Corporate America

And then, less than an hour later, he stopped to tell me that what I had done so far was excellent and that I was very good with the interviews in order to find out the exact information we needed.
In fact, though my bosses will never admit to this, I believe they suddenly thought that I could be an asset to this organization. This is probably why they have changed their perception of me, are much nicer now and I got the car of my boss for almost a full week to go around town and pass my driving license.
Hopefully I will have that damn license tomorrow. I have to go for a second time for the behind the wheel test, in Winnetka this time. With my luck, I’ll probably run over an old woman, or even better, a woman with her kid.
Other news, I won’t be going back to London at Christmas and my baby is not coming here either. Which brings the question, should I take two days off and go see my parents, my sister and her daughter whom I have never seen yet for the New Year?
I feel I should, I asked Stephen what he thought about this. It would be nice to see them even for five days, I have not seen them in five years. So they don’t forget about me and that I am no stranger to my new niece who is now two years old and already speaks! Usually no one remembers anything before the age of three, so at this time it makes no difference if I see her now or next year.
However it is my sister’s baby and I remember that I felt bad a few years ago about my two new cousins not knowing me very much. We have a small family on my mother’s side, it is important to keep contact. And on my father’s side, the family is so large, that it does not matter if I don’t see any of them for the rest of my lifetime.
I just spoke with my mom, and because they are sending me 500 dollars that I should receive tomorrow, they feel it would be criminal to come and see them over Christmas, since this money is to help me set myself up in Los Angeles. So that is now also sorted. I will be spending Christmas alone.
Someone asked me if I talk as much as I write. Yes I do. Though I have learned in time to speak less and listen more. If I'm drunk, it would be advisable to stay away from me. I have a tendency to say all that I think. I could be even more open and honest in this blog, I have to say. But I'm afraid, here, this is all you will get.
I can at least tell you that Stephen is in the process of getting a visa to come and live with me here in Los Angeles. That is why going back to London for me right now is not the most obvious option. He will be working with me in that company. He will also bring with him our two baby cats that I love so much. After that, perhaps there will be nothing calling me back to London for quite a while.
I have been very much alone since I have arrived in Los Angeles. I have only one friend, and I have seen him only twice. He is also the friend who might open me all the doors to Hollywood for me to write full time on big budget films, as he has very interesting contacts and should present me to these friends in the near future. That part of my blog is 20 more pages so far. It is nice to let you all know that on that side, things are happening faster than I was expecting.
Stephen does not offer me much at the moment in terms of emotional support, unfortunately. He is also very good at driving me crazy. He has a hard drug addiction, not counting that he is an alcoholic, and sex has become a stranger in our relationship. Which is very unfortunate. But I'm willing to continue this relationship at this time. We have decided today to remain where we are this Christmas, to save money for when, and if, he makes the big jump and joins me here in Los Angeles.
He was here though, he arrived with me almost two months ago and remained here for one week. At the end of that one week, before I brought him to LAX airport, we had sex. He was so cute naked on my bed with, and it was so nice to be in his arms one last time, I will cherish this memory for quite a while.
I have not yet explored the gay life in California. I have heard there were about four bars on Santa Monica Boulevard. I have not even taken the time to go there and I have no plans at the moment to explore this side of L.A. I must be getting old indeed!
I am back with my own thoughts. Wondering where I am, where I am heading, what’s happening, etc. It is Christmas in less than five days. I will be very much alone, and I actually prefer that anyway. I’ll just drink myself to death and probably write an interesting few pages for my blog. I will probably be depressed, as I always am around Christmas every year. I might meet a friend, though somehow I think it won’t materialize.
Sometimes it is nice to be alone, like tonight. As someone said, I do juggle with a lot at the moment. No wonder I wrote nearly 100 pages in the last two months, and from experience, this is over 200 pages of a normal book once published.
And yet, nothing significant happened. This is just the introduction. My God, this blog will have 1000 pages by the end of my first ten months in L.A. Surely this means something? Or will everything just calm down and routine will take over?
I have important meetings soon, if they come true, and I might start to work in films in science-fiction, even if at the beginning it will solely be as a science consultant or technical adviser. Eventually my own film scripts and synopses could attract attention, and they already did somehow. Nothing and everything could happen any day. To make this whole pilgrim to L.A. worthwhile.
I’m sure that from the point of view of my destiny, something huge must happen soon. No such amount of energy should or could have been spent otherwise. Everything has a meaning, or in other words, it is not possible to accomplish such a radical change in one’s life without experiencing a string of consequences that eventually will make it all worthwhile.
