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 Ottawa told me on the phone yesterday to forget about it.

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 London and that, until I had paid for my apartment, for me it was relatively risk free to leave now. I must have frightened them, it must have looked like a threat, which was not my intention. I only wanted to offer them the chance to correct their mistake if they had thought for one second that it was one.

I wonder now if requesting this meeting was necessary or just a waste of time, and god knows the consequences of frightening them like that. I think they thought I was so committed already that their aggressive management style would work fine on me. I'm stuck here after all from their point of view.

I think they suddenly realized that I could leave and go back to London at any time, even, I was kind of considering it right now. It was a wake up call, and they moved from putting pressure on me to work harder to being nice again and wanting to help me get a car without having to go through a credit check and all that stuff. They will probably feel safe again once I have paid for my studio apartment, but once again they should realize that I don't mind losing $2,000, and that if it becomes necessary to move back to London, I will at any time.

I am also a bit worried about paying a certain amount of money every month just for a car, when I could spend $2,000 right now for an old one and not have to worry about it except perhaps getting it fixed once it breaks down, which will be soon I suppose. You get what you pay for and I should have learnt my lesson with the bicycle, I should have bought a new one. Well, my salesman here at work told me that at $80, I could not go wrong. So perhaps it was worth it.

I kind of again feel uncomfortable at work, I'm not sure why. This feeling that I don't have something clear to do. Well, I should be identifying the right people to call, but I have trouble doing that, it is difficult for me to start. I'm just afraid that suddenly something will happen, I don't know. It is weird.

I hope I will get into gear and forget to worry about everything. It would be nice for a change. It is all a state of mind. And this morning when I cycled here, suddenly that question of if I really wanted to live here came back to me, if it was a mistake and all, and I told myself quite firmly: shut up, don't be a wimp, you are here now, for quite a while, just accept it and move on with your life. And that second voice at the back of my mind was so powerful, that I think I will listen to it right now and get back to work.

I'm afraid that my ingenious plan to hide what I am writing might not be adequate. I just re-opened the Excel sheet and it opened right where I was writing, Column DZ, Row 503. Not only that, if the Black guys knows about this, from the beginning, then I am definitely giving away everything I am writing. And I have very vague hints that it may be so.

I am also worried that when I delete certain files from my history, it might be going into the Recycle Bin. And I don't have access to the Recycle Bin, so I cannot delete them for real. However I'm sure the Administrator has access to that bin and can quickly see what are these files that I am deleting, which are obviously the files I don't want them to have access to. At the same time, it is possible that I am really attracting attention to them by deleting them.

I am becoming obsessed with these Big Brothers measures (I used to write in French in my files, and it was less worrying), and I now really hate Microsoft for having made it so easy to spy on us like that. I am going to do a huge research on the Internet, I want to know everything there is to know about how employers can spy on their employees and how I can go around it. So for now I will also hide the columns. He might not think of that one and not realize that some columns have disappeared.

No matter how much you are trying to plan your day, as soon as it depends on other people, it can all change. I almost walked here this morning instead of taking my bicycle, thinking I would be dropped home by one of my colleagues after seeing the preview film with Jodie Foster tonight. She is sick, so now I'm not so sure if I want to go alone. I was supposed to have lunch with the West Hollywood guy, but I just had to mention having to go to the bank and he reported everything to tomorrow. I wonder if he too will have a lot to say about management, like my valley girl. Especially that he is right under the director, and also has meeting with the boss.

He does not look affected by anything, he looks all right and happy. And for once I would like it if he were to tell me that everything is fine and that he loves it here. However he always says that he is very busy and he has no time to do anything, and this is why he has reported lunch many times already. So he must be under pressure, that he does not even go to lunch. I look forward hearing his story, I wished I would have heard it today, but I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Destiny is re-organizing my life out of my control, for the best

Once again I feel quite weird in the office this morning. I know I will meet my boss and I don't know how the meeting will turn out. She might have decided certain things after speaking with my director and her husband. I'm sure the director would not have told her that they should keep me. And her husband could have decided just like that, that it was perhaps preferable that I leave. Ultimately she does not need their word, apparently she is quite the business woman and could decide on her own that it was a mistake.

