Corporate America

This is the decisive argument that convinced me that this job is not for me, that I needed a way out as quickly as possible. I am not going to mortgage my life for any company or for anyone.
If he asks me to work over Christmas, then that’s it, it’s over. Simple. And I won’t regret letting them down eventually when I will announce to them that I am leaving, despite all that they supposedly did for me.
There are mind games, management tricks, and there is crossing the line. He came back from wherever he was for the last few days, and he called everyone in his office one by one to destroy them psychologically one day before Christmas.
Everyone was in hyper drive today, everyone was freaked out. My valley girl did not go to lunch, and she spent at least 30 minutes with the Chinese girl in the kitchen repeating how unfair the boss was. She spent the day calling over 100 companies and sending them e-mails to boost them to act. And she was not happy about it.
This morning it was the sales guy, he too got a bollocking by the boss and came out quite shaken, and also had to speak with the valley girl to calm down. And there is the environmentalist guy, who spent his day calling people, when I am pretty certain that, one day before his holiday started, was the last thing he wanted to do. Even his comments over the phone were telling that he called these people very reluctantly.
I could not tell anyone about my nightmare, but they could tell by my sudden seriousness. I was not speaking anymore, I left exactly at 5 pm on the dot, I did not say goodbye.
The cool Spanish guy tried to get something out of me, he even wanted me to write it in French since he can understand that language. I could not tell him anything, my boss is watching me every second of the day, he can see me all the time. Speaking with colleagues is just not allowed, or would be too obvious.
I’m afraid to admit, despite all the jobs from hell that I ever had, these kinds of meetings are so difficult to bear, and it throws you into such a state afterwards...
And though the direct consequence is that I will be working the whole holiday, to be honest, the direct consequence in my mind is that I’ll find my way out. It could have been instant without that stupid rent I have to pay until March. And it destroys something valuable in the mind of the employees, loyalty.
I cannot be loyal to someone who holds a meeting to tell me that kind of thing. Because for me it is like turning on a switch in my brain and it reaches a point of no return. It is telling me basically that it was a mistake to hire me, and if this is so, let’s just go our own ways. I don’t need that crap, I don’t need that job, I don’t need you. If you don’t need me, then I won’t stay, why should I?
Of course for him it is just a trick, or is it? When I said that he crossed the magic line, it means in my mind that perhaps in my case it was going beyond the mind games. It was clearly telling me that he was just paying me too much for what I was capable of doing during normal office hours. He is result driven, yes, but results take time, especially when you are juggling with three different projects at once.
This said, yes, I have wasted my time this week. Not a lot, but a bit. I admit that. I was not motivated by the sheer size of that research I need to do, which will require on my part something like a full week of work, including overtime. I also cannot find any information, I can only find bits and pieces here and there, and that is why the size of the research has no boundary, it is infinite.
So I did deviate from my hard work, I thought working on the previous project would save me. There is no such thing as an excuse. I was caught, I was reprimanded quite harshly, now I need to work over Christmas and I better bring him results soon.
The only results I could bring him now, is by calling the industry, which means days of transcribing all that from tapes to files. And of course, everyone else is on holiday, I cannot reach anyone now, or even next week (I will be working four days between Christmas and the New Year).
So I am already destined to fail, I will not bring him any result before the New Year. I might as well give up, since obviously this will not be a good excuse, since there is no valid excuse for anything in that job.
I’d rather be dead than continue in that job full time with overtime. I’d rather go back to London and resume my previous job, now that I have proven how great I was at it, and they have the proof now. They can also recognize good work, for a change.
Though I have to say, at the end of the meeting, he said something positive. He admitted, and something tells me that it was difficult for him to do so, that the director had also admitted that he was impressed with my work on the other project. Must have been difficult for the director to tell my boss such a thing. But he did, and so there is hope for him, he is not completely out to get me.
So there could be better days on the horizon, days where I will not be called in the office for a bollocking. However these better days can only last for as long as I work 80 hours a week.
This is something I am not prepared to do, unless it was for something that I actually enjoy doing, like writing film scripts. So we will have to part company very soon. And I will now actively look for my way out. Obviously it means going back to London.
I just need the time to meet some people here. Make some contact, people I can work with in films. I have not done anything so far to meet anyone. This has to change. I need to work all the holiday in trying to meet them. But how could I, now that I will have to work on that massive research? I can’t!
I’m desperate, and this means that I’m ready for desperate measures. Somehow I need to make this work. Somehow I need to make this whole thing worthwhile. I cannot go back to London empty handed. It is not acceptable from the point of view of my destiny.
And if all I have to show at the end of this, is that stupid blog, then it is not enough. It will be classified as my worst failure ever, my missed opportunity of a lifetime. I could not live with that.
