Corporate
Hell on Earth
14 October 2005
News of Departure for
You may know me for my published
books and my work in television and films, not under the name Mycroft Holmes of
course, but this is the only way I can actually write in English about my
experiences in
Up until now I mostly wrote in
French and thankfully none of you appear to understand French. However writing
in French has never got me anywhere despite my many published books, since
there is no market. So I had to find a new name, as it is anyway the fashion
for any aspiring actor in
A bit more than just aspiring,
since I have written many books and already worked on several series and films.
It does not matter in
So I will land in
Knowing my real name would not
change anything to you, I never got credited for anything I worked on, though I
was paid on all produced projects. I guess it compensates for all those long
nights I spent writing when I had to go to work the next day. I have no doubt
that if you are good at searching on the Internet, I will probably leave you
enough clues as to who I am, and probably you would find me out easy. What is
important, really, is that no one searching on my name or the projects I worked
on should find this blog, it is the only way for me to be truly honest and have
all the freedom to say what I want, what needs to be said.
I don’t intend to be that negative,
unless it turns out that I will go through hell whilst in
If I had to continue being so
unhappy and miserable, there is really no point in continuing this boring
existence. If nothing great happens to me in
So I have high expectations for my
moving into
I have learnt that much, that
wasting time is very easy. Any project could gobble up six months of your life
and you would have nothing to show for it afterwards since even the rights are
not yours. This is over, never again. And to arrive in
God, two more weeks, and I will
land in
Without too much expectation, you
cannot be too disappointed. And at the very least I will have this blog at the
end of it. If it is just to complain that nothing happens, I will eventually
just delete it and never give it another thought. So let’s see what destiny has
in store for me. Let’s move to
Blog – 20 October 2005
Changing my future, hoping for
success, one week before departure to LA
I’m in such a mess, and it is all
psychological. Counting the minutes before my departure for
Perhaps it is time that I truly
break with my past, and leave everything behind but the essential. I have lost
so many things in my life, because of these airplane regulations which oblige
you to have only two suitcases every time you move country. I know people who
will ship dozens of crates, even their cars, must cost a fortune, I can’t
afford it.
Every time I need to move out of a
country, everyone and everything turn into a nightmare, a place which in the
end, I am happy to leave behind. It happened in
At work we enter agreements
nightmare which could lead to court. Two more agreements need to be negotiated,
another thing which could take a few months of torment. I could not even do
anything about my last conference which was supposed to be finished by the time
I leave. As it stands, I have not even started. The new cat we bought shits and
pees everywhere every day, it seems the five other cats decided that it was now
permissible to do the same, so we live in a shit hole. I can’t wait to get out.
I have no more time to think about
philosophy of life, and anyway, I was going to try to avoid talking about this
here. Why? Well, people think I am already crazy, no need to confirm it so they
can act upon it and put me into a mental institution.
I was recently contacted by someone
who said he could change the future just by concentrating a lot and convincing
himself that what he wished for would definitely happen. I came to the
realization five years ago that I could do the same, and out of it I got
contracts to work in cinema and television when there was nothing really to
suggest I was ever going to end up working for that medium.
At the time I had written only one
film script, it was 10 years ago and it was an adaptation from a book. I had
forgotten about trying to change my future for the better, but I tried again
two months ago and my life went wild. My conferences which were flops suddenly
became successful overnight. My partner who was in deep trouble and was going
to lose his driving license and his job won in court. And I am now leaving for
However I am not certain if I was
ready for such a roller coaster, like, on the very next day that I would try to
change my destiny. I had more in mind something simple, just to make me happy,
and now it is happening on a massive scale. I am only talking about this now
because I don’t want to forget that once in
I’m not afraid of hard work, even
though I feel like a zombie right now, but hard work is not enough in
I know success is not an ingredient
for happiness. In fact, people who are driven as much as me, who dedicate their
life to succeeding, and spend all their energy, sacrificing everything and
everyone along the way to become famous, are the world’s worst sufferers. Because
these things take time, it is heartless, and you are left with a feeling of
having missed something quite huge once you succeed, or even worse, once you
accept that you will never succeed.
As a consequence, most people who
succeed on a massive scale are not happy and are unable to enjoy their success.
So they either need to succeed again and again, or somehow they realize that
and work now at becoming happier people, even if sometimes it means getting
away from it all.
This is not exactly encouraging to
be thinking about this stuff right now, I should get back to my big idea that I
will rock the boat in a spectacular way once I land in
That’s what logic does to you, it
makes you say stupid things that one day will prove without a doubt that you’re
worth nothing, that you were just crazy to begin with.
Blog - 22 October 2005
Surviving management and change at
work, how to live an exciting destiny good enough to write a book
It is Saturday, exactly one week
before I leave
However, I was truly disappointed
with
Unless I was truly good at it,
which I believe after one year in
So I have to wish that within weeks
I can reach that same point with my new employers, and if they are as disorganized
as a company as I was led to believe in the interview, I may actually be the
expert who will save their company. I have ten years of experience on the
subject, surely I have something of interest to communicate to them?
The only remaining problem is that
change takes a long time. Nothing can happen overnight. Dissatisfied employees
will definitely leave, even though they might have been the best. They are
always the first ones to go, they know they can succeed elsewhere without
having to complicate their lives with new processes which suddenly make their
life a living hell, by preventing them from doing what they are good at,
producing, selling.
It has been one year and a half in
my last job since change has started, you could easily say that nothing has
really changed yet. Another frightening thought. How long does it take for
results to finally appear? Well, it took me a year to achieve my goal. Now I
need to put this knowledge to good work, whatever it is that I am going to do,
we need to see tangible results within six months. Who am I kidding? It cannot
take less than a year.
The worst part is that I don’t even
know yet what it is that I have been hired for. At the beginning I was told
they were looking for a simple Conference Producer. Their website was claiming
to be looking for a Conference Manager, and my immigration papers are stating
that I was hired as a Management Consultant to turn around their business and
open new offices worldwide. Was it just for immigration purposes, or am I to
become this management figure finally controlling a few bugs that I will be at a
liberty to crush whenever I feel like it?
I’m joking. My idea of management
is moral and ethical, much more than everything I have observed up until now in
my short career. I am mister new management, compassionate but at the same time
looking for results. A mix of what a male Director or Manager could be,
compared with a Female Director or Manager. Being gay, I have the best of both
worlds. I am balanced. And I won’t freak out anyone, either the monsters in higher
management or the bugs under me.
I could not even see myself taking
out the “kill-fly” to wipe one of these bugs. Perhaps I am too much like women,
I should keep perspective here, I might need to squash a few of these bugs if
it becomes necessary, if I feel I am justified, if I feel there is no other
solution in sight. I would hate it, but I am prepared and ready for it.
Thankfully nobody can bullshit me
in this business, I have done everything for so many years, every single
position, I will know if someone is playing with me and I will lose all
respect. I will have to crush a few bugs, hopefully I will always act in a
moral and ethical manner, and for the right reasons.
Personal clash of personalities is
not good enough, no pettiness can get between me and the bugs. Like I hope
management won’t act like that with the bug that I will be in their eyes. Otherwise
this is when and where I will be thinking seriously about the mistake it was to
move to L.A. Oh God, I hope for so much, for so much which I have never
witnessed in my short life, a job that I would actually love, with people I can
actually bear!
Incidentally, today I have met both
my old bosses from one of my previous jobs. We met at the Pets at Home center,
so they could give me the last reference letter I needed for immigration. God
she was lovely, she looked great. A real American woman living some sort of
great destiny, but stuck with a stubborn British husband who started a
conference company in
He looked frozen, could not say a
thing apart from that they were now planning conferences in
Luckily the ones who came after me were
all incompetent, which is why today they appreciate me, and were kind enough to
write that great reference letter for me. They’re leaving for
I believe I talked lengthily about
suicide, I had problems with the employees. The very next day I stayed home and
almost told them I was resigning. I came back the day after and we found a
solution. The solution was simple, I was their boss, of the two bugs in sales
who were the problem. I tell them what to do, they do not tell me what to do.
It was an arrangement I could live with. And of all of us, they came out as the
bad guys, they felt bad about it, and I never had any trouble with them
afterwards.
That I was ready to sacrifice my
career over this at the time, is probably something they never thought I would
do. It caused maximum impact, they were reprimanded and probably threatened
with their jobs. At the time I thought it was not very ethical for me to do
this, to bring it all to such an extreme, but I have lived enough in this life
that I am not going to put up with any kind of shit, especially for a job. And
they quickly got back in line. Great management skills! This is exactly what I
need to avoid in
When I left my two previous bosses
today, I told them that we never know what the future is preparing for us. And
the man said: exactly. We were on the same wavelength, he thought and I
thought, that one day I will be working for them again. I would love that, I
would love to open their Chinese office, or whatever else they may have in
their plans. But it is over now, it is old history. I need to move on.
However her son lives in
Bush will become my President,
something I never ever considered before. While this madman was actually
deciding for people I had nothing to do with, it was ok, whatever the power he
has over this world. But now it is an entirely different story. This crazy man,
religious, fanatic, openly anti-gay, who believes he answers to God, and that
God speaks to him, will actually have quite a strong influence over my life. Especially
that
So far so good, my partner can come
to the
My actual Manager, who I called
Master Bitch of
I have fears that perhaps this will
not turn out to be true. I fear rejection, like what I have experienced in
They are so insignificant compared
to what I hope to achieve, and I would never act like they do no matter the
degree of success or failure I achieve. A small part of me wish to succeed so I
can go back to that fucking pub called Richmond’s Arms, and tell them all to get
lost!
It is more important to me than I
would like to admit. They certainly played a big part in my decision to move
out to
And I need all the motivation
possible, since there is not much else left to motivate me in succeeding in
What are my motivations? What is it
that I wish to accomplish in
Surely there must be other ways for
me to achieve that freedom? I have been searching all my life, and I have
assessed that perhaps succeeding as a writer must be my best shot at reaching
freedom. Which is certainly odd, since the probabilities that I will ever
succeed as a writer are so slim. I might as well wish to win a million at the
lottery. However, this is all that I have left. I will live out of writing and
I will earn enough to do whatever I want whenever I want. Do my job anywhere on
this planet at any given time.
And then I hope to be happy. Giving
me the chance to study and write more important stuff, like philosophy and
theoretical physics. I guess that is my ultimate goal. My only goal. Anything
could give me that chance, I only need money falling from the sky.