The director was not here yesterday, he's back today with his deep voice. I'm glad I'm not working with him right now, I know I will work with him in the future, I know he will be patronizing and there will be conflict, that alone convinces me that it would not be a bad idea if I were to go back to London.

And then, right after saying that, he followed me in the kitchen and tried to be nice. I was a bit ashamed to tell him that I went to Universal Studios during Thanksgiving, and he made it clear he disapproved of it. He appears to be kind of anti-tourist or commercial himself, and wrote books about the old history of Los Angeles. I think he mentioned that before, but I had the time to forget. As if I am so freaked out, I am unable to retain anything anyone tells me.

So we discussed Vincent Van Gogh, which really could not have been better since I really feel a special connection with this painter. I went to St. Remy de Provence in France twice in my life since I have a friend there, and this is where he was interned in a mental institution and painted most of his great paintings. He also lived in my town in England, Isleworth, and there is a blue plate to remind us. He was not painting yet at that time however. Not sure if talking about Vincent might have changed his opinion about me.

I thought he had a discussion with my boss today about the meeting, and that he was doing an extra effort today to be nice since I am after all considering going back to London. And I would certainly do so if in any way my boss tells me she feels she has made a mistake. However I have not seen her this morning. I thought I had heard her voice but I must have been dreaming.

Today I am having lunch with my valley girl. Tomorrow it will be the West Hollywood guy. I might learn more right there that I have ever learned in my one month alone in my corner.

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 them 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 West Hollywood guy, he seems to be the perfect employee, always smiling and happy, never in any trouble. I look forward to hearing his story. Might come late though to have an impact on my staying here or not, as I might get my check for the rent this lunch time, and even if I were to wait until tomorrow, we will go to lunch after I got the check.

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 arrives 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.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! 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 thing 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 Los Angeles while I can, or should I stay for another four months and see how it goes? At the risk of destroying my relationship, losing my job in Parliament Square, losing the apartment in London if Stephen comes over, etc.

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 works fine.

My Spanish friend, the one in telesales, is actually from El Salvador, from the main city San Salvador. She is however not related to Gloria also from that city. Apparently there are many of them out here, and she said that not everyone was as Patriotic as some people from El Salvador. 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 with 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 U.S., that we should no longer make any distinction between what we are supposed to eat for breakfast or for lunch. And she is losing business, because I am not going to buy one of her three layers sandwich which cannot fit into my mouth, with chips on the side which are not barbecue, my favorite.

Shit, 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 users 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 England, which was complicating things.

In fact, being unable to reach Mark 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 London today. Well, there must be some destiny involved, it will not even allow me to make a mistake, it will force the events to make sure everything is maximized in my life.

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.

Should I stay or should I go? Can such a question be asked about L.A.?

I'm back at work after thanksgiving. I feel better than last week, but I still need to somehow speak with my bosses about if they feel I should continue or if I should just go back to London before it becomes too complicated for me to do so. At the moment Stephen is still there in London, the flat is still there, my old job is still there as it was confirmed this morning by my ex-Manager.

I did not contact my old employer to find out if my job was still available, they contacted me. A message about a speaker on my conference, the Minister tried to get out of speaking at the event and pretended I never confirmed her. I had a letter signed by her own hand that she was glad to speak at this event. If I wanted a proof that politicians cannot be trusted, here it is.

My ex-Manager was asking at the end how it was here in L.A., so I told her I was not too sure if it had been the right decision. I did not mention my mistakes, my personality conflict, and that perhaps they would be happy to see me go back to England.

I was walking to work this morning thinking, I could lose all that. I was wondering however what it is that I would lose, but again I did not have the chance to visit too much and in fact, I don't know what it is that I would lose by leaving now. On the opposite, I was thinking about being back in London, taking the train every morning with the same people. Going to Westminster and work in Parliament Square, and you know what, it did not feel like it would be so bad. And not only that, I would appreciate it fully now, because before I had no idea how somewhere else it could be worse. But yeah, it is the lesser of two evils.