Something has got to happen, and somehow I need to be the instigator of these events. I can no longer wait until it falls from the sky, there is a sense of urgency. I will have to take risks, I will have to act, I will have to do something, anything, to make things happen.
Which means, I’m afraid to say, that we are the ones who make the life we have. There is no destiny all planned out that we are following. We build our own destiny. And I sure will build mine.
That research of is will be on the back burner over the Christmas holiday. I have some more pressing duties awaiting me. And it starts tonight. And I don’t care what time I’ll go to bed, I won’t sleep if necessary. Just like in the old days.
Maybe I became too comfortable as I grew older in these jobs that I am not destined to do. It is easy to forget that we have dreams to pursue and to actually spend the time pursuing them. Let it be a lesson to me, I have been reminded that everyday counts, that every hour of work is important and could lead somewhere.
There is no rest for the driven people, sleeping or watching TV is just no acceptable, they have to work all the possible hours of the day in trying to reach their goals. And I will reach my goals, I have not gone that far to get comfy in a stupid conference job. I’m so close to it all, it is now up to me to get somewhere real fast.
I still don’t have a car, I can’t get the loan I have learned today. I still don’t have a TV and DVD recorder. Who cares? I don’t need these things, those ties to this job I don’t want.
I’m finished spending my money or committing myself to spending even more every month. I have goals, and I need to reach them by any means at my disposal. I have been reminded, there is no going back.
24 December 2005
Being depressed on Christmas day…
I feel great today! I just opened a beer, I just finished watching (again) the story of that 33 year old spinster (like me) called Bridget Jones (The Edge of Reason). And now I somehow feel electrified.
I feel like one of those nights when I would drink myself to death and write all night long. And often, writing the best things I ever did. I’m not in the mood today to write, except this blog, however…
Actually, the buzz of that film is now over, and my second beer seems to be killing me instead.
Oh God I’m depressed… I need a lot of Sherlock Holmes now with Jeremy Brett to get back to some sort of normality.
For one full minute there I thought I would actually be happy on Christmas day, well Christmas Eve anyway. I am alone today, so far, by choice. A friend wanted to see me, I don’t think so. I don’t feel like it.
And my baby in London feels the same. He told me that since I left, he has become so depressed, he is not doing anything anymore. The cats are left to themselves, the fish are dying, the letters and bills remain unopened on the counter and he does not eat anymore. God it hurts to hear this.
My baby is a hard worker, and every one of his bosses in time learned to appreciate it. However there is a big turn over of staff where he works and he never has the same boss for more than six months. And every time he has to start all over again. They hate him at the beginning and then he has to gain their trust by working hard.
This time he has a new Manager and he just won’t see it. He is trying very hard to get my baby fired or to leave, and unfortunately for him, upper management said no, that Stephen was the best employee they ever had. The Manager is not happy about this and now he makes the life of my baby a misery.
So I guess it is universal, Corporate America gone wild has now spread everywhere, like a disease. And whole nations live unhappily and stressed out to the point that pharmaceutical companies never had it better.
I told Stephen of my episode at work this week, and how, if I could have, I would have been back in London the very next day. And I told him that it was impossible for me to work for that company even for a year. That I am basically giving myself three more months before returning to London, the time it will take for my contract for my rent to be over.
By then, if nothing happened on the writing side, if I am still not working in films or at least met interesting people, then I’m leaving. I also told him that the idea of him coming here to work for that company, and his visa they are trying to get him, might be something we should forget about.
I would not want both of us working for a bastard. We are still going through getting the visa, it will take time, but let’s say that now we are observing the events and we have made no decision. So either he comes over here eventually or I’m going back. Three months is the limit for us to be reunited.
All this cheered him up. He was complaining that he was alone for Christmas, like me, and that many people invited him over, but that he had lost the will to live and could not do anything. So he is simply depressed while everything crumbles around him. I almost cried, again.
I was reading today some stuff I wrote while in my last job, how I was unhappy there and how I wrote reports that were completely wrong, how I wanted a way out and that anything would have done the trick. And then I realized that this blog is almost identical to the book I wrote about it in French last year.
Do you want more proof that I am stuck in a time loop and that I just cannot get out of it? Whether it is in London or Los Angeles, it is the same thing, and I am writing the same thing about it. What is it that I need to learn that I am not? Where is it that I am failing to understand, to change all that and break out of that loop?
All I got out of this are a few books that are just the most depressing things ever, and as a consequence probably will never be published. So I’ve got nothing out of these nightmares. Maybe there is just no meaning to all of this. I am starting to believe that I do not have any destiny at all and there is no destination that I am trying to reach at the end of the road.