Why do I feel that my only way out
is to succeed in
My life has to be more exciting and
interesting than the average block, if I wish to stand any chance to be read. I
would not be talking like this if I had not written already more than 20 books,
you can rest assured. I stand some chance to be remembered, at least in Québec,
where I come from. Though they are barely aware of my last two published books,
since distribution has mainly been in
I feel my destiny so far has been
distinctly different from any of my colleague writers. And I feel I am about to
experience the ultimate life in
So my success in
As long as I live through enough
bullshit to write about it, either in French or in English, nothing else is
important. It can all come from the famous conference world as far as I am
concerned, whether it is in
Oh dear, I have now mentioned the
word
The fact is, I have no idea where I
will end up doing in my life. Is there a reason for me being shipped to
I have not work at all on my
scripts in the last year, not even one line. My websites were not updated at
all, even if I wrote two books in that year. Let’s see, what can one surmise
from this? Well, assuming that none of the two books I have written will ever
go anywhere, which is what is most probable since I won’t bother sending them
to publishers from a lack of time and money, and they are not in the field or
language of what my actual publishers publish, then there must be a more
logical reason to all this.
Working in conferences is a mean
for me to achieve some sort of ultimate goal, which must be accomplished in
How could I not now believe in
destiny? In some sort of higher power, be it God or deterministic laws of
nature, leading me somewhere? Could it not be related to the film industry?
Could it be something entirely different? Am I to believe that I am sent to
L.A. to write about how I wish to succeed and then fail spectacularly, just to
write about it and discourage a whole generation of people to not abandon
everything, sacrificing their life in the process, in order to avoid the only
town in this world which could make their dreams come true, but would
ultimately destroy them completely to the point where only suicide remains? Better
that than going back home, wherever home is.
No, I feel I am destined to something
much larger, with a much higher purpose. And I am reading right now what it is
that would qualify as what it is that I wish to achieve with my life. It is
called Rama. Four books written by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee (but keep
the first one for the end, since it is the least interesting books of the four).
If I can write something like that before I die, then I feel all will be ok.
However, if I do not feel I can reach out like Arthur C. Clarke can, then it
will be a failure.
I do not write for a few thousand
people, not even a million. I want to write for the masses. I want to have a
deep impact. I want to change the ways of a whole nation, of a whole country, how
they think. I have no small ambition, otherwise I am ready to die right here
right now. It does not matter whether I live or die.
However, in the 20 books or so I have
written until now, I do not feel I have reached my goals. I have not yet
written my Rama series. And would it be sufficient anyway? Rama is not
considered like the best work of Arthur C. Clarke, we barely hear about it. But
God, there could not be a better series in science fiction to help you
understand what this world is all about. What we, as human beings, are actually
doing which will definitely lead to our ultimate destruction. Reading that
series, I am ashamed of being a human being, I really am. I feel powerless to
change this world. Do I have to do something to change it for the better,
changing people’s mind, activating something in their brain? What a goal.
Perhaps I should be killed now,
before I have to think too much about how I will ever achieve that impossible
task. I wouldn’t mind, death has always been welcomed in my lair. Ultimate
freedom, liberty, even if it is just about turning the machine off. I would
love it more than you will ever understand.
What possesses me to continue and have
these weird passions about achieving something grand and universal, is beyond
my comprehension. Perhaps we all have a role to play in this existence, in the
destiny of human kind. And even though it is not simple, we still have to play
the game. And I will play it, to a certain extent, but it better happen soon or
else I will lose patience.
I am tired, I am fed up, I better
get myself somewhere quickly, I better see that big scheme in action, which I
suspect, or else I will lose faith, abandon everything and never look back. Or
can I? Perhaps not. Must be in my genes, in my nature.
There is no escape, and that is
what this higher power or these laws of nature know, that I don’t. I don’t even
have the freedom to kill myself or retire somewhere alone in a forest. I just
can’t. I am moving to
All that I have said in the last
paragraph assumed that I believe in some sort of higher power or some sort of
deterministic laws of physics. It would not be completely true to say that
these are my beliefs. I do think I had a strong part to play in everything that
is happening to me right now. I wished for it and then it happened. No mater if
somehow it happened completely out of my conscious control.
I did not apply for a job in
In that case I would have certainly
planned for myself a few interesting experiences in
Sometimes I think that I think too
much about the significance of everything in one’s life. At this time I feel
justified, because it is too weird, too impossible. I have beaten the odds, it
must be significant, it must mean something. It could lead to an understanding
of what the mechanisms of existence are all about. Is there a structure
regulating what one must live?
Nothing has ever been enough for
me, I always needed more, it is beyond comprehension. If I don’t succeed at
anything, changing irrevocably what we are as a race, then my life is just not
worth it. It makes no sense, I don’t understand where this comes from. Could it
come from the fact that I feel everything is wrong in this world? That
everything could be much better and that somehow I can contribute to this massive
shift in thinking and behavior? Can I?
Through fantasy perhaps, science fiction,
like Arthur C. Clarke? How could we measure the impact of that one man on
human’s destiny? Quite high, he has inspired Nasa and everyone working there.
He has inspired every single sci-fi movie I have seen so far. He has changed
lives, he has given us some sort of background information for us to act and
react. It is possible to have a large impact via fiction, via science fiction. He
is a big influence on this world. If everyone were to read his books, they would
think completely differently and think twice before going to war and changing
this world irremediably.
So I could at least reach that
level, it is within my powers to change something on a massive scale, even via
fiction. I have an empire to build then, as big as the one of Arthur C. Clarke.
And I feel I have the right disposition mentally and philosophically to lead us
all to a better and happier place.
That is also quite important, since
I am no stranger to wild ideas like perhaps the destruction or annihilation of
the whole human race is the best solution, before we destroy the whole universe
by inadvertence. Got to get back on earth, think in simpler terms. How can I
best achieve my goals? Got to forget all my extreme ideas, got to think some
more. I have a mission, I have to accomplish it somehow. No small mission.
It is sad that it is only in a few
decades that I will be able to assess if I have succeeded in my mission. I
might even be dead by the time I have any impact. And it does not matter, as
long as I stop talking and start acting. And
So there I am, fiction, science fiction,
is to be my life, to make the world understand that we need to find peace and
happiness somehow, whatever the costs. No small destiny, I’m certainly
pretentious enough to succeed. How could you anyway achieve great things if you
did not even believe you could achieve them in the first place? This is why I
am going to
Who am I kidding? I must be drunk
again. Do I believe any of that stuff? It would be nice if it was true, in any
way. Or perhaps I am just building myself a great destiny where I am somehow a
prince and another prince will save me from my misery. Could be true, and it
might never happen, however the coincidence is too impressive to ignore. I am
going to
Mycroft Holmes in
Four last days of work in
I have been playing so hard
recently at reorganizing my life, using my pseudo-technique of changing my
future, and convincing myself that what I wanted was actually already a
reality, that every time I walk on Westminster bridge to go to the pub on my
lunch hour, I am questioning what is real and what is not. I fear that I dreamt
up this whole business of moving to
It seems a bit too convenient to
wish something and get it almost right away, no matter how huge is the dream. I
have problems to adapt to the fact that I can actually achieve what I want just
by wishing it and believing it without any doubt. It really puts a twist on
this reality, it feels much more like I am in some sort of Matrix, and any day
now I will be contacted by Morpheus.
I am also worried that I might just
be completely mad and ready for the asylum. I feel this is not real, none of
it, nothing in this life. It is just like a dream, a real one, and I am in
control. However it would be easy to start doubting and lose it all. Get back
to something I don’t particularly want.
That’s how I feel, I am questioning
reality, and at the same time I feel like I am reaching a new understanding of
the mechanisms of existence, which have nothing to do with how I interpreted
existence for the first 30 years of my life.
There are a set of values and reasons
to exist that I had built up in my mind which was my personal philosophy of
life, which is now due to be rethought completely in light of the facts that I
can change my future and make it the exact way I want.
What does this say about my role
and the role of each human being in this universe? How can I now picture this
world we live in? Am I just making the best of some natural laws of physics, am
I tapping into some sort of ESP power that many mediums on this planet have
been exploiting for centuries without being able to express and identify what
was exactly happening, since just about every scientific mind just reject
whatever it is that they can actually achieve?
Is this why I don’t consider these
possibilities, because it is just crazy and impossible in the first place? How
can I doubt it now? When everything I wished for in the last few months became
a reality? Except perhaps winning at the lottery, however I admit that I was
unable to believe that I would win, since the probabilities seemed too
impossible for my poor mind. So I do have limits, I truly need to believe that
whatever I want can actually happen. And if it is that easy to believe, it is
also very easy to doubt at the last minute and lose it all.
So I have to believe that this
reality is very much a virtual one, that matter and energy can be interchanged
at will, that I have enough brain power to change the configuration of this
world, or at the very least, I can switch between parallel universes or
realities at will. And whatever I can think of, whatever I can dream up, can
easily become the reality I will be evolving in.
Do I still have things to learn
then? Obstacles to overcome just so I can acquire some sort of experience I
would perhaps have set myself at a subconscious level? I am not sure anymore.
What about karma, and what you do comes around? Not so sure anymore. You could
still be a bad person and be happy and succeed beyond any hope. There would not
be any punishment. The consequences are after all just virtual and ultimately
affect only one person, myself.
No one else is actually real, I can
switch it all, change it all, in one day. It could only truly affect me if I
believed in some sort of moral and ethical code and I was actually adhering to
it. Because then, doing something bad would make me depressed, when in fact
there is no need to and I could get away with murder without even giving it a
second thought. Not that I intend anyway to change my way of thinking morally
and ethically, on the contrary. However I do not believe anymore in a system of
punishment, or should I?
Perhaps this is all bullocks and it
does not change anything if suddenly I can change my future or not. Perhaps it
was always there, I just never believed it in the first place, and my success
rate was near to zero, when now it is at 90%. I cannot ignore this anymore, it
took me five years to get back at working at changing my future, I cannot stop
again. I have to get somewhere, and then I will see what I can do, what I
should do. Because this also escapes me.
Maybe I should think in terms of
what it is that I want to do, and then do it, instead of these terms of what I
am supposed to be doing and trying to figure that out. Perhaps nothing is
planned after all, perhaps the only destiny that exists, is the one we build
for ourselves.
Is life just a game? Or has it got some
sort of higher purpose? I have absolutely no answer, not even a clue. I had the
time to build myself a philosophy of life using bits and pieces found
everywhere, from every philosophy and religion, and now I guess it is time to
throw all that away.
Only simple observations of where I
am and what my potential is, need to be considered. Take it one day at a time,
and reassess every day what is going on, what this life could all be about or
could lead me. Perhaps my existence has more in store for me, to surprise me
and excite me. I certainly need any kind of motivation, just to remain alive
and continue to work for no apparent good reason. Will
Mycroft Holmes in
Last day in
This is my last day working in
I have said before that I was ready
for such a destiny, that I was waiting to get out of the solar system as
quickly as the technology would permit, and that I would invent it if
necessary. Well, going to
It is certainly on the other side
of the planet as far as
I’m sure
I can no longer deny that my life
has been to produce conferences. It has now been ten full years in
This hate-love affair is far from
being over, since I just signed a contract with a company who want a career
man. And it is not excluded in my mind that this is it. My very last career
move might be this company I will be with for the next 10 years, instead of the
usual 1 to 2 years. It would mean that I finally found the right job,
management, where apart from thinking and writing reports, I won’t have to
actually produce conferences. Oh irony.
