree.
I think I can continue with this job, not sure if I will have a talk with my bosses on Monday before signing for and paying my apartment and hence confirming that I will be staying in L.A. for at least four more months.
Isabella’s brother studied cinema, the whole thing. He can direct, produce, edit, author DVD, etc. What a surprise, another one. I’m sorry he was sacked, and I know now that it was a conflict with my valley girl who just could not stand him. I’ve got to be careful, or the same thing will happen to me.
Isabella said that when her brother started to work there, no one liked him, contrarily to the other Mexican which everyone loves, including my famous director. The fact that they like the other Mexican guy can be justified by his great personality, I like him very much myself. There is nothing in him that is threatening, and he is a great “Yes Sir” type of person.
Isabella said that it was typical of this director to either like you or loath you, and he was rude to her brother, as he is rude to me. She said that she could feel how patronizing he was with me, so it was not in my imagination.
She blames it on the fact that we are foreigners, so I guess to be French-Canadian, as far as my director is concerned, is like being a Mexican or someone from Central America. Great, racism, and perhaps also homophobia, which certainly does not help my case.
I never suffered discrimination for being French, it is the first time I would suffer from racism that I am aware of. Well, there have been a couple of instances in the past where I did suffer from racism, but I won’t get into that now.
I guess when you are flooded with Mexicans (when in fact I feel that this town belongs to Mexicans and it is the Americans who are flooding it), French-Canadians can be put in the same bag. Mix it all up together, add some onions and make a nice salad with it that you can eat at lunch time.
I don’t know if it is racism or homophobia, or the threat that I represent for being young, having that much experience, with a title like Management Consultant. It must be difficult in court to justify racism, unless some specific events happened, and in this case he never mentioned anything that could suppose racism or homophobia.
So I am not ready to say Isabella is right, and the first impression I had of her brother was not that he could become a great friend, I have to admit. But at the time he had been under intense pressure for over two months, and he was sacked within two days of my arrival.
I think it is simpler than that with the director. Our personalities just don’t match, he just did not like me from the start. And I think he would not have even if he had known nothing about me. One good look was enough for him to judge me, before I even spoke.
And Isabella confirmed it, he either like you or he doesn’t. Unfortunately he had the time to do a lot of damage, he has succeeded in destroying my credibility to my bosses, just as the valley girl did with Isabella’s brother. And I did not help myself afterwards either, with my string of mistakes.
Dear me, I was unaware that this place would be so cut throat and that my head would no longer stand on my shoulder within one day of my arrival. Not sure how I will survive this, but with Isabella on my side, I may stand a chance.
25 November 2005
Finding happiness and being a positive force of nature
I would like to apologize to my readers, I have been obsessed with this director’s business and it seems that it is all I’ve been able to talk about. It is also a problem I had in certain of my books. Thankfully my fictional stuff is not about me.
My father, my biggest fan, told me that sometimes he could not bear it anymore, my long speeches about how terrible people can be at work and how none of them appears to have read the right books about great management skills.
And the other half of these books is about my inner misery which is a direct consequence of the first problem, which makes my sister not want to read me anymore, as she says death comes back at every page.
I wanted to become positive, happy people, but I guess that if I am not happy in my professional life, I cannot pretend that life is some sort of utopia where living is just breathtaking.
I think I don’t know how to have fun anymore, I’m not sure I ever did. I read some other blogs about how these people used to go out all the time, take drugs with their friends from college, and have the best time in the world.
I don’t remember any of the parties I have been to, not sure if I have gone to any parties. Well, I suffered a lot at some parties anyway and I could not wait to get out. And I certainly never took drug. No wonder I’ve become an old maid before my time.
I should have just jumped on coke or heroine, just like everyone else around here. Though it is in their past for most of them, I guess it was a necessary rite of passage before reaching adulthood and happiness.