I’m like on a small boat in the middle of the ocean with rows, fighting to get somewhere when I should have realized a long time ago that even with rows, I could never reach the shore. So I am going over these huge waves for nothing, because in the end I will most certainly die and all my efforts simply could never have helped me escape this fate.
27 December 2005
A sign of genius lurking ahead…
I was not expecting both my bosses to be at work today. I would have thought, after such a fright, that it was to make sure we would work while they were not there between Christmas and the New Year. They are dedicated, I’ll give them that.
I had a miserable Christmas because of our conversation just before Christmas. When I walked out of the apartment, finally, to see if I could buy a TV and a DVD recorder on Boxing Day, I could barely breath because of the stress. I was worried because I still had not done any research by then.
I bought a TV and a DVD Recorder with a hard drive, and I felt so guilty for spending $500, I almost brought them back to Circuit City. I saved $100 altogether, that’s why I bought them. I now realize that I probably paid the normal price. Well, I bought an opened box Panasonic DVD recorder, so right there I saved $80, and so far it works fine. I don’t regret buying it now, not sure if it will work in the UK when I go back, but it is leaving with me.
Unfortunately, the damn machine, which states that it can play every sort of DVD, cannot play any of the thousand I brought with me from the UK. I’m not happy about that, I will have to buy another DVD player somehow at some point.
At the moment I can still watch them on my computers, so it is not so bad. I did not think though that I would still be watching my computer instead of the TV and DVD after spending so much money… not sure when I will get around to using them, since I have no time to myself.
So, last night at 9 pm I finally decided to get on with the research for my conference. I worked 4 hours on it. And I thought, dear me, my boss will again bite my head off. However he waited until 5 pm today, the time I was supposed to leave, to ask me what was happening with my research. Typical, so I left 30 minutes later than I was supposed to, and I certainly would have left on time, as I can’t stand the office at the moment.
When he asked me a feedback, I said quite rudely: give me a minute. I regret now, but it had the advantage to set the tone of the meeting. He was nice, I think he gathered that I was about to explode at anything he might have said. Because I sincerely think he exaggerated. And the first thing I told him was that I worked all over the Christmas period. And sure enough, in my day of work and 4 hours yesterday, I was able to bring him something quite tangible.
He is convinced I worked hard all weekend. Thank god! I have been lucky, I tell you. It is almost a miracle. The thing is, he never actually saw everything I had already done, he just assumed I had not done anything. So it looked quite impressive today, when I gave him my usual pile of sheets, 1000 at least.
And now he tells me we will not be doing this conference. Someone told him that it would be a flop. Great! I can stop doing that damn research. And get back to the previous project, or the one before, or the new one he already told me everything about today in his office.
Something about semi-conductors, and billions of dollars of investment needed from capital investors, and private equity. He still explains all that bollocks to me as if I did not understand anything. I did my research, I know a lot about it now, I understand what he is talking about. Gosh, I even know what Shale Gas is, I learned that today, so I would not look like a fool ever again before him.
So there is hope for me. With a minimum of effort, I managed to convince him that I worked hard, and he thanked me for it. So now he thinks he did not waste a thousand dollars on me last week.
But I am train wrecked now, and I feel very bad. A truck passed on the street, the whole building was shaking, and that was it, I was frozen on my seat, completely freaked out. I don’t know exactly what it is that I was expecting, something terrible I supposed. And that would have been nice at any rate.
And my valley girl, lucky her, got a temp today who was supposed to come back the next two days, but she assessed that he did not know Excel and was not very good, so she called the agency and told them to send another one tomorrow.
When she told him at the end of the day, he was so gutted, he exploded in the office, unfortunately in front of my boss’ wife. He said he knew Excel and that he was not happy. I was again frozen on my seat, panicked at any sort of crisis going on around me. God, they turned me into such a wimp.
If that had happened to me, if I had freaked out a temp like she did, tonight I would be drinking beers to forget all about it, because it would have shaken me a lot. For her, as she stated many times afterwards, it was just another day in the office.
I know tonight she will be freaking out about it, I know her, she’s like me. She just hides it very well. Something I haven’t learnt to do just yet, and not sure if I will ever learn.
Oh well, just another day in the office, I guess.
I’m very pleased with my cheap TV, a Polaroid actually. I did not even know Polaroid decided to make TVs at some point. The image is certainly terrible, TVs here have twice less pixels than in Europe. Even my portable VAIO computer has got a better definition than that. I can’t believe that Americans and Canadians have put up with such a bad standard for so long.
They have just discovered HDTV, supposed to finally correct that. The only problem is that the high definition TV must cost a fortune, and only a few channels are HDTV, which I think I don’t get here.
Whatever. Morrissey still looks good on my Polaroid bad definition TV, go figure, that DVD works on my DVD recorder. The first one in 10 that I have tried. Perhaps because originally that DVD was an import from the US, I don’t know.
