Corporate America

So little authors made it to France from Québec, it was not possible to think I could do it. But I did! Without even being recognized in Québec. And I love it. This is how small minded you become when you are born in a small and insignificant place which means nothing to anyone else on this planet.
I’m afraid to admit, once again, it does mean something to me. I’m dying to be recognized in Québec. They are 8 million of them after all, almost as big as Belgium. I have skip a step, and like many other authors before, I was recognized first in France, and then usually they get recognized even more so in Québec.
It has not happened yet, but I know it will one day. It should, though it might never happened. Maybe I am the odd one, who will never be recognized in his own land. And just about every article about me so far in my home land has been about that, that no one is a prophet in his own country, or something like that anyway.
They do know me though, a lot have heard of me. I am known there, I know that. But it is not enough. Again, I am ambitious, I need to conquer places, I need to be heard without any doubt. I want to become the most important author that ever lived in Québec. That is secretly what I want, and now openly, since I am drunk enough to say so in my blog. Then again, this is in English, none of them will read this, so I feel safe talking like this here.
And the thing is, I have written enough already that I could become that now, or in time, without writing another word. It is great when at 33 you feel like you have done everything, written anything that you feel needed to be written. That whatever else you might do would be just a waste of time and unnecessary.
You can also decide that all that was a waste of time and that everything great and wonderful, your best work, is still ahead of you. It gives you a second chance at life, the hope to get somewhere, a drive to start that great destiny. And I chose that view. That everything great was ahead of me, not in the past.
So I have a lot of work to do. I don’t even know where to start. I need to break up with my past, with everything I have done so far. It is not a continuation, it is starting from nothing. I am in Los Angeles now, in a different medium, everything is to be built. Better get started soon, even if my motivation is at zero right now.
Meeting the right people might change all that. Let’s keep the hope, let’s keep dreaming, let’s see what will happen next. Let’s just go over the end of this year, and start anew.
The New Year should be my most promising year ever, and sure enough, every year in the last ten years has been better than the previous one. And I am at the right place, at the right time, to make that New Year my best ever.
I will get somewhere.
10 January 2006
I feel sick today, I do not feel very motivated. I am also tired. I worked hard on that film script, but now really in the last two days. I think I am just permanently tired and I don't know what to do to get out of my lethargy. Sleep I guess, a luxury I have not known for the past 33 years.
I am also, and I don't care if he is reading this right now, I am also exceedingly tired of feeling observed and watched and spied upon by the Black guy at work. I am tired that when I go downstairs to buy a sandwich, he comes out of the lift. That every times I am not working or that I am talking, here he goes in the background. That every time I go to the kitchen, he comes in the kitchen too. For god's sake!
Just leave me alone! And when I am late, that's it, he is just to not be sitting on my chair to find out at the time I will be arriving. And you just know that all these he records somewhere and reports back to my bosses. I am the only one who is paranoid about him, since no one else were told by Isabella (the San Salvadorian girl), that the Black guy was watching over us. So as soon as the bosses disappear, everyone starts talking to each other, even if the Black guy is there. He must be reporting a lot of misbehavior then... my valley girl is certainly an expert at going around the office and gossiping for hours.
My boss' wife is going back to Canada for a while, meaning Montreal. That's nice, so she still has family there. I wish I could go to Canada myself, or London, even though at the moment working on that film script is the most important thing, even though I know this is a big waste of time and will never go anywhere.
12 January 2006
Desperate for a way out… of conferences
It is fitting that just at the end of last year, a few days ago, I was saying that this New Year would be my best ever. I was of course talking about my potential success in Hollywood. However, the single first idea that seems to have taken shape in my mind on the first day of the year had nothing to do with Hollywood.
What has been on my mind is that I am ready. I am ready to start my own business. And funny enough, it is that I have worked in L.A., and learned about how they do things here, also in my last job where I learned everything about what I will need for my business plan, that I am now ready to start my own conference business.
It is perfect, this is what I need to free myself from any obligations at any time. And in time I will be able to hire someone to do what I am supposed to do in that conference business, and if it becomes necessary for me to work on a film script for a month, it should not be a problem.
It is also after researching a whole conference about venture capital and private equity at work, that I realized that many people out there have more money than they know what to do with it, and are dying to invest in just about any crazy idea out there. And the beauty of it is, that to start a company, you don’t need any money. You just need a good idea and a good business plan.
So I have downloaded the perfect application to help me do just that, and it has been brewing in my mind for quite a while now, even if it has only been a few days. The fact that I have to start working on my first conference at work, and that I would do anything not to start working on that conference, has fueled me into working on my own business plan.