I am saying this from experience. It may not look like it, from reading this blog, and poor souls or lucky souls reading this right now, have no idea of everything else I have written in my life, of all my different moves in the last 15 years in five different countries.
It is not the first time I listen to the cry of adventure, and decides to leave everything behind. It is not even the first time that I abandon my boyfriend of many years to change country to pursue my dreams.
I left my first boyfriend to go and study in Paris in La Sorbonne 12 years ago. He joined me in the end, and together we moved to London. However he was not faithful, I suffered terribly and ultimately it brought about our destruction.
I have gone through so much in my life, that I can assure you that the eight or nine autobiographical books I have written so far, and they are big bricks I can tell you, are quite filled with all of this that I have experienced and all that happened to me in the last 12 years.
It is perhaps a shame to have written so much about my own little person, when I could have been spending my time writing fiction instead, or even better, about how to change this world for the better.
I understand now that it is perhaps more important from the point of view of a credible author, or from the point of view of contribution to the literary world. I can’t really complain though, my last two published books were autobiographical and have been a good success in the French speaking countries, relatively speaking of course, for what an average book could expect to sell, from an author who is not writing bestsellers.
Maybe all this will change soon. Maybe I will be writing fictional bestsellers soon. If my film scripts don’t go anywhere, I will turn them into short stories. And I have spent so much time imagining the perfect stories, that this book of short stories could be impressive indeed. From a point of view of the paranormal, that is. So this is untouched ground really, not much is about the paranormal world these days. Love and infidelity is what they bang us on the head with. And half funny comedies which almost become dramas, since they are so boring and insignificant.
I might never get the chance to write full time, I might never finally break that barrier of having serious journalists speaking about my work. I am just invisible to them, despite all there is to say about my career and my books so far.
Stupid, I got more publicity out of the bombings in London that I ever did in my lifetime as an author. I finally appeared on the French television all over Canada and everyone saw it, and many articles in important newspapers as well.
The French-Canadian author living in London, avoiding the bombs on his way to work to Parliament Square in Westminster, and who saw the blood and the human being pieces being blown out everywhere on the street of Russell Square.
This is how it was presented to the people, and my mom crying over me for all Canada to see. I was nowhere near any bomb. And I have never said the things that they made me say after a crafty editing job. You would have thought I saw it all, I saw nothing. You would have thought it was one of the most terrible moments in human history, and it certainly was not.
This is the wonderful world of journalism, they lie through their teeth, to make it look much worse then it is. And they serve the purpose of terrorism very well, my own interviews certainly frightened me out of my wits. Until I stopped to think and remembered what it is that I actually stated on there.
And yet, after all that, I’m sure there was no surge of visitors on my websites. And yet, I have more than one million of them visiting my pages every year. And yet, I am still nowhere.
It is because I am ambitious, I am pretentious, it is one billion people I want to reach every year. I need to change this world on a massive scale. I had about five Indians from India contacting me in the last two weeks, about my theories of the universe and relativity, a link to my website must have appeared somewhere on the Net. It is millions of Indians that I need to reach, and Hollywood is the only medium that could give me the chance to do just that.
Reading this blog, you might wonder what it is that I could actually say to change this world on a massive scale. It does not look like I could, and I agree, nothing of what you have read so far could convince you that I am worth it. But I feel I am somehow, and you could agree with me if you were to read some of my French non-autobiographical books.
And if everything goes according to plans, you will read them one day in your own language. And the world will be a better place, or perhaps a worst one, since you might also understand from my books that this is an ugly world.
It could make you feel better though, to understand that you are not alone thinking about all that. Unless of course you are living the perfect love affair, and don’t see anything wrong with this world. As most people do anyway.
This world is not going anywhere anytime soon. I talk a lot about my own destiny, what about the destiny of this world? Does it not have a great destiny? Radical changes in sight? Some revolutions coming, in just about every single domain of society?
Is it not the time for a full revolution of how we think and manage this world? Is it not time for a great revolution in Physics which would irremediably change all our technology and greatness?
Is it not time to change our whole political system worldwide and especially legal system to the point of non-recognition? Is there not something better than socialism or capitalism that we have not yet explored?
Is it not time for the paranormal to make a comeback with some proofs from science to make it accessible to everyone? Is it not time to understand this afterlife phenomenon, get some real answers, and change our way to picture this universe? Is it not time to take this U.F.O. and alien phenomenon a bit more seriously and understand the consequences of it?
Is there not a way in this world to actually find happiness instead of this misery of the terrible corporate world? What are the problems, what are the solutions, and can we apply them globally and change this world forever?
