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.