Of course, I think I am as intelligent as my bosses, so why should I be a slave to them, when they made something like a million dollar last year, when I can do the same and have my own slaves?
Obviously I am not taken the easy route. I won’t be doing business or corporate conferences, which would ensure a lot of revenue. I am heading towards the mass market, the paranormal, the new age stuff, psychics and theoretical physics. I could seriously fail in my venture. But being my own boss of a company I care nothing about is not my idea of fun.
I have to contribute to something I believe in, that motivates me. I don’t want to fall asleep in the conference rooms of my own events. I want to be passionate about what it is all about. This has nothing to do with making money, it is about having the freedom I want and make enough to survive whilst still doing what I want to do in life.
I will not be able to charge $3,000 per delegate, like most companies I worked for. And many times, we barely broke even and get back our investment. I will need to charge as little as possible, and still manage to make a profit. I feel that I might then get more people than just the magic 100 delegates we have always been reaching for, to cover our cost. I will need at least 200 delegates to get back my money, but then I am counting on exhibitors and sponsors to make a profit.
I need to start slowly, only Stephen and I will work on this at the beginning so it does not cost me $60,000 per conference. And eventually, as we get more money, I will hire telesales and sponsorship people. I can take care of everything else with Stephen.
And this means that this business will be based in England, though I am dying to host an event in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Even Paris. That will be my playing field, which is quite large actually, considering that I will start with no database whatsoever.
I will need a good marketing budget, £12,000 at least per event. I am even considering not printing anything and not posting any flyers. I wonder if everything can be done electronically, and advertisement with associations’ members and magazines.
To be safe, I need a budget of £40,000 per conference, and I need enough money to do three conferences in the first year. All sensibly related to the same subject, so I don’t have to triple my costs in all areas. Working on one event will be like working on all three at the same time.
One conference, the big one, will take place in London. The second, more ghosts oriented, will be in York, and the third one, I don’t know yet. Maybe Manchester or Brighton. Maybe even in Dublin or Wales. Oh, that’s it, Edinburgh! Yes, Edinburgh in Scotland. And I will arrange for a visit to the catacombs for all my delegates. Like in London I will plan a night out in some haunted place, preferably in the unused tunnels of the Underground. And York, simply a visit of all the haunted place, tours are already in place.
I am so excited about all this, I can barely wait to write the conference programs. And this is a first for me, because in the last ten years, I always did everything else but write my conference agenda. And the thing is, it would have made my life so much easier to forget everything else and concentrate on the program from the start. Human nature, I hate writing conference programs on subjects I care nothing about, when the profit goes to someone else.
So I need £200,000 to start my business. And within a year I need to have gotten back that money with my three conferences. Seems unrealistic, I will have to cut corners. If I don’t provide food, and I should not be expected to do so when charging so little to attend, I might get away with costs of £30,000 per conference.
I could do it all for £120,000, the extra £30,000 would be to pay the rent, cars, our own food and bills. But I want to be on the safe side, so I will need £200,000 just in case. And keep the extra money for the fourth event.
Once again my blog (and writing my books) helps me to figure out important stuff. Sounds like a plan. And now I am dying to write that business plan and go back to England to start working on this project.
It would be reassuring to know that I can count on my credit rate in the U.K., but it is zero. It would also reassure me to know that I could count on family, but either they don’t have the money or they have rated me as some crazy person a long time ago and would certainly not trust any of my decisions.
Even Stephen at the beginning will not even leave his job, I will be all alone to work on this. I feel that somehow I will make it come true and make a nice profit. That’s the difference between being a slave, or your own boss with the need to survive.
I will tell the bank that I need three years to make my first profit, so it will give me some time to get this company somewhere without too much stress. It is well known that it is in the second and third year running for any event to become huge. And that is what I plan to build in time. The most important conferences on any of the subjects that I will take on.
And I don’t care about competition, I have produced too many conferences in my lifetime which had sensibly the same program and speakers than a dozen other conferences in the same town, and yet, we made a good profit. Perhaps we did not have the same delegates, but we certainly had the same sponsors and exhibitors, and those want as many conferences on the subjects they are interested in as can be.
So, in retrospect, my ten years working in conferences might not be wasted after all. I am 33 years old, still quite young. It is very much worth diving into the unknown of having my own business. I could be working another 37 years for others if I don’t do something and if I have to retire at 70, as it seems very likely now. And if my great topics for conferences don’t work very well, I can change instantly to better and more profitable areas, even if I dislike the topics, and then I will insure my future.