Is it too much to ask to desire happiness? Is this an impossibility on this world? Are we incapable to make this place livable? Are we only capable of destruction and annihilation of the human race? Is this where we are leading humanity?
I think that if I believe that I have a great destiny, the world must have one too. We will overcome all these questions, all these problems, and radical changes will be required around here.
And I will work very hard to make it all happen, to be an element of this global change. And I won’t tell you to recycle, I haven’t since I have arrived in L.A., and I find it liberating.
The changes I am talking about are on a much larger scale. And my God, we are ready for that radical change, and we are seriously overdue!
21 December 2005
Decisions, decisions, decisions. Work, Christmas and Car
I feel weird today, but what is new. It could be Christmas, the fact that I am not going back to London, the idea of not sacrificing $1,500 for this, even though every fiber in my body tells me it is worth it.
I can sort my car at lunch time, then that settles it, I can't go since I won't have the money. I'm trying to buy a silver Mustang convertible for $12,000. I had to get back to the idea of a Mustang since they are the cheapest convertibles you can buy in L.A.
Of course, I have spotted the car I would like, the new Nissan 350Z Roadster convertible, only because they look like the Smart Cars Roadsters that Mercedes sell only in Europe. However at $35,000 I don't think I could afford the payments.
I can't believe I am talking so much about cars, I have zero interest in these machines. It took me 28 years to have my first car despite my three driving licenses.
I first had the oldest car on the road, a Volvo, then a Renault 5, and now it could be a Mustang. If I can't get the finance, since I have no credit history here, then I'll have either an old banger in the New Year once I get paid, or I might just accept this offer of the Lincoln of my boss.
It is a SUV, the car everyone is disgusted about, and this SUV is probably the largest one of all. It is also a Ford. I dare not imagine how much it would cost to fix it once it breaks down. Like my friend's Dodge, probably $9,000.
However it is kind of luxurious, it is not very old, it works fine even if finding a parking space large enough for it is kind of difficult, and no need for credit history. I could also have it instantly, almost. Not sure if I would only get it in the New Year.
You know, when life throws at you something like a car, and it looks too easy, and you wonder why you should take it, if it is still $20,000 and you never really wanted a huge Ford SUV, still, you should take it. It is obvious that this is all that destiny was able to throw in your way, as it was before with my Renault 5. I practically inherited it as a result of a trade-in where Stephen works.
And I fought it, and I wasted many months without a car, and in the end, since I won't be able to get credit and that I don't want to end up with a very old banger which will need repair almost instantly, I will just take the offer. I should have seen before-hand that I would eventually own a Lincoln. However I checked the Kelly Blue Book, and it is still worth $30,000. At that price, I would prefer my Nissan 350Z. We’ll have to see.
I had a chance yesterday to speak for the first time to the real Management Consultant. The poor guy might have a lot of experience doing what he does, and he might have worked as he said for the three biggest companies around, doing what he intends to do here, but he has no clue about the conference world, which I am sure has nothing to do with any kind of company he laid his teeth into. So in the end I am not certain how he will be able to have such an input into making things better here, and prepare us for the big expansion that we were told would happen soon.
However I am sure that somehow he has learned a way to just gobble everything everyone has to say and propose solutions which I'm sure will make sense. Somehow he will succeed in presenting something, anything, and as a result, things might change. He must know what he is doing, I'm sure he costs a lot of money to the company.
The thing is, he is a very nice old man and he is obviously highly interested in everything I have to say, because I'm pretty sure he has no clue about how the main conference companies have evolved in time.
I told him I wrote many reports, of course he was highly interested. I told him he would need to ask my boss before I can give them to him, since perhaps they wanted a totally independent analysis from him, and see what he would come up with on his own.
So finally yesterday we sent him all my reports, and this is when I discovered that my main report about their main competitor, never reached the inbox of my boss. And the other main report I wrote which is about their second biggest competitor, she had received it but never opened it.
They were not joking when they said they never had the time to go over them, and no wonder I never got any feedback. And no wonder the Director freaked out completely, since the first two days that I was supposed to work with him, from his perspective, I was writing reports which never reached my bosses.
So of course they never said to him to bear with me, since in my eyes I was working on something quite important, but they did not know about it. Important enough anyway that they are willing to hire an expensive professional to look into this.
I hope for the Management Consultant that he does not intend to do like me, write reports and send them to my bosses. Because then, he might never get any feedback, they might never read them, and the whole thing would have been expensive indeed.
So now I understand why my reports never had any impact. And I was so proud of myself for having written so much and to have been able to actually do it. And all I succeeded in doing at that time was to alienate them all.