I would imagine there are a lot of these cocaine parties in Hollywood every night. Or other soirées filled with actors and directors and producers. I know some people who would be willing to kill to go to such parties. I don’t, I’m actually afraid I may be asked one day to attend one. Worst, I could be obliged to go.
It would look too much like a conference where you need to be on your best behavior, and that, when you are the producer, is the most boring place on earth. Hell, I even refused to go on tour or speak at conferences to promote my books, though right now I would welcome that if I did not have a full time job in parallel.
Which brings me to the great existential question which is: what is it that could actually make me happy? I sometimes play this game of asking myself: if you could choose right now anywhere in the world where you would like to be, and the perfect and ideal circumstances you would like, what would it be? I asked myself these questions many times, and the odd and only answer is that I would not want to be anywhere else with any ideal circumstances.
I must have lost the will to live. And no success or being famous could change that, I’m afraid. I had a taste of it with my published books, even if none of them made it to the bestsellers lists. I still have many fans around the world and receive emails from them. I just now take it for granted and it has no impact on my happiness.
Dear me, I have done so much already, I am published, I have been produced, I’ve lived in Europe for eleven years, I have a great boyfriend of ten years (even if we don’t have as much sex as I would like), I am now in L.A. with a good salary, what the hell is missing? What is it that will make me happy?
To isolate myself alone on a mountain somewhere, I thought it would be the solution. However it would not make me happy, it will just stop me from having to put up with all these people every day that I just cannot stand. It would be more like a relief. So it is not really a solution to happiness.
Now, how could someone who thinks like that ever write positive and wonderful things? How could I free myself from this negativity and start being impressed with nature and everything surrounding me? How could I ever make other people happy when I am myself ready to pull the plug? I will never, I am doomed.
I wish I could identify why it is that I feel this way. Is it because I am gay, different, marginal? Have I suffered most of my years in high school, being bullied, to the point that it destroyed my will to be alive? Is it because I have started to write like a machine when I was ten years old and it took nearly fifteen years before I was finally published (of course, existential crisis is not your usual topic for a bestseller)? Is it because my parents separated many times and eventually divorced? Is it a mix of all of that?
I feel I was born this way. Like being gay. I was destined to live an unhappy life, in deep existential crisis. And it is more philosophical than anything else. I don’t understand who we are, what is our place in this world. I cannot comprehend this universe we’re living in, or if there is a purpose to our existence.
I had long a time to think about it, to write about it, to talk about it, to read about it, and I’m still nowhere near an answer. Just as I predicted, Los Angeles will not be my salvation.
28 November 2005
Should I stay or should I go? Can such a question be asked about L.A.?
I'm back at work after thanksgiving. I feel better than last week, but I still need to somehow speak with my bosses about if they feel I should continue or if I should just go back to London before it becomes too complicated for me to do so. At the moment Stephen is still there in London, the flat is still there, my old job is still there as it was confirmed this morning by my ex-Manager.
I did not contact my old employer to find out if my job was still available, they contacted me. A message about a speaker on my conference, the Minister tried to get out of speaking at the event and pretended I never confirmed her. I had a letter signed by her own hand that she was glad to speak at this event. If I wanted a proof that politicians cannot be trusted, here it is.
My ex-Manager was asking at the end how it was here in L.A., so I told her I was not too sure if it had been the right decision. I did not mention my mistakes, my personality conflict, and that perhaps they would be happy to see me go back to England.
I was walking to work this morning thinking, I could lose all that. I was wondering however what it is that I would lose, but again I did not have the chance to visit too much and in fact, I don't know what it is that I would lose by leaving now. On the opposite side, I was thinking about being back in London, taking the train every morning with the same people. Going to Westminster and work in Parliament Square, and you know what, it did not feel like it would be so bad. And not only that, I would appreciate it fully now, because before I had no idea how somewhere else it could be worse. But yeah, it is the lesser of two evils.