Despite all that, going back to London would not be right. I cannot see from my destiny's point of view what I would have gained by coming here for a month. It is obvious that what it is that I need to experience has not yet happened, unless what I had to learn was here where I am working, and that I have already learned it. This could have been learned anywhere in the world including London, so why L.A.? There is something else I need to experience, other people I need to meet, something will happen soon, I just have to be patient.

And now, I still need to have a conversation with my bosses to find out if they wish me to stay, because of course it is not only my decision. They would probably be surprised to hear that I was considering going back. I'm sure for them my month has just been business as usual, while for me it was quite an eye opener. Then again, every time I tried to understand what was going on here and what was to be expected of me, I have been wrong. So I should not presume to know best.

It is 8h53, I know my boss is working on my file, so I don't have to worry too much if he does not come to tell me what to do yet. He will soon. I will have to call the industry and get some feedback from them. I also need to record them on tapes and transcribe everything that is being said. I just hope I can do that fast enough, sounds like another task which could take me forever. I think I will go and buy myself an egg sandwich in a minute, since I have to wait anyway. I will have to be quick though.

This weekend I went to Universal Studios, only because it was actually the closest tourist attraction. I just had to jump on the Orange Line, and at North Hollywood I had one more Metro station to go. The whole thing took me one hour, it would probably have taken me 20 minutes with a car. I think it could have been worse, without the Orange Line.

This surface metro line has opened on the exact day that I have arrived in Los Angeles and barely just reaches me. It is quite a coincidence. Without it, getting to downtown Los Angeles would take me two full hours if not more, instead of one hour and thirty minutes. So they are getting there, they are trying to sort themselves out. Distances are simply considerable compared to a place like London or Paris where everything is concentrated in the same area.

Well, I got an annual pass at Universal since it was the same price as a normal ticket. Without it I would not have gone in because I was too late and it would not have been worth paying that much. I did the usual stuff, Terminator, Waterworld, Back to the Future, Van Helsing, Shriek. The most interesting stuff, and new stuff in my case, would have been below, but it was too cold and windy for me to go anywhere, especially visit the back lot. I ran from attraction to attraction and I left quickly, I was freezing.

On my way back in the shuttle there was a family from around here who came to visit L.A. during Thanksgiving. They said they spent three days at Disney Land and one day at Universal Studios. I could not believe it. What do you do for three days in a row at Disney Land? You queue for hours everywhere and end up doing nothing of your day? They have so many attraction parks here, I don't know if I feel like visiting them all. We'll see.

I'm not sure how I will succeed in speaking about my situation in this office with my bosses. The wife's boss is definitely avoiding me, it is embarrassing. Why? Why would she avoid me? I can understand, considering what happened last week, however I have no clue about what is going on in her mind.

Is she avoiding me because she feels she did a research and contradicted my findings, and now she thinks I could feel bad about it and she does not wish to speak about that? Or that she would hope I would go back to England and does not know how to say so? In which case, I really have to speak to her soon, before I pay for my apartment. I just don't know how to approach this and who to speak to exactly, her or her husband?

I am also falling asleep at my desk, and really there is no reason to, I went to bed at 10 pm last night, I had 9 hours sleep. I find it frustrating that even after drinking a whole pot of coffee, I just cannot wake up! I feel like hitting myself in the face until I get out of my dream state.

A door just slammed, I am not sure who did it and why. There could be other things going on that I am unaware. The second most senior conference manager did not look very happy today in the kitchen. I admired him for his nice personality where nothing appeared 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 put 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 the exception.

I have not done anything this morning apart from preparing that letter requesting a meeting. I feel bad about it. I could not go and see my boss, I know he is working on that file. He will come to me once he finishes and we can move on with this.

Now I understand she was busy, she had to go and collect the kids in school, and they have other worries like the renovations of the second office, etc. So I should not read too much into the fact that we will only meet tomorrow morning. However I wonder if she simply wishes to talk about this further with her husband tonight? It is quite possible. They had a one hour meeting together immediately after I sent my email to her, however they could have been talking about anything else.