Now I actually have the perfect person to be highly interested in all my reports, the real Management Consultant. Who must have been reading all this since yesterday, and hopefully realizes now, how much easier all of this will make his job.
With a bit of luck, he'll tell my bosses what an amazing amount of work that was, and how helpful it was to him. In the final analysis, whether someone tells your boss that you are worth something, or whether he or she finds out on his or her own, makes no difference. So all this work might finally pay off in the end, in the New Year.
If somehow I have a car at Christmas or the New Year, and that I am about to pass it alone for my three days off on each occasion, I will definitely just go and explore California at the very least.
Maybe it is time I went to visit that Grand Canyon. Or I won't plan anything, I'll just go and get lost in California. Find a desert somewhere, perhaps reach Nevada and Texas. I should be working on this conference now, I don't feel like it, but I will, as soon as I run out of inspiration here.
This morning I woke up and I thought, another one of these days. Sounded very much like, for the first time, I felt this whole thing was becoming routine. You know, when you reach a point when every day is so much the same that you cannot remember if something happened that Monday, Wednesday or last week. All those days look the same anyway and you are stuck in a time loop, repeating it over and over again.
However this is crazy that I could feel this is routine, so many things everyday are happening, I got my boss' car, yesterday I got my driving license, today I might buy a car, I never work on the same conference each week, and now the Management Consultant has brought a new dimension to all my work.
So I think that, what I really meant to say this morning when I woke up, was, oh no, not another one of these days from hell where I will be rushing around to accomplish huge tasks about setting myself up in L.A. Like buying a car, or finally buying a TV and DVD Recorder, etc. These things take time, require a lot of energy, and I am running out of steam.
I am pretty sure now that the Black guy is reading this. I am not certain how he can figure out all my tricks about hiding this from him, or if he can just see the files that I delete or save at odd places, or if he only knows that I am writing but does not know what.
He asked me how I felt today, and you don't normally ask that kind of question unless you think something might be going wrong. And as far as he can tell, there is nothing that could be going wrong with me.
I'm not worried with the new Management Consultant, I look forward working with him and together perhaps we will get somewhere. He could have thought this could have affected me, however I don't think so. I had heated discussions with the Director this week, but only a sort of passion about work, getting somewhere with this event, we did not have any problem.
Remains only that he might have saw that I was writing (he certainly does watch over us), or does he knows for certain and reads this? Difficult to know.
If he reads what I am writing, I might as well, just in case, let him know something that obviously he could not know about all this. There is nothing to worry about me writing my thoughts down here.
People think all the time and I guess it is unfortunate for bosses to be unable yet to spy on our thoughts. What I think at the moment I write it, and I usually forget all about it five minutes later, and may even think something different not long after.
And despite everything I wrote that could be considered like complaints or worries about this new job, I have to say that what I have written in the past about my other jobs was much darker, and then I was not very nice in my description of who they were and what they were doing.
So at the moment everything here is pretty positive, I know so, compared with my previous jobs. And so, there is no need to worry about my babblings.
22 December 2005
Christmas? What Christmas? I’ll be working!
Of course, my successful track record at work could not last very long. I was called in the office after my lunch break, and my boss really went into it. I had to go to the toilets afterwards, and there and then I was convinced that coming to L.A. was a huge mistake.
This obsession of people to want commitments on apartments, cars, jobs, etc., is the only reason I cannot go back to London right now. I would have, definitely. And I’m still thinking about my earliest way out without it being too costly.
I was at work all week, I did work on the other project I was assigned to, and as I understood it, the new one was only until the director had finished reading my stuff and so we could continue on that first project. Wrong! I was supposed to work overtime every night of the week, to make sure that both projects went somewhere.
And of course, my director backstabbed me again, saying that I had not spent that much time on our project, and I should have had the chance to get the other one somewhere.
So the conversation was quite horrid, in which my boss said that I had already been sick three days the previous week, and this week it had been four days and I still had nothing to show about that damn conference. And that was another $1000 for him down the drain. I now understand that he appears to be counting how much it costs him by the day, if not the hour.
I had to point out that my three sick days at the very least did not cost him anything since I was not going to be paid, as I was told by the woman in HR. He was under the impression that it was another $1000 he lost on me. He did not like to be reminded.
So I proposed to work on that huge research of his, which will take me forever, all over the Christmas holiday. And he said yes, that I had to, as it was not acceptable for him to lose $1000 like that. So now, not only I will be spending Christmas alone, I will also be working like crazy. And that is just the thing that makes it all not worthwhile.