Despite all that, going back to London would not be right. I cannot see from my destiny's point of view what I would have gained by coming here for a month. It is obvious that what it is that I need to experience has not yet happened, unless what I had to learn was here where I am working, and that I have already learned it. This could have been learned anywhere in the world including London, so why L.A.? There is something else I need to experience, other people I need to meet, something will happen soon, I just have to be patient.
And now, I still need to have a conversation with my bosses to find out if they wish me to stay, because of course it is not only my decision. They would probably be surprised to hear that I was considering going back. I'm sure for them my month has just been business as usual, while for me it was quite an eye opener. Then again, every time I tried to understand what was going on here and what was to be expected of me, I have been wrong. So I should not presume to know best.
It is 8h53, I know my boss is working on my file, so I don't have to worry too much if he does not come to tell me what to do yet. He will soon. I will have to call the industry and get some feedback from them. I also need to record them on tapes and transcribe everything that is being said. I just hope I can do that fast enough, sounds like another task which could take me forever. I think I will go and buy myself an egg sandwich in a minute, since I have to wait anyway. I will have to be quick though.
This weekend I went to Universal Studios, only because it was actually the closest tourist attraction. I just had to jump on the Orange Line, and at North Hollywood I had one more Metro station to go. The whole thing took me one hour, it would probably have taken me 20 minutes with a car. I think it could have been worse, without the Orange Line.
This surface metro line has opened on the exact day that I have arrived in Los Angeles and barely just reaches me. It is quite a coincidence. Without it, getting to downtown Los Angeles would take me two full hours if not more, instead of one hour and thirty minutes. So they are getting there, they are trying to sort themselves out. Distances are simply considerable compared to a place like London or Paris where everything is concentrated in the same area.
Well, I got an annual pass at Universal since it was the same price as a normal ticket. Without it I would not have gone in, because I was too late and it would not have been worth paying that much. I did the usual stuff, Terminator, Waterworld, Back to the Future, Van Helsing, Shriek. The most interesting stuff, and new stuff in my case, would have been below, but it was too cold and windy for me to go anywhere, especially visit the back lot. I ran from attraction to attraction and I left quickly, I was freezing.
On my way back in the shuttle there was a family from around here who came to visit L.A. during Thanksgiving. They said they spent three days at Disney Land and one day at Universal Studios. I could not believe it. What do you do for three days in a row at Disney Land? You queue for hours everywhere and end up doing nothing of your day? They have so many attraction parks here, I don't know if I feel like visiting them all. We'll see.
I'm not sure how I will succeed in speaking about my situation in this office with my bosses. The wife's boss is definitely avoiding me, it is embarrassing. Why? Why would she avoid me? I can understand, considering what happened last week, however I have no clue about what is going on in her mind.
Is she avoiding me because she feels she did a research and contradicted my findings, and now she thinks I could feel bad about it and she does not wish to speak about that? Or that she would hope I would go back to England and does not know how to say so? In which case, I really have to speak to her soon, before I pay for my apartment. I just don't know how to approach this and who to speak to exactly, her or her husband?
I am also falling asleep at my desk, and really there is no reason to, I went to bed at 10 pm last night, I had 9 hours sleep. I find it frustrating that even after drinking a whole pot of coffee, I just cannot wake up! I feel like hitting myself in the face until I get out of my dream state.
A door just slammed, I am not sure who did it and why. There could be other things going on that I am unaware. The second most senior conference manager did not look very happy today in the kitchen. I admired him for his nice personality where nothing appears to be able to reach him.
Well, he admitted today that he perhaps did some mistakes and he will have to deal with it today. I said he would survive, he said he would one way or another. I wonder what he meant by that and I wonder how serious the situations he created, as he puts it, are serious. Maybe here anything can be used against you and any report you write can become the biggest blunder of your life, when in fact it is not that serious. Another management trick?
I went to get the key for the toilet, and there she was in front of me, my boss, she froze as if she did not know what to do or where to go. We have not said good morning or anything. I hate it, having to go in her office every time I want the key for the toilets. One day at lunch time I will go and get a double of that key made, so I don't have to advertise it so much when I go for a pee.