I am wondering, is there any way they could turn around and tell me: thank you for your reports and services, and have a nice life back in London? It seems so improbable, that I really wonder why I requested this meeting. As Stephen suggested, he thought I wanted out, and it was my way to announce it to them. Which is not the case either.

So what is it? Just reassurance? Why? Because I feel a bit uncomfortable, because I am in the dark, I don't know what they are expecting of me? The problems with the director, has it developed into a massive mountain or is it forgotten?

I guess the meeting is still a good idea. And you never know, maybe they think they have made a mistake with me and will be thankful for me to give them the chance to stop it all before it goes any further. It would be surprising, but it is possible. Tomorrow could be my last day not only in the office, but also in Los Angeles.

I just went to get myself a coffee in the kitchen. The Black guy kind of asked me weirdly if I was OK, the same thing the wife's boss asked me before she left. I had something in my eye when she came to me and I hope she does not think I was sort of emotional about all this. It would look very bad indeed. It would also mean that all emails I send to my bosses are being read by that guy, and he is also being told about everything that is happening in this office.

I would not be surprised either if the woman in charge of HR, payroll, etc., also has access to all exchanged e-mails. I might never know about that for quite a while. It would make sense, since if both bosses are out of the office, someone would need to answer urgent messages. So not only it is not possible to speak in this office because we are all sitting over each other, but on top of it sending an e-mail to anyone is like copying half the company. So I’ve got to be careful, no secret can be kept here.

Finding happiness and being a positive force of nature

I would like to apologize to my readers, I have been obsessed with this director’s business and it seems that it is all I’ve been able to talk about. It is also a problem I had in certain of my books. Thankfully my fictional stuff is not about me.

My father, my biggest fan, told me that sometimes he could not bear it anymore, my long speeches about how terrible people can be at work and how none of them appears to have read the right books about great management skills.

And the other half of these books is about my inner misery which is a direct consequence of the first problem, which makes my sister not want to read me anymore, as she says death comes back at every page.

I wanted to become positive, happy people, but I guess that if I am not happy in my professional life, I cannot pretend that life is some sort of utopia where living is just breathtaking.

I think I don’t know how to have fun anymore, I’m not sure I ever did. I read some other blogs about how these people used to go out all the time, take drugs with their friends from college, and have the best time in the world.

I don’t remember any of the parties I have been to, not sure if I have gone to any parties. Well, I suffered a lot at some parties anyway and I could not wait to get out. And I certainly never took drug. No wonder I’ve become an old maid before my time.

I should have just jumped on coke or heroine, just like everyone else around here. Though it is in their past for most of them, I guess it was a necessary rite of passage before reaching adulthood and happiness.

I would imagine there are a lot of these cocaine parties in Hollywood every night. Or other soirées filled with actors and directors and producers. I know some people who would be willing to kill to go to such parties. I don’t, I’m actually afraid I may be asked one day to attend one. Worst, I could be obliged to go.

It would look too much like a conference where you need to be on your best behavior, and that, when you are the producer, is the most boring place on earth. Hell, I even refused to go on tour or speak at conferences to promote my books, though right now I would welcome that if I did not have a full time job in parallel.

Which brings me to the great existential question which is: what is it that could actually make me happy? I sometimes play this game of asking myself: if you could choose right now anywhere in the world where you would like to be, and the perfect and ideal circumstances you would like, what would it be? I asked myself these questions many times, and the odd and only answer is that I would not want to be anywhere else with any ideal circumstances.

I must have lost the will to live. And no success or being famous could change that, I’m afraid. I had a taste of it with my published books, even if none of them made it to the bestsellers lists. I still have many fans and receive emails from them. I just now take it for granted and it has no impact on my happiness.

Shit, 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 LA with a good salary, what the hell is missing? What is it that will make me happy?

To isolate myself alone on a mountain somewhere, I thought it would be the solution. However it would not make me happy, it will just stop me from having to put up with all these people every day that I just cannot stand. It would be more like a relief. So it is not really a solution to happiness.

Now, how could someone who thinks like that ever write positive and wonderful things? How could I free myself from this negativity and start being impressed with nature and everything surrounding me? How could I ever make other people happy when I am myself ready to pull the plug? I will never, I am doomed.