The only thing that could stop me now, is the film script I am working on. If somehow that gets sold, it would certainly change my life and I can forget about conferences forever. I am in Hollywood, and I am connected, so it could get sold. But at the moment I cannot wait to find out, I need to plan my way out, I need to build my future.
And I already have the name of my future company: The Marginal Conferences. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? And I will film the conferences and publish books about what will be said at the events. So the ultimate name will be The Marginal Productions, and there will be The Marginal Films and The Marginal Publishing. And eventually, perhaps, who knows, The Marginal Grocery Store and the Marginal Bank, but these will be non-profit organizations to help the planet. One can dream!
If I was a bit more adventurous, my company would be called The Crowned Anarchist Productions Company, and The Crowned Anarchist Conferences. But somehow too many squeamish people would be stopped by that. So I can’t afford it for my business. Oh well, who cares anyway? It might never see the light of day.
21 January 2006
Going back to work on Monday, makes you wish for an earthquake
Now I think I am going to bed. I’m going to try to forget this day. And tomorrow I won’t do anything, so perhaps the day will seem long, and going back to work on Monday will not come so fast. Another week there might be just what I need to tip me over the edge. When the valley girl will open her mouth to shout with her nasal voice, as she always does, I will have to contain myself to prevent me from hitting her in the face. Because I am reaching my limit of annoyance.
The same with the Chinese girl who has the most annoying and loud voice, while thinking the world of herself, and being so condescending about everyone else. She needs to get back on earth. I don’t know what she has to prove, what she has gone through in her life to reach that point, but she seems blind to the fact that she has turned into a monster and I just can’t bear it anymore.
I will also have to work with the Senior Conference Producer, who is becoming more patronizing by the day with me, when I have as much experience as him, and my conference programs have always looked ten times more elaborate than his, and I worked on them alone.
And yet I am helping him to produce that crap event. And not only that, he also has another Chinese girl working for him on this. What the heck has he done on that conference apart from writing two miserable and meaningless pages that I can’t even understand? It makes no sense, and yet it will bring a hundred delegates because… whatever, the subject is of interest to the people who will attend. Even if they will have to go to Utah for this.
Right, I will need at least one full day to prepare myself mentally to go back there for a whole week. Makes you wish that an earthquake, a hurricane or even bird flu will hit Los Angeles next week, to prevent me from doing so… knowing my boss though, it would not stop him from expecting that conference to be finished within two days instead of a month.
22 January 2006
Could my baby have met someone else in London?
Funny, I woke up today and I tried to reach Stephen. Yesterday he was not there, and today it seems that he is somewhere else again. I was wondering if what I thought would never happen, could have actually happened. Could he have met someone in London?
It would only be fair, considering what I did in L.A., even if it has been a disaster. And now I am ready to be faithful again, even if that means no sex for three months. First because I owe it to him, and also because I understand now that I love him more than I could love anyone else. And I know now that we will get back together one day, whilst when I moved here I considered that this might mark the end of our relationship.
For the last two days he has not been home, and he had a few gay people buzzing around him at work, even though he would never say anymore than that to me. Is it possible that he found someone else? He might have gone to these gay bars, talk with a few people, god knows, it is certainly possible.
Well, good luck for the guy who will end up with him: heroine addiction, crazy behaviors, virtually no sex for weeks if not months without first begging, suffering someone with a verbal diarrhea problem, with more debts than England. Have I covered everything? You can only love someone like that after spending ten years with them and found out about all these little trifles along the way.
At the same time, I have to admit, that if he was to tell me that he has met someone, it would in a way force the issue. It would liberate me from the return to England option. I would not go back there to start a new life, I already have one in Los Angeles. I would feel as lost there than here. And suddenly that great huge house in the Malibu or Santa Monica State Park would not appear so crazy after all. My whole life could change forever and I could be determined to succeed here in Hollywood.
You will note that I am no longer in crisis this morning, I keep a great memory of my little trip of yesterday around town, I’m back to normal. Even if I am still a bit freaked out and that I am not certain what I will do today.
I slept 12 hours. Again I had those weird dreams about my father and my sister. It’s been three days in a row now, never mind the phone bill, I think I will call them both today, something might be going on over there in the North of Canada, and of course if I don’t call, I’ll be the last one to know in six months time when they decide to call.
23 January 2006
I can be sacked at one minute’s notice
George is finally gone, just like that. He is supposed to come back to help a bit with sales, but he is no longer working here. I have to say, it is one thing to have contracts that can be terminated at one minute’s notice, it is another to leave someone in the hole like that, especially when they have a family and children.