My last day! This is the last time
I am in Putney, on my way to London Waterloo. Tonight it will be
I feel so weird this morning, and
we’re going to the pub at lunch time for a farewell drink, I hope I won’t do
anything stupid. I certainly feel right now like climbing on the roof of the
train to sing and dance all the energy contained in my little body. It would be
my luck to just faint and fall on the track two days before my liberation, my
escape, my revolution. As it is how I perceive this move to
Clapham Junction, for the very last
time. If
I fear I will very much look like
an alien in
I must trust that destiny is
leading me somewhere and that I will get there eventually. But it has to move
fast, I need to move fast, everything needs to happen within weeks, not months
and years. I need my way out of conferences, I need my freedom, and
unfortunately this means success and money. I can’t think of anything else
which could bring me the sort of freedom that I wish for.
29 October 2005
Over the
That is it, I am now flying over
the Atlantic, on my way to
I was not sure what to think, to
rejoice that one major step will now be eliminated, and I will only have to
suffer the pain of being frightened at the customs only once, or if I should
start to worry that perhaps my dear Mr. Bush has decided to take over the
Canadian borders and, Canadians being so nice for no good reason, being in
their nature, have let Bush take over. My only hope is that it will make it
much simpler for me to get my visa.
Although everything is completely
legal, you never know what will happen, when the law is still in the hands of
people who enjoy wrecking entire lives just to prove to themselves they have a
little power in this world. Their doubts is all they need to stop you right
there from accomplishing your destiny. However, after years of experience dealing
with European democracy and immigration, I am not afraid anymore.
Twice in the plane I had a panic
attack, finally having a glimpse of what it is that I have done. It seems to me
that I never had the chance to think this through, to understand the
implications. Hell, I had not even started to pack last night at 9 pm. As
a result I did not sleep last night and at the moment I am like suspended in
time, since we are going back in time at the right speed for time to stop.
So God knows how I will survive the
day until we reach
You work and work without ever
stopping, five days a week, three hours of travel a day. And on the weekend you
are rushing all these things you feel you need to do to make this life
worthwhile, otherwise there would only be work and sleep, and then, in these
conditions, death would be most welcomed. So at the end of your seven days, you
realize that you never even took one minute to think about what you were
actually doing. You just went over all the obstacles as if they were just
little hurdles, and everything would be better afterwards. But then I woke up
yesterday and realized I had to abandon my life after 10 years, the person I
love and my cats, to go and live somewhere alone, in a place I know nothing
about!
Is it a mistake? I just can’t
believe it, it was so easy, it really fell from the sky. And if in a few hours
I get my visa, then really it was so effortless, you wonder what happened to
the concept of adventure.
And I want it to be painless, in
the end it makes no difference to what you learn in life if you are just confronted
by walls, after walls. There are other things that need to be learned, some
other goals which need to be reached. Useless to spend your life worrying about
immigration, writing about it as if it was your whole life and nothing else
ever existed. You might as well go home then, since it would definitely not be
worth it.
There are other things I can learn
in
Though at the moment it does look
hopeless, stuck working for a conference company. It is at any rate much better
than being a waiter. Or is it? I could not even be a waiter if I wanted to now.
Only high profile and high paying jobs can keep me in the
31 October, 5 am
My first day in LA
I made it! I am right now at the
dawn of something, not sure what yet, and it is a bit frightening. I would not
say that I am scared, but close to it. I am on my balcony right now, it is 5
am, I am right in the Valley, though I have no idea which valley this is or
where I am exactly. The stars offer quite a sight, even if I know that only a
few can be seen in a city as large as
If I was afraid of rejection, my
first day has been quite successful. Already in the lobby of the
hotel-apartment complex where I live, a woman came to me and told me her life
story in no less than two hours. Offering me dreams and opportunities like
moving to
Now, how likely is it that any of
that would actually happen? Close to zero. Some people would offer you anything
just to have friendship, and I know that these friendships are too demanding
for any human being. Somehow she got from me my room number and the address
where I will work. I’m sure I have not heard the last of her, and Stephen is
freaking out about it.
And then I went to Ralphs to buy
some food. Everyone was over nice, talking to me like if a huge earthquake just
happened and they were suddenly so desperate to talk to someone about it, that
even strangers would do. Well, it is what would be required for anyone in
I don’t know what is wrong with
these Americans, they are so opened, so willing to meet new people, it is
madness. I feel a strong sense of community, I suddenly feel part of something
larger than just my small person. I am no longer this individual lost amongst
millions, but a component of some greater family called the human race.
Somehow I feel this is only temporary,
that it is a false sort of feeling that usually happens when you first move
somewhere. Every time I moved into a new country, I always met helpful people
ready to do anything for me, without anything in return, and in time this
subsides and it is life as normal. As if destiny knew I needed help, and all
these possibilities were suddenly falling on my doorstep.
I have to be careful though, not to
fall into any trap or friendship I don’t want. Not to believe anything anyone
says, because it is likely that they won’t deliver even on their friendship. It
could easily become a nightmare. At the same time, I need to have some wisdom,
and be able to understand when people are genuine and have a lot to offer.
Obviously I feel I have a lot to offer, however I know certain friendships are
doomed from the start. I need to give myself some time to let anything else
happen, and take it from there.
I am now more worried about my
first day at work. Can I deliver on all the promises I have made? Am I this
genius guy who will sort them out through my past experience? I have met yesterday
at the Airport one of the girls I will be working with, along with her
wonderful and peaceful new husband of two weeks. God she is nice, strong
personality, these are people I would love to have as friends. Her husband
works in the music industry, in the licensing I believe, and probably about the
use of music in films. I see no opportunity there except for good friendship,
and this is good.
Perhaps all my dreams and
expectations about succeeding in the movie industry have also subsided since my
arrival. I am not sure if it is because I feel that being here or in
Or perhaps it is that I have other
worries right now, like this new job and finding a new apartment. Both are huge
tasks to accomplish, and I am hopeful that I will succeed in being happy. I am
not certain if my budget will allow me something nice close to where I will be
working. And I know I will need a car, because just walking to the grocery
store took me 30 minutes, and I had to come back in a taxi. However the taxi
driver was a Canadian woman from
I just don’t know what to expect
next. I have to get ready to go to work.
2 November 2005
One bastard identified at work,
inexistent public transport, prison type apartments
Do I deserve so much attention? So
much niceties? A company going the next 100 extra miles to help me and even my
boyfriend to move to
So far so good, I think they think
they’re getting their money’s worth. It is not exactly what their number one
employee thought though, and yesterday I lost patience with him. He crossed the
line with me, and I was ready to go back to
Anyway, he was freaking out because
I knew nothing about the financial world, especially in
So, what he did after his lunch
break, is exactly what I expected he would do. He went back to all the bosses,
trying very hard to convince them that I was not only ignorant of everything,
but on top of it, I was quite insubordinate. It must have thrown him into a
spin, this office is filled with Yes Sir/Yes Madam type of employees. The
anarchist ones like me must have left a long time ago, I thought.
So he tried, he then kind of
disappeared for the rest of the afternoon, and I was expecting at any time to
be put on the side by one of my bosses to let me know I had been out of line
and that it was not acceptable. And I was ready to tell them that once again a
damn employer had hired an employee without giving him any clue about what he
would actually be doing. And that is simply not acceptable. And that if they
felt they had made a mistake with me, I would gladly go back to
The very next morning I had a new
best friend, who came back to me sheepishly talking to me with a big smile. In
fact I had a two hour meeting with him where he could only speak while
laughing. Must have been difficult to appear as appreciative as that, when I
know for a fact that an old tree like him must have hated every second of it. He
was defeated, I had won. Somehow I doubt this is the end of the problem. Why,
oh why, is there always a fucking bastard in every single job I ever had? The
one who will work very hard at destroying me at every corner? Why can’t it be
simple for once?
Well, he came back saying jokingly
that I must be the one person in the world who has worked for every single big
conference company in the world, and that I must be unique, that no one else
must have that much experience. Could he truly suddenly believe this? Or was he
trying to dig again, saying that I simply cannot keep a job? Try to keep a job
in conferences for years, in this industry filled with bastards and
backstabbers. Oh yeah, I had the extraordinary opportunity to have known them
all, to the point where suicide was my only way out. Not counting that a job in
conferences is so stressful, rare are the new employees who will remain after
six months. They are either sacked because of a lack of results, or they leave
because they can’t stand it anymore.
He had finally been told who I was
and why it is that I had been imported from the
The only other possible bitch, and
somehow there is always one in every company, is the woman in charge of admin,
payroll and HR. She could easily turn into a monster, she is also in charge of
finding out who’s late and who’s sick, and who’s leaving early (30 minutes
after the normal hour is considered too early). So far she has been very nice
to me, over nice in fact, I could almost believe that she will not turn out to
be a bitch. I know better.
I will have to break my back for
them, I know that much, and thankfully I do intend to break my back for them. It
pays off when you are working for a family instead of a corporation who does
not even know who you are and what you do for them, even after years of
success. So it might just work.
We went for a perfect lunch with my
bosses, Stephen and I. It was to present them my baby, and they were impressed.
They want to employ him, perhaps because he made it clear that he would not come
to
He told them that he was quite traumatized
by the
I knew the game. It is the game of
the prisoner or the patient with a psychologist, who needs to convince the
authority that he is a changed man in order to gain his freedom, when in fact
he is probably worst for it, for having gone through that process from hell. And
if he was not ready before to annihilate the world, he certainly is now,
disgusted as he must be for so much crap.
So I was quite calm while the
custom officer was getting excited. I had the perfect answer every time. So I
got the visa. End of story. However it seems to have convinced Stephen that he
will never get his own visa, so he almost decided to not even try.
The true reason however is his six
cats, his three tortoises, his 30 fish and crabs, and his two snakes. Add to
this his flat that he will need to rent to some lodger, and that is just too
much for him.
Also that he is not impressed by
I think he will never make the
jump. He did not appear that overwhelmed when I told him today that his sort of
job interview at lunch time with my bosses had been successful. That they saw
him as the new head of the future telemarketing department. God, we are so not
ambitious, it is ridiculous, almost a shame in the society we are living in.
So what do I think of
No car means that we cannot go
anywhere. The bus system sucks so much, one passes every hour, if it passes at
all, and it never goes anywhere. There are not even cabs in sight, you need to
call them, they take 30 minutes to arrive.