I wish I could identify why it is that I feel this way. Is it because I am gay, different, marginal? Have I suffered most of my years in high school, being bullied, to the point that it destroyed my will to be alive? Is it because I have started to write like a machine when I was ten years old and it took nearly fifteen years before I was finally published (of course, existential crisis is not your usual topic for a bestseller)? Is it because my parents separated many times and eventually divorced? Is it a mix of all of that?

I feel I was born this way. Like being gay. I was destined to live an unhappy life, in deep existential crisis. And it is more philosophical than anything else. I don’t understand who we are, what is our place in this world. I cannot comprehend this universe we’re living in, or if there is a purpose to our existence.

I had long a time to think about it, to write about it, to talk about it, to read about it, and I’m still nowhere near an answer. Just as I predicted, Los Angeles will not be my salvation.

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 Gloria will become my friend, I would like that. She is very funny.

I went to McDonald with Gloria and her son yesterday after work, the girl from San Salvador, the one who baby sits my bosses’ children. Apparently everyone is given too much work and are questioned when it is not done. It appears to be a management trick to get people to work harder. I suspected that much, I feel better now that it has been confirmed.

It means that they only pretend to be disappointed and to be expecting more in order to throw us into panic mode so we work harder and harder, even at home. I also believe that even if they were impressed or happy with your 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.

Gloria’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.

Gloria 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.

Gloria said that it was typical of this director to either like you or loath you, and he was rude to her brother, as he is rude to me. She said that she could feel how patronizing he was with me, so it was not in my imagination.

She blames it on the fact that we are foreigners, so I guess to be French-Canadian, as far as my director is concerned, is like being a Mexican or someone from Central America. Great, racism, and perhaps also homophobia, which certainly does not help my case.

I never suffered discrimination for being French, it is the first time I would suffer from racism that I am aware of. Well, there have been a couple of instances in the past where I did suffer from racism, but I won’t get into that now.

I guess when you are flooded with Mexicans (when in fact I feel that this town belongs to Mexicans and it is the Americans who are flooding it), French-Canadians can be put in the same bag. Mix it all up together, add some onions and make a nice salad 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 Gloria 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 Gloria 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 Gloria’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 Gloria on my side, I may stand a chance.

Last day in the office before thanksgiving and my chance to visit L.A.

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 London where I used to work, however it reminds me of my old daily routine in London every morning for the past year. The sandwich is also three times more expensive, but I don't mind. She is nice and we need to support her and her shop.

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 Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways and utility right-of-ways."

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 London, and I hope that it won't be too late then.

I truly feel like I love him, even after 10 years together, which is quite amazing. I really miss him and suffer more from his sufferings than my own. It is not the first time I do this to him, I left for Brussels a long time ago. History definitely repeats itself in my case, however maybe this time around it will actually lead me somewhere interesting, with happiness at the end of the tunnel.

This morning I thought that if anything was going to happen to me in this lifetime, it will be in L.A. Not only that, I thought that I could not possibly have lived this life without having lived in Los Angeles for a while. I need to integrate this in my experience, use it in my books. Even if this is just for my own satisfaction that I led an interesting life, beyond anything I was even dreaming of when I was just a teenager.

Now, what I don't understand is why I still have the same feeling of wishing to be hit by a car? I think it is all down to the people I have to deal with on a daily basis. Since forever I have always been unlucky and had to survive quite a huge bunch of horrible people making my life a misery.

Not sure if there is something I need to learn about this repeating pattern, to love the devil perhaps, learn to not be frightened of the dark side, but I sure failed at every level and I will again. Meaning that I will be stuck repeating this pattern over and over again until I die. At least the scenery changes after each five to ten years, now I am in L.A. How nice to suffer like hell in so nice a city! It makes it almost bearable.

Los Angeles, Film Industry, Depeche Mode Concert

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 Staples Center. Could not find a ticket on craigslist under $100, which was well located for me to go get it. I contacted a few people, they have not contacted me back. I finally decided to take the bus and buy a ticket from a tout.

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. Shit, it would have been so nice.

