One bastard identified at work, inexistent public transport, prison type apartments

Do I deserve so much attention? So much niceties? A company going the next 100 extra miles to help me and even my boyfriend to move to L.A. forever and ever? I feel guilty, so much effort put into my happiness here. I have not exactly been used to that with any of my previous employers, I was more treated like shit in any of the jobs I ever had. What is it that they think they will get in return? Am I worth it? That is the frightening thought, the idea that I might not be worth all the effort.

So far so good, I think they think they’re getting their money’s worth. It is not exactly what their number one employee thought though, and yesterday I lost patience with him. He crossed the line with me, and I was ready to go back to London without even giving it a second thought. Los Angeles is not the end of the world as far as I am concerned, and I have not one single idea about how and why my career in cinema and television could go any further now that I am here.

Anyway, he was freaking out because I knew nothing about the financial world, especially in America. And he was panicking more and more, and went into some sort of crisis every time he understood that I did not have a clue about what was a private equity, a venture capitalist or project management financial plan. I almost shouted at him back that: “no, I don’t know anything about that American capitalist crap, and I have no desire to learn it either!”.

So, what he did after his lunch break, is exactly what I expected he would do. He went back to all the bosses, trying very hard to convince them that I was not only ignorant of everything, but on top of it, I was quite insubordinate. It must have thrown him into a spin, this office is filled with Yes Sir/Yes Madam type of employees. The anarchist ones like me must have left a long time ago, I thought.

So he tried, he then kind of disappeared for the rest of the afternoon, and I was expecting at any time to be put on the side by one of my bosses to let me know I had been out of line and that it was not acceptable. And I was ready to tell them that once again a damn employer had hired an employee without giving him any clue about what he would actually be doing. And that is simply not acceptable. And that if they felt they had made a mistake with me, I would gladly go back to London. And all it would have cost them is a plane ticket, one month accommodation and an immigration lawyer.

The very next morning I had a new best friend, who came back to me sheepishly talking to me with a big smile. In fact I had a two hour meeting with him where he could only speak while laughing. Must have been difficult to appear as appreciative as that, when I know for a fact that an old tree like him must have hated every second of it. He was defeated, I had won. Somehow I doubt this is the end of the problem. Why, oh why, is there always a fucking bastard in every single job I ever had? The one who will work very hard at destroying me at every corner? Why can’t it be simple for once?

Well, he came back saying jokingly that I must be the one person in the world who has worked for every single big conference company in the world, and that I must be unique, that no one else must have that much experience. Could he truly suddenly believe this? Or was he trying to dig again, saying that I simply cannot keep a job? Try to keep a job in conferences for years, in this industry filled with bastards and backstabbers. Oh yeah, I had the extraordinary opportunity to have known them all, to the point where suicide was my only way out. Not counting that a job in conferences is so stressful, rare are the new employees who will remain after six months. They are either sacked because of a lack of results, or they leave because they can’t stand it anymore.

He had finally been told who I was and why it is that I had been imported from the UK to work here. I just hope that his sudden change of heart is sincere, that he now understands the potential that his bosses see in me, and why they are bending over to help me like crazy. Oh god, I hope he is not hopeless and will not play these mind games with me. I am quite prepared to forget this and appreciate him for the man that he appears to be. A good man at heart, with whom I feel I could work with. Somehow, they never change, it can only get worse.

The only other possible bitch, and somehow there is always one in every company, is the woman in charge of admin, payroll and HR. She could easily turn into a monster, she is also in charge of finding out who’s late and who’s sick, and who’s leaving early (30 minutes after the normal hour is considered too early). So far she has been very nice to me, over nice in fact, I could almost believe that she will not turn out to be a bitch. I know better.

I will have to break my back for them, I know that much, and thankfully I do intend to break my back for them. It pays off when you are working for a family instead of a corporation who does not even know who you are and what you do for them, even after years of success. So it might just work.

We went for a perfect lunch with my bosses, Stephen and I. It was to present them my baby, and they were impressed. They want to employ him, perhaps because he made it clear that he would not come to L.A. if he could not work.

He told them that he was quite traumatized by the US custom guy in Toronto. I had to balance that. I said that I could not believe that, despite the hell of the questioning, never in my life of living in all these weird countries and dealing with their immigration bureaucracy, had I got a visa within 20 minutes. I felt it was almost too easy. Of course, this was so only for two reasons: first I did not care if I did not get the visa, I was happy to go back. Second, I knew my case was too perfect despite what he was saying, he would have had no choice but to let me go in the end. He did not frighten me with is directness, lack of respect, patronizing tone, treating me like scum.

I knew the game. It is the game of the prisoner or the patient with a psychologist, who needs to convince the authority that he is a changed man in order to gain his freedom, when in fact he is probably worst for it, for having gone through that process from hell. And if he was not ready before to annihilate the world, he certainly is now, disgusted as he must be for so much crap.

So I was quite calm while the custom officer was getting excited. I had the perfect answer every time. So I got the visa. End of story. However it seems to have convinced Stephen that he will never get his own visa, so he almost decided to not even try.

The true reason however is his six cats, his three tortoises, his 30 fish and crabs, and his two snakes. Add to this his flat that he will need to rent to some lodger, and that is just too much for him.

Also that he is not impressed by Los Angeles, there is nothing here apart from me to motivate him to sacrifice everything at home. He is also convinced that both his parents could die within the next six months. That certainly does not help my case.

I think he will never make the jump. He did not appear that overwhelmed when I told him today that his sort of job interview at lunch time with my bosses had been successful. That they saw him as the new head of the future telemarketing department. God, we are so not ambitious, it is ridiculous, almost a shame in the society we are living in.

So what do I think of Los Angeles so far? Nothing. I have been stuck in my little block in the Valley for five days now, it might as well have been anywhere else on the planet, it would have made no difference.

No car means that we cannot go anywhere. The bus system sucks so much, one passes every hour, if it passes at all, and it never goes anywhere. There are not even cabs in sight, you need to call them, they take 30 minutes to arrive.

Los Angeles must be the only large city in the world without a proper public transport system, and somehow they even got rid of the cabs by preventing the companies from getting licenses. As a consequence everyone bought a car, must be a way to get the economy running.

Finding an apartment is not easy either. The place is either like a fortress and costs a fortune, or it is filled with foreigners and there is so much violence, like random shooting on the streets, that only a desperate person would ever rent a flat there.

Well, I am not that desperate, I have a $60,000 a year salary for god’s sake, I am not about to be shot for no good reason, even though there would be a nice poetic justice to this, considering my state of mind in the last few years.

I would not mind dying on the streets of Los Angeles. However, with my luck it would probably be beatings and robberies, and they would leave me there for dead when I would still be alive and depressed.

So I guess I will have to live in one of these prisons where they charge a fortune for an unfurnished little living room with a bed coming down from the wall.