Finding an apartment is not easy
either. The place is either like a fortress and costs a fortune, or it is
filled with foreigners and there is so much violence, like random shooting on
the streets, that only a desperate person would ever rent a flat there.
Well, I am not that desperate, I
have a $60,000 a year salary for god’s sake, I am not about to be shot for no
good reason, even though there would be a nice poetic justice to this,
considering my state of mind in the last few years.
I would not mind dying on the
streets of
So I guess I will have to live in
one of these prisons where they charge a fortune for an unfurnished little
living room with a bed coming down from the wall.
10 November 2005
Problems with my Manager/Director
and other management issues
I have destroyed it now. A second
argument, in that many weeks. How many more can we have before I give up and
decide to go back to
What went wrong? What is it that
does not click between us? He said so himself, he is easy going, everyone loves
working with him, he looks like a nice guy. Is it just me? Am I unable to
accept any kind of authority and criticism?
I am certain that if I were to do a
search on the Internet under statistics, survey and Managers, I would discover
that it is the same story for a large portion of the population, when it comes
to their wonderful relationship with their direct line Manager. However there
are ways to deal with this, and I am just unable to deal with this kind of
shit.
It was clear on my face that I was
disgusted, ready to pack my bags and get out. Only $5,000 down the drain, but I
would feel justified, personality conflict with my manager. I just don’t like
him, his deep cavernous voice in the background makes all my body hair stand.
Is there something that I don’t
know? Something eating him and I am just suffering the consequences as a
by-product? Or have I succeeded in alienating him completely with my own
behavior? Let’s review this, so I can understand it better.
Last week… I can’t remember what it
was last week. It was so stupid, so unimportant, that I have already forgotten.
However I am very much living with the consequences now. I basically spotted
the problem on the very first day, if I remember correctly. Even if I still
have no idea what the problem was, but there was something. He was annoyed with
me from the first minute I walked into that office. I’m sure it was not his
decision to hire me, as it was not the one of my boss either. It was his wife.
Last week I thought it was my lack
of knowledge in the topic of their conferences and his impatience with me. This
week, it is that I appear to have been doing everything else except what he
asked me to do. I also take forever to do anything, because I have so many
other things on the side to sort out. He wants me 150% right away, it is just
impossible, not after what I have just been through. For God’s sake, I have
been here less than two weeks and I am far from being sorted out.
Feeling somehow guilty because my
bosses appear to see so much potential in me, whilst they are perhaps
completely mistaken, I worked so fucking hard writing them four more long
reports about my past experience. And these reports, they did not specifically ask
for them, but they did indirectly, with their questions and their desire to
know more.
I thought they would have been over
the moon by now. I have not heard a single word about my six reports of an
average of twelve pages each (I have written them a book!). It is like if I had
never written them. Perhaps I have freaked them out by giving them sensitive
files from the competitors, even if Telecoms is not related at all with what
they are doing, and these files are between 5 to 10 years old. Maybe they feel
I will eventually do the same with their files, who knows. I did not give them
a competitor’s database, I would never. Too late now to go back. They certainly
asked for such files in my first reports, and it was a direct request.
So I spent Monday and Tuesday
writing these reports, because I did not have enough of the weekend to do so. I
had already spent 6 hours this weekend finishing the work that the Manager
asked of me. This also went over their heads. It seems that they can believe
this can be done in two hours, when it took me days. I am sorry, either they
had exemplary employees and they worked very hard and very quickly, which I
doubt, or they have careless employees who are quite happy to do a half job at
every turn.
So now it looks as if I am wasting
time, when in fact I am just being thorough. It is in my nature, but I am
learning right now to forgo my nature and become a careless employee as well,
as long as I can finish the job within two hours instead of two days. The
secret must be to give them just enough to be able to pretend I have done a thorough
job when in fact I would certainly not base any business decisions on that
botched work.
When I told the Manager that in the
last two days I was writing reports for my bosses, he checked, and
unfortunately my bosses did not support me. They told him that they had not
asked me to write these reports. So twice now he tried to tell me that I was
bullshitting him. Of course, I was hoping my reports would be well received and
that they would defend me. It has not happen, I think they felt my reports were
useless.
I also think that it was a
ridiculous thought that I could have believed for one second that a company
hiring a Management Consultant would change anything of how they are conducting
their business. If it works, why would you change anything? In fact, why would
you even hire a Management Consultant with a high salary? It is so puzzling, I
am losing sleep over this. I cannot make head or tail of my situation.
My Manager, who is in fact a
Director, has no experience whatsoever about the type of events I am working
on. In fact, the only person who has any sort of experience about this is my
good friend sitting next to me, the one who welcomed me at LAX airport (my
valley girl). She is just a Manager but was recently told that she was the
Director of her events, because of what I wrote in one of my early reports.
This perhaps has killed the faith
of my Line Director. He was one of two Directors before, now he is afraid that they
will all soon be called Directors, and it is my fault. He told me today to not
listen to her, to not even discuss my event with her, since he may want to do
everything differently. Except, he has no clue about how to go about it, and
she does. It is a big dilemma for me, since I will have to do that damn event
which will take me six months to do, just that. This is how complicated they
are.
He is an old tree, and he fights
back any kind of change whatsoever. Only my first two reports had an impact so
far, slight changes, and it might already be too much for him. He must be
dreading the new decisions which could be made because of my reports, so he is
certainly not happy that I concentrate on that instead of his ridiculous lists
I need to research on the Internet all day.
Everything I have done so far
should have been done by an assistant they could have paid almost nothing. Especially
that this company is based on people who have assistants, half the company has
the word Assistant in their job title. Something I have always suggested they
change for Executives, since it would help them in their job.
It is sad when someone has so much
potential, so many good ideas, and the experience to back it up, but is
prevented in doing anything because change is a frightening thought. So their
Management Consultant will actually be a Conference Producer instead, and just
an assistant at that. Which is fine by me, with that kind of salary, in a
country where the standard of living goes through the roof. However I would
have liked to have been told that I would only be an assistant, I wish I could
be told now so I would know where I stand.
I can adapt to that, no problems. I
feel there is a conflict at the moment in the management lair, and I am
powerless to do anything about it. I just suffer the wrath of their Director
and, since I cannot just let it go down my back like water on a duck, the
situation might just explode.
I certainly have no experience as a
Management Consultant. The only thing I know now, is that the second job title of
a Management Consultant should be Executive Director, so he or she would have
the power to crush the little people who cannot accept any change.
I am sure it also fries him that
despite my young age compared to him, I have perhaps as much experience if not
more than him in the world of conferences. And not only that, it is an
experience from just about every large competitor they have. So my bosses
appear to have told him that the little moron that I am has more experience
than the old tree that he is, since he came to me once shouting: so you think
you have more experience than me!? That statement alone tells it all.
Of course, he can only see me as
someone without any experience whatsoever, called upon to make all the wrong
decisions when he knows it all himself, and he is probably the one who should
have changed his title to Management Consultant. However, his experience is
limited to the one company he has worked for, for perhaps 10 years, and I’m not
even sure if it has been that long.
So you can understand my problem,
and I am starting to understand it better myself. Perhaps I had just no
realized that I would be perceived as a threat. And now that I have realized
that, I will be more amused by his little panic attacks. I just wished that I
was certain that my own analysis of the situation was right.
At the moment I can only see that
this week I have taken the piss, working on reports to satisfy my bosses, when
I should have been trying to please my Line Director. I did assess that
situation at the beginning of this week, I quickly surmised that it was more
important for me to show my bosses I was indispensable, instead of searching
the Internet all day for the Director.
And somehow something tells me that
it will pay off. The mitigated reaction of my bosses must have been to calm him
down, to keep the right balance. Secretly I am sure they are reading every
single word I have written and that soon they will not only appreciate me, they
will change everything.
Oh, I feel so much better now! I
just hope I am right. And if I am right, I am glad that I am learning so
quickly. Something which would not have been possible if I had not written it
all down tonight, after drinking three beers in a row.
I feel like I have acquired some
sort of wisdom now. What was on my mind when I walked back from work was more
like: I am unmanageable, a crisis will develop, I am useless, I just can’t work
with anyone, etc.
I need to start my own business or
else I will just be going from job to job, suffering with my line Manager for
six months to a year, before I leave right after the whole thing crumbles to
dust behind me. Now, instead of panicking back at my panicking Director, I can
just sit back, relax, and look at him destroy himself.
Don’t get me wrong, I would like it
to be different, I am certain he is the best employee they ever had and will
ever have. It is important that he stays. His reaction can only be explained by
the fact that they did not include him in any of the real management
discussions. As a result he now feels as if all this change is not necessary
and superfluous. And to be honest, I feel that he is right.
However I have been hired to tell
my own experience, analyze it and propose solutions. So I am doing what I am
being paid for. It is their decisions to apply my suggestions or not. And the
old tree is completely right if he states: what the fuck does he know about
this business? Completely right, I am sure he knows more than I will ever do.
But I don’t care, I have to fulfill my role and somehow I feel I will
appreciate that role, even if heads will have to roll over.
No one gives me shit, or else I am
leaving. I don’t care if it is after two hours on the job. But now it is not as
simple. I am asking for trouble with a title like Management Consultant. I
represent a real danger. So I have to adapt my attitude and behavior. Ultimately
the other employees should always lose over me. Otherwise, why hire a
Management Consultant, if not to implement changes?
And old trees, if they cannot
accept the changes, it is written in the book, they will need to go. Let’s try
to save them, by all means, but if they become unmanageable, recalcitrant, what
can we do? Here is the door my friend. Start your own business if you feel that
you have all the knowledge in the world to do so.
And this is exactly how I feel
right now. I feel I know so much about the conference world, especially after
writing so many reports in the last year, that it is a waste that I should tell
people what to do. I should do it myself. However, let’s not forget that I just
declared bankruptcy. For whatever the reasons. But who cares? Getting money to
finance projects, is what all our conferences are about right now. And all
these people have no money, just a promising product or service which cannot
fail (though in most cases it fails miserably).
And my company could not fail
either, because I know what failed and what succeeded all over the damn place,
all over the world, in virtually all the main conference companies there are. Just
a shame that I could not care less about the conference world and I am still
trying very hard to free myself from it. Somehow I thought
What is also funny, is that if it
was my own business, I would not follow most of my suggestions, I would do
everything differently. This is something I have recently realized, it is never
the same when it is not your own company. If it was your own, you would act and
behave differently. Because then, you would actually care. Something no
employee ever has been able to do. We just don’t give a shit, we’re just
employees trying to survive our day, to get a pay check, and somehow try to still
have a life outside of work, if possible.
