When I started, everything seemed smooth. We were made to meet our American boss (let’s call him Mr. X). We were warned about Mr. X before, about how “odd” he was, but the first meeting went well nonetheless. He gave this speech about how we were supposed to love our jobs, how we’re supposed to work hard, because it was all going to pay off when each of us had laptops and cars and big houses. Then I was introduced to him: name, position, and sexual orientation (What’s up with people introducing you to others and indicating your sexual preference? “Hey, I’d like to introduce you to my friend. He’s gay.” Why can’t they just add your interests, like in those personal ads? “Hey, this is my friend. He’s into reading, travelling, and removing benign cysts.”). After the introductions, Mr. X told me he’s OK with gays, that he has no problem with them. (Umm… do you have to say that if you’re really OK with gays? The way he said it was equivalent to this: “Hi, Morgan Freeman, I would like you to know that I’m OK with negroes.”)
A couple of months later, I found out what made our company different from other companies. We had eviction nights. I found that out when our boss asked us to write down on a piece of paper what we loved about the company, what we didn’t love about it, what we liked about our work, and what we didn’t. He said we should be honest because he wouldn’t mind. While writing down my honest answers, a co-worker who’d been there a few months earlier told me we were having another eviction night. The next night, our boss met with us to have our answers read aloud, and to point out by yelling that we were wrong with our honest answers. A co-worker who wrote that she thought the managers were rookies was yelled at because she had an attitude problem. I was yelled at because I wrote that I didn’t like the politics and the mind games. He told me that I should resign. I didn’t.
Weeks later was another eviction night. We were divided into three groups: the first group being good (I was lucky enough to be in this group), the second group on the fence, and the last group the ones being evicted. Actually, they were asked to opt for a pay cut or get evicted. Half of them chose to get evicted (with severance pay), and others chose the pay cut, intent on proving themselves worthy of being in the company. They never did prove themselves. Weeks later, they belonged to the same group and ended up shedding tears. This should be longer. But since you said we should keep our essays brief, I’ll end this here with a couple of paragraphs more.
One time, a girl was asked to leave when she reported for work with her hair wet. Apparently, you haven’t meditated enough yet to consider yourself ready to get right down to work when you’ve just had a shower. We’d also be asked to leave if we didn’t have a schedule of all the things we were going to do for the day (9:30PM-meditate; 10:00PM-call whatsisname, bring up the contract; 10:13PM-role-play with colleagues in order to close a deal!).
Another time, we were interrupted from work because in 12 minutes, we had to send our boss a YM message explaining why we loved the job, and how serious we were in succeeding in life.
I started there with 30 or so people. When I finally resigned, there were 8-10 of us left. Why did I resign? Well, we were bonding with our boss one morning and he was making jokes. It was past work hours already. It was a fun meeting; he wasn’t in a bad mood. He said something and I joked back, asking him to buy me a butt-plug. It was funny (but you had to be there). The more conservative people aired out their yuuuccckkks, paired with laughter. My boss also laughed. The next day, after work, he sat us down for another meeting. He pointed at me and told me I was singing for an hour during work. Apparently, one cannot do a good job if he/she is singing along to songs on the radio. I told him I couldn’t have been singing for an hour; that’s just impossible! That’s like singing along to two albums with bonus tracks! And then he said, “I’m a multi-fucking-millionaire and you ask me to buy you a butt-plug?!”
In my head, I said, “Oh Em Gee! Why is he bringing that up? That was yesterday’s tea! It’s now cold and uninteresting!” Then he talked to me one-on-one and offered me a pay cut or a severance pay. I chose to stay that day. But the next night, after much thinking, I told him I was leaving. We fist-bumped and I never saw him again. About two days later, I learned that the deal I was working on got closed. That should have been a slap in his face because I managed to close a deal while singing along to songs on the radio! A week later, I heard the company was dissolved. I didn’t get my commission. And none of us was able to buy laptops, cars, and big houses. But what’s crappier is that we held this Big Brother kind of job, with eviction nights and all, but none of us gained celebrity out of it.