Stephen is so much better than me in these awkward situations. He would have told everyone good morning and would not be afraid of confronting any of these people, no matter what. I wish I was more like that. But looking at them, embarrassed as they are, I am probably normal, and Stephen is the exception.
I have not done anything this morning apart from preparing that letter requesting a meeting. I feel bad about it. I could not go and see my boss, I know he is working on that file. He will come to me once he finishes and we can move on with this.
Now I understand she was busy, she had to go and collect the kids in school, and they have other worries like the renovations of the second office, etc. So I should not read too much into the fact that we will only meet tomorrow morning. However I wonder if she simply wishes to talk about this further with her husband tonight? It is quite possible. They had a one hour meeting together immediately after I sent my email to her, however they could have been talking about anything else.
I am wondering, is there any way they could turn around and tell me: thank you for your reports and services, and have a nice life back in London? It seems so improbable, that I really wonder why I requested this meeting. As Stephen suggested, he thought I wanted out, and it was my way to announce it to them. Which is not the case either.
So what is it? Just reassurance? Why? Because I feel a bit uncomfortable, because I am in the dark, I don't know what they are expecting of me? The problems with the director, has it developed into a massive mountain or is it forgotten?
I guess the meeting is still a good idea. And you never know, maybe they think they have made a mistake with me and will be thankful for me to give them the chance to stop it all before it goes any further. It would be surprising, but it is possible. Tomorrow could be my last day not only in the office, but also in Los Angeles.
I just went to get myself a coffee in the kitchen. The Black guy kind of asked me weirdly if I was OK, the same thing the wife's boss asked me before she left. I had something in my eye when she came to me and I hope she does not think I was sort of emotional about all this. It would look very bad indeed. It would also mean that all emails I send to my bosses are being read by that guy, and he is also being told about everything that is happening in this office.
I would not be surprised either if the woman in charge of HR, payroll, etc., also has access to all exchanged e-mails. I might never know about that for quite a while. It would make sense, since if both bosses are out of the office, someone would need to answer urgent messages. So not only it is not possible to speak in this office because we are all sitting over each other, but on top of it sending an e-mail to anyone is like copying half the company. So I’ve got to be careful, no secret can be kept here.
29 November 2005
Destiny is re-organizing my life out of my control, for the best
Once again I feel quite weird in the office this morning. I know I will meet my boss and I don't know how the meeting will turn out. She might have decided certain things after speaking with my director and her husband. I'm sure the director would not have told her that they should keep me. And her husband could have decided just like that, that it was perhaps preferable that I leave. Ultimately she does not need their word, apparently she is quite the business woman and could decide on her own that it was a mistake.
The director was not here yesterday, he's back today with his deep voice. I'm glad I'm not working with him right now, I know I will work with him in the future, I know he will be patronizing and there will be conflict, that alone convinces me that it would not be a bad idea if I were to go back to London.
And then, right after saying that, he followed me in the kitchen and tried to be nice. I was a bit ashamed to tell him that I went to Universal Studios during Thanksgiving, and he made it clear he disapproved of it. He appears to be kind of anti-tourist or commercial himself, and wrote books about the old history of Los Angeles. I think he mentioned that before, but I had the time to forget. As if I am so freaked out, I am unable to retain anything anyone tells me.
So we discussed Vincent Van Gogh, which really could not have been better since I really feel a special connection with this painter. I went to St. Remy de Provence in France twice in my life since I have a friend there, and this is where he was interned in a mental institution and painted most of his great paintings. He also lived in my town in England, Isleworth, and there is a blue plate to remind us. He was not painting yet at that time however. Not sure if talking about Vincent might have changed his opinion about me.
I thought he had a discussion with my boss today about the meeting, and that he was doing an extra effort today to be nice since I am after all considering going back to London. And I would certainly do so if in any way my boss tells me she feels she has made a mistake. However I have not seen her this morning. I thought I had heard her voice but I must have been dreaming.