And this is something most
employers cannot understand and I’m not certain if there is a solution to that
problem. Unless the employees somehow also could own parts of the company and
it was actually worth it for them to work harder. Otherwise, good old generous
bonus schemes might do the trick.
11 November 2005
Backstabbing and mind games at work
I came in the office this morning
and it was the hardest thing I had done in quite a while, harder than passing
through customs. I was so afraid and worried, I felt I really did not belong
there. Or that no one really wanted me there. I have tried hard to succeed, to
impress them in my first two weeks, and perhaps I have just failed somehow
(isn't that amazing after all that I have written?).
I worked on my director's stuff
last weekend, I will also work on it this weekend. It might not be enough. This
time I will not escape my fate, something will happen. My boss just asked me to
come into his office, however I have to wait until another guy leaves it. What
is it that he wants to talk about? Is it related to the director's impatience
with me? Can I be blamed for all this somehow?
What's the worse that he could tell
me? That I am quite insubordinate, unresponsive, working on other things that I
should not be working on? I think it will also be about my general attitude,
being incapable of being a Yes Sir type of guy, when someone accuses me of
incompetence.
It is going to require all my
restraints not to tell him that I quit, in a minute, if he goes into attack
mode. Because then, I would have nothing to lose, it would be clear that I
would have alienated both the director and the boss. What chance do I stand to
survive in such a company?
It was already so difficult to
survive the first two weeks, I did not even dare go to the toilet or go get a
coffee unless I was desperate. Today I can't even talk anymore, I want to disappear
at my desk. What will it be today and next week after my conversation with the
boss?
I really need my weekend now, three
days off would be even better. Stephen did it today, but I can't do that after
only two weeks. I have so many things to sort out, it was a crazy idea to start
working almost the very next day I arrived in a new country. I never had the
time to breathe, I have barely took my stuff out of my suitcases.
Just had my meeting. The director
told my boss that I said that I was only here to be a consultant, and not do
anything else. I told my boss that I made it clear to the director that I was
quite happy to work on anything that I was asked to do (and in fact, I
certainly don't mind even if they ask me to clean the toilets). So that was his
angle. My boss told me that I was also hired to do menial things way below my
skills, and I should accept it. So I reassured him, that I did not mind about
that at all and the director misunderstood me (yeah, what a backstabber!).
And now I will have something else
to do. The director will contact me from his home (he works from home on
Friday) so I can contact a few companies for another event, which will prevent
me from doing the other stuff I need to do, so I will have to work on this over
the weekend.
I seem to have survived the second
round, though this time I was called into the office. I am pretty certain that
I won't survive a third round, so I really have to disappear and work hard like
crazy. And I think it is clear now that my reports had no impact on them, they are
not pleased I worked on this for two days this week. So it is important I prove
to them that I can be the best conference assistant there is.
I went to the toilet, and then I
went to buy some chips, but then I bought my first egg sandwich downstairs. The
girl was very nice, however I went through such a panic state because I was
away from my desk for over 12 minutes, I bitterly regretted having decided to
go to the toilet. And now I am in desperate need to go again, but I can't, I am
under observation.
I think I have been identified
already as a bad employee since my director has been working very hard, as I
thought he would, at reporting back as much negative stuff about me as he could
to my boss. I'm pretty sure by now they regret having hired me, and I feel bad
about all this.
You should only allow a company to
import you if you are completely convinced that you can truly help that company
and that you are the best. Well, I may have thought that, and at the time I
feel it was all justified to come, but I also have to realize now that finally
the company might not require my skills.
If I could go back in time, I would
have decided to stay in
These people have no credibility
whatsoever, and probably no social life either outside of work. Or else, why
would they spend their days trying to prove that a total stranger and new
employee, who has done nothing so far, is just not right for this company or
capable to do anything worthwhile? As it stands, I never had the chance yet to
prove anything about my capacities and my potential. I was judged the very
first minute I arrived.
I just received a call from the
director, about what I need to do next for him. And I have been told that it
needs to be done in five minutes, when in fact, again, it should take hours if
not days. He spent more time telling me what to do than it would have taken him
to do it himself. I think it is a game, to see how low I am willing to sink
before exploding. What he does not know is that I don't mind doing it and I
will work hard to do it as fast as I can.
He acted as if he had not
backstabbed me to the boss, as if now I was back in the rank and all ready to
listen to him and obey his orders. I am far from that point, and I guess we
will just have to wait until the third round, probably next week. I am pretty
sure now that it is unavoidable.
13 November 2005
What to do on a Sunday when in
I have been freaked out all
weekend. Moreover, I was unable to explain why. It is a familiar feeling
however, I felt it when I just arrived in
In most places however I had
friends or other people to relate to and to make me forget this weird state of
mind. Even though I still had Stephen when I moved out of his apartment to go
and live in a hotel room in
Usually it would subside, though I
am certain it would never have subsided in
Yesterday, Saturday, I was in some
sort of panic because I thought I needed to work on the files of my director,
do research and find the companies’ websites, CEOs, CFOs and contact details. I
worked 8 hours straight on it and I still feel I have not done enough.
He will again think that I am not
very efficient, as I seem to be taking forever to do anything, and he expects
it done instantly. I can’t do more than that anyway, so he will and I will have
to live with it. I finally decided that today I would not do any more research.
Work will be done at work from now on, I will just have to not waste my time
and be as efficient as I can be.
My main other worry was to find an
apartment, as it has become clear that I won’t have one next door, since no one
has given their 30 day notice yet. So I took the time to go to reception of my
apartment building to find out information about remaining here. Though it is
quite expensive, it is also not as expensive as I thought, once you decide to
rent unfurnished. It is also most practical. It is the closest I could be from
my work, so I would not need a car immediately.
Electricity, water, phone, Internet
and Cable are all included, otherwise I would have to contact all these utility
companies and they would want to do credit checks. Unfortunately,
There is also that Stephen might or
might not join me, and I need a lease of maximum four months, which is possible
here. Unfurnished also means that I keep the stove, fridge, bed, sofa, chairs
and lamps. All I could have hoped for anywhere else was perhaps a fridge.
Though next door I would have had the same, but with the utilities to be added,
the price would have been similar.
So the apartment is kind of sorted,
and I worked on my research yesterday, and I now have a mobile phone. I found a
way to unlock it today on the Internet, my special Mobile Pocket PC phone works
here, thank god, pay as you go as well, even better.
Now, all I have to do is to write
that letter to my finance advisors, and hope my plans will be acceptable to
them, since they are controlling my life from afar. I don’t have to pay my due
for the next three months, and that was not easy, because they freaked out
completely when they found out that I was in
So why am I still feeling so bad and
lost? It is Sunday after all, and tomorrow is back to nightmare time with my
director. I can already hear him say my name, and again it gives me the shiver.
When I started my other job in
I am also very much alone, despite
being in the best place on Earth. You should have seen the sunshine this
afternoon, the palm trees and the atmosphere. I should be inspired like hell,
am I driven to despair instead.
There is this great out there
outside of my apartment, but I am stuck in my studio all day, unable to decide
to go anywhere on my own. There is a Disney World in town, can you believe. This
is the last place I would go from fears that seeing all the Disney characters
walking around, might be all that I need to tip me over the edge and convince
me to kill myself right there on the spot.
I still wish to go to the
observatory,
I could go to the beach,
It reminds me when I was going to
all these great European cities for conferences, and remaining in my room
instead of visiting, while I had the chance.
Still, I might change my mind and
my disposition, it has been only two weeks after all. Change is never easy,
especially on that kind of scale. It is not everyday that you move to the
You need a lot of imagination
however to convince yourself that you are in the middle of it all, when you are
not part of any of it. I am like an observer observing the low life forms of
17 November 2005
Performing miracles at work and
succeeding in
One more day and it is the weekend.
I can hardly wait. Thanks to thanksgiving, next week I only work three days. I
will have four days to get out of here and visit
My director is not back at work
tomorrow, Friday he works from home. Nothing happened this week, only kind
words have been exchanged. My bosses made sure of it, I worked on some other
research instead. I think everyone knew that a third time in a third week would
have been the end of my employment there.
I still feel quite pressured
though, I think my boss is trying to assess how quickly I can come up with a
whole competitive research in the markets, and he is awaiting reports within
hours instead of days. I’m pretty sure they are wondering if I am slow, and
unfortunately I am. I cannot within one day and a half do a whole search of all
competitive events, learn everything there is to know about business
partnerships between the public and the private sectors in construction and
transportation, and come back with the perfect idea for a congress which will
not flop, but will make a few thousand dollars instead.
I thought I was quick and clever, I
guess they had other expectations. They thought I would be some sort of
magician capable of performing miracles. It is clear my knowledge and
experience is simply not required, only my abilities to produce an event in two
days, when it takes months.
This is a sad story and I am not
very proud of myself. I could work at night, but I am so tired and I have so
many other things to do, it is just impossible. I don’t like the idea either to
be working all Saturday just so they feel I am capable. I would actually prefer
to have a life.
Everyone here wish one thing, to
make it in the film industry. And many people are working within it, it must be
their biggest industry. The girl who welcomed me at LAX, who was a new Director
but has reverted back to her title of Manager (and she told me lies about it,
as if I would believe that she feels she does not deserve the title so she
decided to abandon it), she was in commercials when she was young. She claims
she hated it, I believe she tried everything to move into movies or television
and it never came true.
Her husband worked in
documentaries, and wasted two years of his life trying to succeed, he was never
paid. He now has $20,000 in debts. Sounds very familiar, it is perhaps what I
have added to my debt in my two years of working full time in television and
cinema. He finally decided to move into the music licensing field, where it
actually pays. He used to be responsible for the marketing at the Universal
Studios. Impressive. I wonder why he is no longer working there.
Another of my colleagues, the one I
suspect is gay, lives in
But perhaps no one has any great
talent, I just don’t know. My colleague said that it is all about who you know,
so I guess I will have to eventually meet the right people. Maybe those
untalented colleagues have the contacts, and these contacts have written them
off because of a lack of talent. Who knows? They appeared impressed by what I
have achieved so far, I don’t really know why, especially that I can’t do it
again, well, not yet anyway.
20 November 2005
Got to start writing that film
script
I am in some sort of existential
crisis. Woken up on this Sunday morning at 4 am, and wondering why it is that I
exist and if it is worth it. I have no more motivation for anything, I don’t
want to do anything, and I spend most of my time worrying about that research I
need to do at work. In an ideal world, I would be spending most of the day
working on it. I have some sort of report to write, and if I don’t do it, my
boss will definitely think I was not worth bringing over from
I miss
This is mad, being in L.A., where
all that is on offer in the world is probably just a few miles away from me, my
destiny and all, and yet, I spend most of my time writing reports, doing
research, and not leaving my apartment from a lack of energy and motivation.