This impossibility to plan your life ahead at least one month in advance, is quite disturbing. Moreover that the guy has been working here for at least 6 years. Unbelievable that after all that, he had no security whatsoever, because apparently he was working on a contract basis.
Well, I have to say that I don't find that very inspiring and I should be prepared any day to be told that I have been sacked. And at that point I am not certain what I will be able to do to pay my apartment and plane ticket, I would just hope that it would come at a time right after I get paid or close to being paid. I have absolutely no motivation today after what I just heard. I feel I will be sacked as well any day now.
However I think that in his case there was more than what we have been told, obviously. I won't be the one to hear about the gossip, that's for sure. I guess the bosses did not know after all that he was developing his business plan for the last two years about that pyramidal scheme of insurance selling. I guess they did not see clearly through his game, they would have realized that he would never have made it in that scheme. Never made any money and probably would never have made the jump.
According to my valley girl, this had nothing to do with him being laid off. And apparently he will get unemployment insurance. And apparently any employer can sack any of their employees at 5 minutes notice without giving real good explanation or justifying it. The employees can do the same.
So I guess that if as an employer you prefer to make sure you can get rid of your employees fast, and don't really care if you lose any of your best employees fast as well, than America is the perfect place for business. I presume it is quite convenient for employers, and I should have known that there would be some sort of capitalist way of doing business here which would be more logical than what Canadians and Europeans have been used to in their cozy little safe jobs.
In those countries, employers often have a damn hard time getting rid of people they don't want or who are useless. And that is why they play this hard game with the personal department where they eventually find a way to make your life so impossible, that you will either leave or they will eventually be able to get rid of you on a stupidity or something.
In a way the American system, even if it leaves you in the shit and does not give you the time to find another job, it certainly spare you the psychological nightmare of going through the long process of being sacked via 3 warnings and multiple hard meetings, etc.
America does not really care about its people, that much is obvious. They would not provide adequate health system, social securities, any sort of security at work or in life, and yet it does collect a high percentage of taxes, and employees still have to pay for their health and dental insurance every month, quite a lot of money actually.
America only cares for what can make money, to make it more successful, the key successful point to be profitable as a whole. They have pushed the ideals of capitalism to the limits, where only companies now have any rights and liberties. And that way they produced a very successful and rich country, with more rich people than anywhere else in the world. They also created a comfortable middle class which profits from all this richness, but are most likely to be slaves to their jobs and living near the depression.
And finally, America has left a lot of people living in such poverty, that there are probably as many people in this country who are hungry right now than what you would find in Africa.
I think it is interesting from the point of view of history to have at least one country that has pushed the idea of capitalism to its limits, and I would not have seen this for myself if I had not come here in the first place. Let's see where all of this will lead them to. Who knows who is right in the end?
Phew, now I can I speak. Before I was at work, so I had to sound nice just in case the Black guy could read. I am so disgusted that he was sacked like that, such a nice guy. I hope he was ready for his new job in that pyramidal thing, even if it is temporary. Hopefully he will make some money there. If he is that successful, perhaps they will give him great potential contracts. Of course, this is if they still believe in his potential, considering that he was sacked.
Bof, I don’t feel like talking anymore. Stephen just called. I was worried for no reason this weekend. He still loves me very much and he is still faithful. And I believe him, at least that’s one person who does not lie to me, so I hope. One person I can actually trust for a change.
Who should have been sacked, it is those two girls, the valley girl and the Chinese one. Who have cost the jobs of so many before through their own incompetence. They successfully blamed their inadequacy on the ones under them. I had quite a conversation with Isabella about them today, she can’t stand them. They sound nice, but they stab her all the time, especially the valley girl.
There is always a bitch in any conference office that will always keep track of everyone’s movement, and will love to make a big deal of if you disappear for five minutes when you were not supposed to. The valley girl is like that. If you go to lunch for too long, she will find a reason to be looking for you and will go and ask everyone in the company where you are and why you are not at your desk, and that you were gone for two hours, etc. I have met them all my life, there is always one like that. And of course, when they are late, no problems, no one is there to do the same to them.
And my valley girl is always late at the moment, she seems to have problems getting to work. And every time, being so perfect, she calls the office to let them know she will be one hour late. And every time we receive an email saying she will be late. I must have 30 of them by now, so she should worry about her own schedule instead of trying to denounce everyone else for the little freedom they try to take back from the company.