So I spent the night watching Depeche Mode videos and debating with an Indian in India why I think the speed of light is relative and not constant, and why I believe we could go faster than the speed of light. I wasted my time explaining that there are no real barriers and that many things are already going faster than the speed of light from our point of view. How geeky and sad can you get?

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 England. I know I will go over these hurdles and things will eventually stabilize. I hope anyway, that’s the plan.

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 Los Angeles.

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 Los Angeles then, I tell you.

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 Westminster, Intelligence not Required. No one has ever read it yet, I finished it less than a week before I moved out of Westminster and London, less than a month ago.

I investigated tonight where I could put this blog, found Wil Wheaton’s blog and LA Blog. They don’t recruit. I cannot use any of my other websites, I could be too easily retraced. Not that I am saying much anyway, but I could hurt the people around me and change my working relationship with them beyond saving. I can’t afford it, everything at the moment depends on these relationships, which are going down the toilet anyway on their own.

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 Canada is just another American State, as I said before, they had access to it.

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 U.S., when they call, is to sell you something, even the very thing you just bought. That could revolutionize capitalism actually, great concept. It could save America.

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 London, a few years ago, we destroyed it so badly, they never released it. Rosanna Arquette as Marylyn Monroe, no wonder it was never released.

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 London. Anyway, I had nothing to say.

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 L.A., everyone know the name of every actor, they have seen every single film on the market and every television series. You can talk about all these things as if they had a life of their own. It is after all their main industry, perhaps their only one. So this is serious business.

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 L.A. which was not related to cinema or television. I guess the odd one will always exist. They must be the only conference company in town, in the whole state of California in fact. Still, I’m here because of them.

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 L.A., I know you have seen this film), when the guy reaches the end of his world at the end of a road, and suddenly the walls are electronics, like on a holodeck in Star Trek. He suddenly realizes that his reality is not real, it is a virtual world.

Well, when I rented that car and decided to follow Sherman Way all the way to the end, something strange happened, something so unexpected, I thought I was actually in a bad movie. One where people are in a car and the background image is a loop, and the same things come back over and over again.

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 Paris and London for far too long to not be stunned by such an artificial way of building a city. These straight roads forming a perfect battleship grid, is heartless and sad. Especially when there is no character, no architecture, nothing to make it different from the next block or other area of the city. All right, perhaps this is the suburb after all, you can’t expect too much from the suburbs, but my, even the suburbs in Prague don’t look so clinical, aseptic and devoid of life.

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 Sherman Way, and build something else which would go in all directions, like this blog, like my brain. Of course, you don’t have to do that right now, it is just a suggestion, you can dismiss it, I will just have to avoid Sherman Way. I’ll take the 101 instead in the future if I want to reach North Hollywood.

I think Los Angeles needs a bit more anarchy in its town planning and architecture. Funny, I’m working on a conference about PPP, something which probably is meaningless to you. It is however something Bush has talked about many times, guess you only listen to him when he talks about wars or elections.

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 Europe whenever we wish to see anything worth looking at.

Sorry for saying it, but I think London is a much better city to live in than Los Angeles. However, don’t worry, Los Angeles is a much better city to live in than any city in Canada.

Of course, I did not have the time to start living in L.A. yet, I’ve been stuck in the Valley for a month now. And my failure to get out of it tonight to go to a Depeche Mode concert makes it even worse. In time, maybe I will get to appreciate L.A. as most others do, I hope I get the chance.

I screwed up 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 L.A. I never thought I would say such a thing, but sometimes any kind of encouragement would go a long way to make me feel better. I am in a constant state of flux, thinking they will turn around any minute to tell me that I need to go back to England because I am inadequate.

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 and suicidal? 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 very bad at her job and has not confirmed one single delegate in three weeks. I'm surprised that she is still here to be honest. 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 L.A. had a great impact on so many start up companies in the U.S., this is something to be proud of (even if it was achieved in the name of profit). So conferences might help get things moving in the world, I just wished I could convince myself of that.

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 U.S. Well, perhaps he should not have asked me an instant report last week then! I have been able to elongate the timeline to Monday, so I would have the weekend to bullshit my way through.