What could I do? Where could I go?
Who could be my new friend or friends? I will have lunch sometimes next week
with my colleague from
So far nothing happened, I have not
written one line, I have not modified my website, I have not tried to meet the
right people. I have done nothing. When will I get into gear? Should destiny
happen on its own and I should just be patient? Will it again just fall from
the sky, without me having to work hard to make it happen?
I can see I am not going to work
hard and that I don’t have what it takes to storm into the studios asking for
work. Perhaps I need to meet new people, I have no clue about where I could
meet them. Maybe I should go to the Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, or the Drug Addicts
meeting, I guess this is where most important people spend their days these
days, especially in
I feel that I am building a hole for
myself at work. I’m not sure if they appreciate my personality. Especially that
valley girl next to me. I don’t think she likes me and I should not worry too
much about it. God, I am already thinking about my way out of this company, when
my whole life at the moment depends on this job. Without it, it is time for
radical changes on a massive scale, return to
I don’t like this situation. Before
anything, what should be falling from the sky, is enough money to give me the
freedom I need to write all day. And I am in the one place on the planet where
this could be possible, but only if I can prove myself first. Which means
working a lot without being paid. Something I refuse to do.
I think I will just go back to bed.
Tomorrow is another day where nothing will happen, just work on this report.
Great way to spend a Sunday in
22 November 2005
I failed big time at work with my
last report, my days are numbered
I worked like crazy all weekend on
my report and research about this conference I am working on. I was motivated
by the impression I have that my bosses are not very impressed with anything I
have done so far in my three weeks in
I felt great last night once I sent
my research and report, I thought I would go to work the next day happy for
once, with my head high. I knew I would not come back as some sort of miracle
worker, but at least I might have shaken this bad taste they have so far of my
performance.
However I entered the office as a
ghost, and when my boss called me in his office an hour later, he sounded as if
he was very disappointed with me and almost ready to tell me that I needed to
get into gear and get him some results about all this.
I understood then that he never
actually opened his emails this morning and did not know I worked hard all
weekend. No wonder why I felt like a ghost for the first hour. And the main
problem is that even after he reads all that, I will still feel like a ghost,
because it will not have made him happy or he won't show any kind of reaction
or emotion. So I will never know if he truly appreciates my work or not, and in
doubt, of course I will feel like I am totally incompetent.
I really feel bad, I feel
embarrassed to look at any of my bosses and my director. I have no idea what
they think of me, and despite all my efforts, I don't seem to be getting myself
anywhere. Is it going to be another one of these jobs where you work like crazy
seven days a week while still being incapable to satisfy anyone, whilst feeling
under-appreciated? I had the perfect job once where I was considered a miracle
worker and fully appreciated. I guess it could not last.
They are discussing something in
their office right now, I have no idea what it is about, but I'm paranoid
enough to think that it is about me. I have three days to survive this week,
and then four days off. Let's try to survive this, and then we will reassess
the situation after Thanksgiving.
I just spoke with the Mexican girl
in the kitchen. She works in telemarketing but hates it, and says so openly.
She even said she did not like the term telemarketing, I suggested telesales
then, she almost puked.
She was happy today, I asked her
why. She was happy that God gave her the chance to have this job, that he
somehow motivated her to do it so she could have the money to pay her bills.
Gosh, we sure come from a different planet.
She needs that job to survive and
is content to even earn any money. I'm more sort of fed up and cannot
appreciate what I have. I could not stay in a job where I knew I was not
adequate, they would sack me anyway. She is obviously not very successful at
her job and has not confirmed one single delegate in three weeks. I'm surprised
that she is still here to be honest and I am sorry for her, for what is to come.
Not sure if she will be thanking God soon. Still, I have learnt quite a lesson
talking to her this morning, even though I am not quite sure what it is, and I
am not sure if I wish to know.
There is also here a Black guy that
the bosses appear to hold in high esteem. I'm pretty sure it is well deserved
and that he is very competent. He has been with them a long time and will have
his own office once we get the larger offices next month.
His job is to watch over us, to
make sure we don't steal any files, whatever, things like that. He also works
on the website and other IT stuff. I would not be surprised if he was reading
what I am writing now, and reporting it back to my bosses. I understand they
need to take precautions, they after all had someone in the past stealing their
database and starting his own company.
They don't need to be worried about
me, I don't intend to steal anything from their organization, no files or
database whatsoever. I would not know what to do with it and I have enough
files from all my previous jobs to last me a lifetime. I don't even have the
time to go through them. I have databases from previous jobs, but I never gave
them to anyone and of course I would/could never use them. So what is the
point?
If ever I start my own conference
company, it will have to be about subjects for which I have a passion, so I
will be motivated to get up in the morning to work: literature, theoretical
physics, science fiction, space science and paranormal stuff.
I'm pretty sure conferences are
where people meet to go on to accomplish great things. I believe that this
company in
That's it, I'm fried. I did not
have my meeting yet with my boss, but a new file has appeared on the network with
two dozen more events, which I have missed in my hurried research, since last
week he was insisting that I finish this on the same afternoon that he asked
me. I would expect now to be told that my research was not very good, and that
perhaps I was wasting my time.
The truth is that if two persons
had done the same research independently and in parallel, they would both have
come up with a different list of events. So hopefully they won't draw big
conclusions out of this, or put me on the spot about these events I appear to
have missed. Of course it does not make me feel any better. It is going to be a
long three days!
It was horrible! The meeting went
like this: thank you for your preliminary report that was indeed preliminary,
it is all wrong since we found many similar events in the
Unfortunately they don’t trust me
(thankfully for them), so his wife did the same research in parallel. And now
they both know I am incompetent. Though I can justify myself quite easily, ask
anyone to write a report instantly without knowing anything about the subject,
and ask him this report without any proper research, and this is what you get.
And the events she found, I found
them all myself. I just did not include them from a lack of time, or they were
in Europe or
Anyway, most of the conferences she
found were completely off topic. That made me feel better, but I am apparently
the only one who realizes that, because I am the only one who read them all.
Still, how could have I been so
wrong? In just about all my conclusions? Is it possible that all that I have
written, all those reports, are also completely wrong and based solely on what
I think instead of facts? This is worrying. I failed like I never did before in
my entire career in conferences.
If they had doubts about me before,
now they have the full confirmation. I was the wrong guy, and it is more
difficult to get rid of me now since I came all the way from
Perhaps I should make it easy for
them. If I fail again, I will tell them that I’m going back. In the meantime, I
will retain my check for the apartment until the very last day of the month,
which is, unfortunately, next week. I have until then to make a complete fool
of myself again, the sooner the better.
I would leave without regrets. This
whole enterprise has been paved with mistakes from the start. I just simply
cannot keep up with what they are asking. I need time, and time is not in
abundance. I will again make a mistake. And I feel I have already past the
point of no return.
Oh well, my month in
And I swear, I will endeavor to
never have another boss again. No more social hierarchy, I’m just not cut up
for this. I will somehow have to find a way to be my own boss. Another
impossible idea.
22 November 2005
It seems like a lifetime has passed
since yesterday. I plugged myself onto the new Depeche Mode album this morning,
on my phone, and I have been listening to it all day whenever I was not sitting
at my desk.
I desperately needed some sort of escape
to fight being alienated by this reality. And while I was walking in the sun in
the Valley, looking at all the mountains around and listening to Nothing’s Impossible
over and over again, I thought this is perfect, it could not be better.
I spent the rest of the night after
work trying to figure out a way to go see Depeche Mode in concert at the
After being unable to figure out how
to use the transport system in Los Angeles (have I really lost that many brain
cells since my arrival in L.A. that I can’t even conceptualize how to take a
damn bus?), and after understanding that I would arrive an hour and a half late
at the concert, I had to abandon the idea. It would have been so nice.
So I spent the night watching
Depeche Mode videos and debating with an Indian in
And considering how wrong I had
been two days ago with my report, I was suddenly convinced that all my theories
were off the mark. His questions were hard, but ultimately I spent the time to
think about why I thought these things, and thankfully I still think the same.
It has been ten years now, with
over 300 correspondents and perhaps 3,000 emails, all designed to convince me that
I was wrong, and I am still convinced that I am right. At least no one was able
to do a little research on the Internet, find a few more events I had missed,
and destroy all my findings and conclusions in less than five minutes. Maybe it
was an isolated incident and I should not think about it anymore.
I did tell my boyfriend though that
I was ready to come back, and that before paying my rent, I will be talking to
the woman who hired me. In an instant in his mind I was already back in
However again today I found a way
to not shine so much. I took the whole day to print over 2,000 pages of all
these events found on the Internet. My boss did say to print only the relevant
ones, but which ones are they? I don’t know! They all looked very relevant to
me. So I printed them all and wasted the whole day. We were supposed to have
our meeting at 7 am this morning (well 8 am since that is the time I arrive in
the office, unlike everyone else there). I’m sure tomorrow will be as bad.
At the end of the day my boss was
peeing in the public toilet, in one of those awkward moments, and I was
splashing water over my face… I left without saying a word. Gosh, right there
you had the perfect picture to describe my life since I arrived in
And now, after watching all those
Depeche Mode videos, I feel like writing a whole successful and inspired album.
But hey, I am a writer, and writing film scripts or novels or blogs, does not
seem to me to be so adequate.
I will not be transporting anyone
anywhere else, I will not touch them in an emotional way. I cannot have any
impact on anyone whatsoever, not even myself when I read my things. And this is
becoming more than frustrating. I wish I could take a life off and learn music
and do something for a change.
The closest I have been to music is
with my poetry, which I have been told by some grand-ma that it has caused a
few suicides. Oh, so I can reach people emotionally then, great news! I should
get back to what I can do, poetry.
I’m not so motivated now, but I
would have certainly written a few dark pages tonight, the darkest ones in a
long time. On my way back from work, walking around the Valley, I wanted to
scream out what had been contained under pressure inside of me for the last few
days and weeks. I thought I was going to split and that a nuclear bomb was
about to explode. I would have loved
I have not started my usual
fictional book that I am always writing in parallel to my journal/blog. I’m
getting tired, I have written so many now, and still only one of them has been
published, and the worst thing is that it was quite a success. No other
publishers can see that, I have not told anyone, not sent any other books to
publishers. Never had the time, the money, the energy.
No more of these books published,
means no motivation to write another one. I should at least put my last one
online, it is still too soon after my last job, many people could recognize
themselves.
Still, I wonder what I would have
written tonight if I had started another one of those dark poetry books. I
should start thinking about a title, it is always a great help. The last one
was great, if I may say so myself. Working in
I investigated tonight where I
could put this blog, found Wil Wheaton’s blog and
I will have to investigate free
websites. Which reminds me, someone wishes to buy my main website, not sure if
he wants the content as well or just the URL. Fascinating how quickly I was
happy to sell it. I would accept peanuts for it, I want to get rid of it. I can
no longer be associated with anarchists, I never was anyway except via the
title of my website. You understand now why I wish to remain anonymous. I do
reach out, unfortunately.