I feel guilty again, I should be working on my conference. I am already too drunk, and I don’t care anymore. I feel like writing. But of course, I feel like writing something inspired, not that blog.
However I would have needed to start a new book in order to write something inspired tonight. Perhaps I should start writing a new fictional book tonight.
Oh dear, now the big questions. What book? Which style? What about? In French or in English? That is not a bad idea, perhaps I should start writing a new book tonight. You know, this is how it always starts. One night you are inspired, and that’s it, you write a few pages, and you continue day after day. I really should. What about then? What style? Which language? Can I answer these questions and start it?
It would have to be completely wild. Out of this world. Something new that has never been done before. And I am very good at doing just that, and all those books are not the ones published right now. But who cares?
I should only write for myself, especially from now on. Inspired literature cannot be ordered, it does not work like that. It comes from the heart, from deep down, on a subconscious level. And listening to The Smiths tonight certainly helps a great deal. I might just start a new book tonight.
If my life was empty, and if I was still living in Québec City, I might dream up a story about a kid moving from Québec to Los Angeles, and imagine a great destiny. However, I am already living that dream, and that dream is a nightmare.
I will have to think something much better, much higher. Esoteric then, mystic. Out of this world. Cos there’s nothing real or worth it outside of L.A. anyway. So, what can be better?
I just opened my seventh beer, I’m ready to listen to Duran Duran now, The Chauffeur. I better start writing before I lose all inspiration and fall asleep.
Not another one of those complicated books that no one understands? I hear my fans say. True, none of my fans appear to have appreciated my most obscure books. I guess I never met the right fans. The right ones would probably never contact me in the first place, I guess. They just get inspired and create on their own, in their corner.
And I know I have inspired great people, the greatest in the French world, both in literature and films. I have all the proof I need and I can prove it. They don’t hide their inspiration very well. Perhaps they never intended to. They ignore my messages all the same, probably from fears of being sued, stupid of them… I feel so honored, I would never sue in a million years.
It’s not that I feel like being pretentious tonight, not here, not now. Here I am honest with myself. I did inspire great people, and it makes me feel good inside, you know. That I could have reached out so much, even underground, on an individual basis.
It is one good thing, for having sacrificed everything for my literature, that everyone around me thought was the biggest waste of time ever. I even agree with them, I just could not help it. I have to write, not for a living, but to survive. To also understand myself, but mostly to survive.
It is my most basic need, to write. I can go without eating or drinking for days, as long as I can write. I can be in prison and suffer the worst fate, as long as I can write, I will be all right.
And this statement alone, does not make any sense, I know. And perhaps alcohol and cigarettes would be a plus, and music, in my venture. But I can do without.
If I was given carte blanche to do my own indie films, my god, it would be weird. It would be incomprehensible. But I think it would be art. And we all know that art can only exist as long as it is independent. And that’s ok, I’ll be independent soon enough, as soon as I succeed in the mainstream. If ever I succeed in the mainstream, that’s the problem.
I am already very much underground, I’m afraid to say, to admit. I’m like The Smiths and Depeche Mode, and yet, they do reach out and have the most loyal fans ever, who makes it all worthwhile. I may have reached that point myself, with my pseudo-fans. I’m just not sure. And I just don’t care to be honest.
Fans are not on my mind when I write. How quickly we forget that they do exist and have needs and demands. I’m ignoring them completely. Otherwise, I could not do anything, or I would write something completely against my nature.
You are supposed to write what you can, what you are supposed to write. You cannot let yourself being dictated by a fan, a publisher or a producer. You do what you feel is right, and that’s it. Never mind if it means the end of your career or those relationships.
That is how I can only see my art. And I tell you, I never referred to it as art until tonight. I see it more as my own existential crisis, my answer to life and this universe we cannot understand. Philosophy perhaps, something beyond all that crap, anyway.
I don’t mind sacrificing everything, even my existence. That is what I have been good at, all my life. Sacrificing everything for a land which appeared greener. And never mind that no land has ever been greener, I still got all my inspiration from it.
I am still writing, I am still producing something, creating. That is a result. I cannot deny it, hell brings inspiration. Happiness might just shut me up. Though I’m not sure, I never found happiness. Not sure if it is possible to find happiness.
The pursuit of happiness, good title… maybe I’m ready to write that new book after all. Other nice title: Something impossible, like finding happiness. But what if I were to say instead: I have finally found happiness? And write accordingly? I would lie, but maybe it would be a good start. God knows.
I’m brain dead, that’s what I have been, since I have arrived in Los Angeles. I cannot write anything, I could not even think of starting a new book. Let alone a film script which probably would not go anywhere and would be a waste of time. You don’t get inspired here, you get depressed.