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 Africa, or they were workshops or training courses. I was told by the director to not include any of these in my last research. I did not even have the courage to tell him that. I took the shovel on my head like a good boy, I did not say anything, I was thinking of my survival. Surviving my three days before thanksgiving, that’s it.

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 the bullshit I have written, all those reports, are also completely wrong and based solely on what I think instead of on facts? God this is worrying. I screwed up 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 London at their expense.

Perhaps I should make it easy for them. If I screw up 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 screw up. And I feel I have already past the point of no return.

Oh well, my month in L.A. has been very nice, now it’s time to seriously consider going home. And I won’t hesitate one second. If I lose one month on my lodging to break the contract, I will just have to lose it. And perhaps remain another month here writing full time, instead of working night and days in conferences.

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.

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 England.

I miss London as well, very much. I miss my babies (my cats) and Stephen. He may drive me crazy most of the time, but when he is not around, I suffer. Probably because being alone is not exactly wonderful.

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 West Hollywood who’s been trying to succeed as a writer without success. I am hoping he could become a friend, show me the way, motivate me to write some more, encourage me about what I have already written, tell me that he knows how to sell these ideas and that they are great ideas. I’d rather spend my life writing fiction for films than researching conferences. Especially if you already live in Los Angeles and that Hollywood is around the corner, at the end of my road actually.

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 there days these days, especially in Hollywood.

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 England without a job, and I have payments to make every month.

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 California!

Performing miracles at work and succeeding in Hollywood without getting into debts

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 L.A. again. Not sure yet what I will do, perhaps nothing. I intend to write, to start writing anything, just to feel that I am still alive and that moving here was not all wasted.

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 Hollywood. He came here hoping to live out of his writing, in 10 years he has gone nowhere. This is not exactly encouraging.

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.

What to do on a Sunday when in Los Angeles (barricade yourself indoors)

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 Paris, in London, in Brussels, in Toronto and New York.

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 Victoria (at the very beginning of our relationship), I could not stop feeling this sense of lost and perhaps even depression.

Usually it would subside, though I am certain it would never have subsided in Victoria, my room was too sad. I could not do anything, like at the moment. I become some sort of vegetable and creativity abandons me.

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, Canada being another American State, they could find out that I am no longer paying for my studies and credit card, and that I entered this sort of bankruptcy plan.

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 Los Angeles, but now they have calmed down and I have faith it will be fine.

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 the shiver.

When I started my other job in London a year ago, I needed something to make me forget this reality. I need a similar escape now. I don’t have to take the train to go to work, so I cannot read Sherlock Holmes on my way there. I cannot either disappear in the toilets to read for 15 minutes like I used to in London. There is no escape, my mind is completely focused at all time on that director, my bosses, the uncomfortable situation that I am in and my apparent lack of abilities.

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, Universal City and Paramount Studios. I might even wish to visit the zoo eventually. At the moment it seems impossible, without a car. And I lack the motivation.

I could go to the beach, Venice Beach, Laguna Beach, but until I decide to go there once, it is like it does not exist yet in my mind. And what would I do once I would be there? Look at all these great bodies and feel even more inadequate, alone and depressed? There is a pool here, I should go, can’t even get myself to do that.

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. Cannes, Barcelona, Prague, Budapest, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, etc. If I wanted to live between four walls all my life, I could have remained in Canada. In winter we don’t do anything else anyway, and the great thing is that we don’t feel guilty about it. It’s cold outside, you stay where it is warm.

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 United States, to Los Angeles, right in the middle of it all.

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 Los Angeles, and the misery of an office job. Nothing more.

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 London instead. Then, I would not have learned these new experiences, which basically are that this world is still filled with a bunch of bastards who are ready to spend all their energy to destroy you for no apparent good reason. Great, this is just perfect.

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.

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 London? What are my options? What are his options? It is clear that by now he has identified me as a real problem, and he told my bosses. Another damn Manager with whom I simply just cannot work with. And it is my entire fault. Though he can probably also take some of the blame.

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 we 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 L.A. would help me achieve that dream, so let’s not destroy everything before it actually happens.

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.