Any search with a French word in it
leads straight to my website, as many of my previous managers found out in
time. Funny, their names never highlighted any web page. It’s like none of them
ever existed. Someone one day in a thousand years will look at all the crap
published on the Internet, and would not find one single reference to any of
the people I worked with in my whole life. I guess we cannot all be filled with
vanity and have an Ego the size of a small planet. Fortunately.
So finally a lot happened today.
What else? A woman called, from where I live, she is part of the management. I
thought she was calling to let me know that I could not rent this studio, that my
name was blacklisted by an obscure bank lost in the North of Canada
(practically in North Pole). And since
Thankfully she just wanted to
convince me to rent my studio for much longer, to which I answered that I had
already signed the papers to do so. Great communication. I should have known
that in the
My publisher contacted me, to tell
me I was his hero because I was in L.A. Nice how powerful the imagination can
be, when in fact I am just about to die of boredom in between my four walls.
I did go see a movie yesterday
though, and not any movie, a preview for free, so we can tell them it’s crap
just before they release it anyway. It is true that last time I went to see
such a movie in
Yesterday it was Juliet Lewis and
the actress from Alias, a boring story, but I was in the right frame of mind
for it, I was desperate for anything that could change my mind from my recent
nightmare. So I said it was excellent, they did not keep me after the film so I
could destroy it better, like they did in
I wonder how many movies are never
released every year. Maybe actors work harder than I initially thought. Must be
frustrating to have worked a few months on a film which will never see the
light of day. I guess you then have no right to say you appeared in that movie,
since it actually never existed.
Many people who worked on the film
were there in the cinema, including directors, producers, etc. One of them was
fat and annoying, he looked like a bastard, and reminded me a bit of my actual
boss, though my boss comes across as a nice guy.
It drove me insane that this could
be the type of people I would work with in the movie industry. People with no
imagination, permanently in a bad mood. We should call them life and creativity
destroyers. And why would these people have anything to do with films? It is a
mystery to me. I admit that I could be wrong, maybe he is a teddy bear and he is
responsible for most great movies I have seen recently. I doubt it.
One of the actors was also in the
room, but I don’t know his name. I remember his face though from other films. Here
in
They all seem to be or have been
involved in that industry, except my two bosses. They are an anomaly. I don’t
understand why they have started a business in
Perhaps I dreamt them up in my wish
to move here and they did not exist before my arrival. It would explain the
mystery. I wished to move here, I created that company and it became reality.
However, why would have I created so many problems and less than ideal
conditions? Because then, I would not have anything to blog about, I guess. It
was certainly done on a subconscious level, that’s for sure.
I forgot to tell you something
quite interesting about the idea that I might have created this whole reality
in order to move here. And how my creation could be as limited as a film. It is
like in the movie Thirteenth Floor (if you live in
Well, when I rented that car and
decided to follow
Every block had the same shops and
restaurants, and I could never tell if I was going anywhere or if somehow I was
stuck in a time loop, covering the same block over and over again. It was
astonishing.
I had never experienced such a
thing, it must be the most boring street in the world, except for a part where
there are palm trees on each side of the road. But then again, it goes on
forever and the apartments at the back all look similar from one block to
another. There was no personality, interesting architecture or character
anywhere on that street which seemed to go on forever.
I’m sorry if I insult a few people
here, but come on, I lived in
I really reached a point in my mind
of a deep sense of disorientation, wondering if this was life, existence, the
same shops and restaurants and gas stations over and over again, multiplied to
the infinity to satisfy our needs. Funny how I don’t need much these days to go
into a spin and reach complete existential crisis mode. I must be more fragile
than I thought.
Then the whole concept of art and
design made so much sense in my mind, and this idea of regeneration of areas
which appear to have lost their will to live and to be distinctive and
different.
We should bomb
I think
PPP means Public-Private
Partnership. It is a way for governments to let the private sector build
everything which would normally be paid for by the people. In return, the
private investors get millions and billions in the long term via rent, tolls,
other financial benefits.
They always get much more than what
it would have actually cost if the government had put the money to build it in
the first place. However the government does not need money to get the program
or project going, and since Bush has no money for that, then PPP is very
popular.
It should have one great advantage
though, hopefully the private sector will finally build some interesting
infrastructures, something we might actually want to look at, instead of making
us feel like running away to
Sorry for saying it, but I think
Of course, I did not have the time
to start living in
23 November 2005
Last day in the office before
thanksgiving and my chance to visit
I am back at work for my third day
before thanksgiving. I thought I would not have survived it, however so far so
good. It is 9h14, my boss has not jumped on me yet, has not told me that
everything I had done took forever and was all wrong, and he has not asked me
to do something else within an unrealistic time frame.
I am pretty sure he is brewing at
the moment and any second now all of what I was hoping was not going to happen
today will suddenly happen and ruin my last day in the office before the
holiday.
I found a way at work to write in
English without being detected. I usually pick an Excel file I always use, save
it under the same name but with mh at the end for Mycroft Holmes, and I write
in the column DZ, row 500. I don't even make the column or the row wider, I
mainly write at the top where we should be inserting equations.
If ever they were to look at my
files, there is no way they would be able to spot the few words they could see
in column DZ row 500. And then I move the file to a floppy disk, so the file is
never being deleted on my system. There is a copy however in my History, and I
need to delete it as soon as I finish working on the file. I also need to
remember to close the file whilst the cursor is back at A1, since these Excel
files remember where you were last time you saved them.
At 9h I went downstairs to the Café
to buy a toasted egg sandwich from the little Chinese woman. The sandwiches are
not as good as in
I never took the time in the last 4
weeks to go and buy a sandwich, only three times in fact I did so. Because I
was so on edge at work, or working so hard in total panic mode to try to do
something as quickly as humanly possible... I am always frightened that either
the director or my boss will come around and ask me to go in their office. No
one should live like that and I wonder if this will change or not in time.
It is weird that he has not called
me in the office yet, I am starting to feel guilty. I might go and see him in
20 minutes to ask if I should start calling people, maybe I should go now. It
would not surprise me if he were to say at some point today: what, you have not
started to call all these people yet? What have you done all day?
In fact, what I have done this morning
is to read about the Trans-Texas Corridor, and what that is goes something like
this: "The Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) is a proposed multi-use, statewide
network of transportation routes in
And as if that was not boring
enough, I went on to read the 824 pages document of SAFETEA-LU, which means:
"Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A
Legacy for Users." It is the Public Law 109–59, 109th Congress, to
authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit
programs, and for other purposes.
If I did not feel like shooting
myself before, I certainly do now!
Last night I was in such a mood, I
drank myself to death and could not sleep until 4 am. I was feeling bad for
having abandoned Stephen and the cats, and how they appear to suffer terribly
now that I am gone. I also cried, and I have to stop myself right now. I sincerely
hope he will be able to work here and that we will be happy in this company, or
else eventually I will have to go back to
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
This morning I thought that if anything
was going to happen to me in this lifetime, it will be in
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
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
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
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
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,
28 November 2005
Should I stay or should I go? Can
such a question be asked about
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
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
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
Despite all that, going back to
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
This surface metro line has opened
on the exact day that I have arrived in
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Today I am having lunch with my
valley girl. Tomorrow it will be the
We are under such surveillance
here, we cannot exchange one word without having our nice black guy following
up within seconds to make sure nothing negative is said. A way to feel like a
Big Brother state, without the need for cameras and monitoring devices. He
checks our computers, as mine had been left on all Thanksgiving when I arrived
yesterday, which means someone checked out my files. I would prefer cameras
because then you can at least forget that they exist and take a bit more
freedom. With a human overlooking you at all time, it is more difficult.
Anyway, I will meet with my
colleagues and I would expect them to tell me how they feel. They will probably
tell me they feel like me and then I will understand that what I have gone
through this last month is completely normal and I was not an isolated case.
And then it will make me feel better and I will be happy to continue working
here for at least four more months. Once my rent ends, I will reconsider my
situation.
It is also possible that they are
quite happy and have not experienced any of what I have gone through.
Especially the
I am in some sort of dilemma, go
and see my boss to ask him for something to do, instead of wasting my time
searching the Internet to learn more about Texas and transportation, or wait
until his wife arrive and have my meeting with her. It would be sensible,
especially that today could be my last day after all.
So I am going to wait, and write,
even if it makes me feel quite guilty.
Merde! I'm trying to reach Stephen,
but he appears to be on the Internet, he does not answer his mobile phone or
read his SMS messages, and he does not appear to be reading his e-mails either.
In this day and age, I just cannot reach him!
I have ten minutes before going to
lunch with the valley girl. I need to talk to him about my meeting with my boss
(his wife was not in today so he invited me in for a chat). So I cannot go to
the bank, I could not speak to him! And I am in a terrible mood about it. I'm
so annoyed with him! What the fuck is he doing online on the Internet, in the
last ten years the guy never even spent two minutes online. It is killing me.
The most urgent moment of all, to sort myself out!
There is no more time, in 6 minutes
I have to go to lunch. I could not even speak with him if he were to call. I
cannot go to the bank, I'll have to wait until tomorrow. And it complicates
things so much!
First of all I need to assess if I
should continue to write this blog as I have been, meaning for myself and not
caring too much about any eventual reader, or if now that I have put it online
and received already a few comments about it, I should try to adapt it to make
it more interesting, meaning changing the topics as often as possible. I don't
think I want to write this for anyone else but me, and if it interests anyone
else, then fine. If it bores them, they can go and read another blog, of the
exact type they wish to read. As simple as that.
Now that I have that out of the
way, there are three things I need to discuss which ultimately brings me to one
main question. The question is, should I get out of
There are many risks, and neither
my conversation with my boss, my colleague the valley girl or my phone call to
Stephen helped me establish the answer to my question. On the contrary,
everything is telling me: get out of here while you can, before everything
crumbles in front of your eyes while you are powerless to save it!
So my boss repeated to me that he
was not impressed with my report and the fact that perhaps he cannot trust my
judgment. I had to defend myself and tell him that I read that report again
today, and I feel I was quite correct and his conclusions were perhaps biased.
It was not really the place to try to save my neck, so I did not insist, the
damage has been done anyway. The important is that they don't think it was a
mistake to hire me, that they hope to eventually see my potential in action,
hence, they want me to stay and discover where our working relationship could
lead.
So this is encouraging, even though
it is not really. I have confirmed that he did not have much time to look at my
reports. He feels they will be interesting to read once he has more time or
develop something more specific about what they are about. So of course all
this hard work was not exactly appreciated. They sacked too many people
recently and he now has to do everything himself, especially marketing.
So he apologized for having left me
alone in my corner for the last two days, and to be honest I don't really mind.
However now I need to come up with the names and contact details of people I
will need to contact to gather intelligence. He gave me that to do since he
does not have the time to work on this.
He did not speak about my problems
with my director, and perhaps I should have. It was impossible since he spoke
mainly about that conference we were working on. It was difficult to bring him
back to the subject at hand, which was what he expects of me and Stephen in the
future.
Well, me being a conference manager
with some report writing when it is the right time, is what is still on the
table, as I expected it to be. For Stephen though it is not as we thought. He
was supposed to be responsible for their new telemarketing department, but of
course, only once they decide to hire more people.
So for quite a while, god knows for
how long, what he will be doing is basically telesales, cold calling people all
day to convince them to attend conferences. I would not do that myself, how can
I expect Stephen to do it? However he did not react when I told him, he was too
busy complaining about the whole thing in general, reminding me it was a crazy
idea and that he would only come for me, and he would sacrifice everything and
the cats, and his mother does not speak to him anymore, etc.
This whole business has turn sour
indeed. And yet, I have to remain here, I have to continue, I need to find out
where it may lead me. I was not exactly encouraged by my valley girl, who told
me, after a while, and only after I had compromised myself enough by telling
her everything I really thought, she finally told me what her experience is.
It took her forever but she finally
thought I was on her side and she told me exactly what I thought myself, about
the director, with whom she too had a lot of trouble with at the beginning.
With the bosses as well, who make her feel terrible, incompetent and never
encourage her whatsoever. She said she was on their black list.
She did not want to tell me about
all these people who appear to have left quickly, some of them lying (one said
he had to go back to South Africa, but he was spotted in the Valley twice, so
he lied to get out of here) and the numerous people who seem to have been
sacked. I would like to know why, so I could at least be reassured that it was
justified and it won't happen to me by inadvertence. But no one will speak
about it, and I know my boss is lying when he tells me why they left.
So I am pretty much at the same
point I was. I have confirmation that my reports were half read because of a
lack of time, so I know they did not help establish my potential. I know I
won't be able to impress them, they will not admit to work well done. I can
only achieve what is expected if I work very hard. As long as they don't call
me in the office to spit on me and my work, then I can assume I am in the
clear. So it is not going to be easy, I never thought it would be, I just did
not expect it to be so bad so soon. My honeymoon was over after 5 minutes.
Now, I am not a wimp, despite what
someone could think reading my complaints, and I can go through this, I will
survive it. I just have to get on with the job, and perhaps it would be a good
idea to stop blogging at work. There are still three hours before the end of the
day, God knows how I will survive it.
It has been hard again this week,
even though it was more emotional and psychological. Hard decisions to make,
depending on certain events requiring full analysis on my part, etc. I just
want to go home and relax, especially that yesterday I did not, having to buy
that bicycle for $80, which was supposed to be new, but I don't think it is and
I had to spend another $46 in tools and lock for it, which means I shopped
until 9 pm yesterday. I should have perhaps bought a new bicycle, it would have
cost me the same and at least it would have worked fine.
The wife of my boss is here this
afternoon. I wonder if she stayed at home this morning in order to avoid
meeting me today. Is she still embarrassed somehow, avoiding me? In which case
I am not out of the woods yet. Something my valley girl said, she hopes to
learn to speak to the bosses, as if somehow communications was a bit like a
train wreck.
I think we are very similar, we
both worry a lot about nothing, we are both highly sensitive and we take
everything very personal. As a consequence we almost become dysfunctional
people. And she said it, we are the perfect employees, because one word is
sufficient to hurt us, bring us into a higher gear and work all night. They just
need to say: have you done this yet? And then we work like crazy and then when
we come back to them with the results, they are happy indeed that it worked
fine, but never say so.
My Spanish friend, the one in
telesales, is actually from
I don't know what she meant by
that, but I suspect that her country is a place where the revolution has been
going on for many years, and probably a tyrant has been at the head of that
country for years, and America must have supported him because somehow they had
some commercial advantages to all that, and what else. It must be the typical
story. I do intend to do some research and find out more about it though. I
could be completely wrong.
Something was a bit weird this
morning in the meeting. Though I know my boss is intelligent, sometimes I
wonder. He said to me I had to answer all the questions he put on a sheet,
there were about 40 questions altogether. I had to answer all these questions
for all the most relevant events. And that was at a time when none of us had
established yet a list of all events, and certainly not established which ones
were the relevant ones. And of course, only he would have known which events
were relevant, since only he had in his mind what he wanted to do with this
event.
For example, he wishes to keep it
very specific, to one particular project. This is something I learned quite
late, after I gave him my report. So today again he accused me of not having
answered his questions, and he acts very stunned and surprised that I could go
away like that, work two days trying to achieve this research, and come back
with not having answered his questions. And he again mentioned that he could
not believe that I did not do a thorough research, enough to find all the
(irrelevant) events his wife found.
Now, I'm sorry to say, but the guy
perhaps is not that intelligent. First he would know I did not have enough time
at the time to first do an exhaustive research of the market, two, not enough
time to write the report, and three, that my report was actually trying to answer
the questions on his guide. Now, why would he decide to be so blind and not see
what is evident? I told him today but his answer was that in which case I need
to be clearer and to the point, he does not have the time to find my answers in
my 4 page report. Fair enough.
At the same time, he wanted me to
answer all these questions for all relevant events. In the end he identified
ten. What he really was asking was actually more like a report of 100 pages,
and he wanted that in two days. This is so unrealistic. I understand now that
these are management tricks, however you still need to be logical in what you
are asking, and reasonable, otherwise we will just disconnect and learn to not
take it personally as my valley girl said and does.
Poor her, actually she was not
responsible for one person being sacked, but two. Her two assistants, whom she
convinced everyone were incapable of doing anything. At the same time she was
told she was incompetent and tells me she is on their black list, especially
after this wedding of hers which took forever to prepare and was taking most of
her time. The wedding cost so much, if they had decided to forgo it, they could
have bought a house instead. And now she regrets not having bought one instead.
I don't think I have mentioned yet
the guy responsible for sales. Probably because he is such a nice guy, until I
guess he finds out I'm gay. I'm pretty sure it won't sit well with him, he is
so much into sports and pushing his kids into football and baseball, etc.
Just saw photos, very nice family.
Somehow I feel he could be gay, or is it just that he reminds me so much of my
first boyfriend, with his manners and expressions. Quite possible, and yet he
is so tactile, especially with the girls around here, he needs to touch them all
the time.
He used to drop me home on his way
back home at 5 pm, but now I have a bicycle, so it won't happen again. I feel
he will eventually invite me to some sport event or ask me to actually take
part in sports, but he has not done so yet in the last month. He mentioned that
we should go for a bicycle ride, I'm not sure yet if I will accept. He has two
nice sons, and perhaps his second wife has daughters, or I don't quite
understand who are all these people in the photos he showed me.
And now I feel terribly guilty that
I have been writing all day instead of working. Even though it is clear my boss
just gave me anything to do until he finishes what he is doing and can again
concentrate on our project. He said: take a few days to identify the main persons
we need to contact. Something for once that I actually could do in two hours!
So I guess the question would be, what I would be doing if I was not writing
right now, wondering how long the last hour and forty minutes would actually
seem to last, five hours more like it.
I would like to go and buy myself a
toasted egg sandwich, but she only sells them in the morning, and I'm not sure
why. This is ridiculous, what we eat for breakfast these days is so heavy and
diversified, especially in the
Merde, I have just sent another
e-mail again with a spelling mistake. I am so terrible at this now, I don't
read myself again and I used to depend on Word as my editor for the emails I
send. However at the moment I am a bit stuck, because I cannot use Word as my
editor, my version of Word is too old. I cannot either set the spelling check,
and hyperlinks just don't work.
So in essence this whole computer
is basically completely out of date and I can't even download anything because
I don't have administrator's privilege. As a consequence the whole thing is
bugged, because I have applications requesting updates, which will no longer
work unless I download these updates, and ultimately my computer is broken and
I am powerless to change anything since I am locked out of it.
It is like teasing me. Here is a
computer, but don't dream of using it, this is a privilege for the
administrator, whoever that is. I don't know who came up with this great idea
of creating user accounts and an administrator, but we should shoot the guy.
Thank you for locking us all out of our computers and render them completely
useless. At this rate, I might consider an Apple, as long as it is impossible
to lock us out!
You can tell this is the end of the
day, and that I am forcing myself to write just so the last 20 minutes might
pass faster. I'm so bored and tired, I need to get out of here. All my bosses
are still here, usually the director and the wife leave at 3 pm and my main
boss would still be here by the time I leave at 5 pm.
They must be struggling for real
with the marketing of that conference. I bet I could help them a lot, however
they are not asking for my help and my success rate recently has not been that
great, as he reminded me today in our meeting. So I guess I should let them
play with the database, and stand far from anything that they are doing. I
should soon enough start working like crazy again, you'll see.
Now that I have a bicycle, and that
I will be home almost instantly, perhaps I should stop at Taco Time or
McDonalds. Especially since I know I will get my check tomorrow and that I will
have access to the money instantly. Now I am not so poor, and I will be able to
use my pay check to pay for my apartment, instead of using my debit card from
In fact, being unable to reach Stephen
at lunch time is the reason why I will now deal with this cashier check for my
rent tomorrow instead of today. And I only realized later today that this was
great since I will receive my pay check tomorrow anyway and I would have had to
go to the bank a second time, and complicate my life to get the money via
My only mistake was to lose
patience over this impossibility to reach Stephen when it was supposed to be
like that. Where does this leave free will? God knows, and I don't care, time to
go home.
30 November 2005
Shut up! Don't be a wimp, you are
here now, for quite a while, just accept it and move on with your life
C'est étrange. It is strange what
happened yesterday after my meeting. I thought it was the end of it, my boss
told me what he had to say. He basically told me hang in there and I will find
you something to do, let's forget the past mistakes. And I kind of went through
a second honeymoon which lasted since yesterday and will probably finish today.
They paid me for the Thanksgiving
holiday, when I should not have for the first month, and now my boss smiles to
me again and she talked to me about paying her to get her car, some sort of
huge SUV Lincoln, that my ex-boyfriend in
And the woman in HR is nice again.
I can usually tell what the weather is by how her good morning sounds like. If
she smiles, then the bosses like me, and if she barely says hi, I know
something is wrong. And she has been dark lately, but since yesterday 3 pm, she
is nice again. So it is nice to be in their good grace again, even though I
have not done anything to deserve this.
It is more that perhaps they
realized yesterday that I was ready to go back to