The end of the Paris episodes (I hope)

Well - it was almost anti-climactic. No big fights, no drama, nothing. One of the mercenaries, who lives nearby called 3 minutes before 8 saying he could not pick up the phone last night because he was in a meeting (nobody in the entire history of Alcatel has ever been in a meeting at 10 pm, mais passons) claiming that he had left me a message that Diggler was going to come this morning. He is coming as well, he told me, and a few minutes later he was indeed there at the same time as the friendly, round faced mover guy. I told the mover what I wanted to have shipped and where, the Mercenary helped me with the boxes while worrying about whether or not his German superior would show up in time to pay the bill. To his - and I confess, my - relief Diggler showed up half an hour late. He did not know I was going to be there, so I thought I could play up the suprise factor. I hid behind the kitchen door while I was making some tea and as he walked in he went straight for his crony who was standing across the hall so I was not instantly visible to him. This gave him a jump, and then I instantly asked him if he wanted some tea as well. He was surprised and confused and then said that he did not expect me to offer him anything, but that he would take it. I told him that I was a very civilized girl and handed him his cup and after this point I merely ignored him as he was moving around the leaving room looking to print out Tom's passport (he did not find the printer, which we put in a cupboard below the kitchen shelves) and negotiating the moving details with the French guy.

I chose to be calm and cool and ultra-civilized because I wanted my stuff shipped and did not want to fight this fight for nothing. I though that it would be hard because I would get so angry and pissed off as soon as I saw him that I could not contain myself. To be honest, I was not. Perhaps it was in part because I had worked myself up so much during the night and the previous days that I was out of steam by this morning. I also did not get more than 2 hours' sleep last night, which numbed me to, so I was just pacing up and down the flat, like a zombie during that painful half hour while these two bastards were there. Ultimately - and interestingly perhaps - when I saw Diggler (for the first time since this whole saga got out of control) I did not I see the despicable yet suave and evilly glamorous gangster of mafia movies or even the petty, hateful small-time crook of daytime soaps - I saw a pathetic, spineless creature who was so embarrassed by my presence and unoffensiveness that he could evidently not wait to get out of here. At least, he signed the 1000 euro cheque without batting an eyelid and I got rid of them pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the mover guy kept going up and down, his forehead gathering more and more sweat in the suddenly hot Paris summer.

Aftre the deed was done and they all left Ernest, Thomas' Australian PA arrived to an empty flat. The guy is very friendly, he has studied medieval and renaissance history in Australia (go figure) but has spent the past few years doing menial jobs in various countries in Europe and the US. We went out, had a nice lunch and shared a bottle of rose. Lack of sleep, mental exhaustion and the wine, combined with the heat turned out to be a lethal combination: I started running amok in my neighborhood and bought spent a lot of money on various cute items of clothing that I don't really need. I feel a little sad for leaving this place even tough I never particularly felt attached to it while I was here. Recently though, I have been feeling more at home: "my" fishmonger, fruit seller, optician, drycleaner, etc. all started recognizing me and greeting me on the street when I walked past them. That is nice and today I almost wanted to say goodbye to them but then I decided that it was probably down to too much alchol and excitement that I was getting so emotional about people with whom I never exchanged anything other than goods for money and couple of kind words. Perhaps it is true that you only realize what you have once you have lost it, no matter what it is. Perhaps I am just a snob and I am only sad because I found an article in the New York Times about "my" street this morning, which made me think that it was really cool to live here for a while after all... (http://travel2.nytimes.com/mem/travel/article-page.html?res=9B04EEDF1F3AF934A15751C0A9639C8B63&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fTravel%2fDestinations%2fEurope%2fFrance%2fParis)

It has been relatively quiet these past two days. No big news - Diggler did not respond to my letters demonstrating that he is a liar and a crook, but I did not really expect him to. The one major ongoing issue is that of the movers - he thinks I am still in London. Since Cina told me about this I have been a little worried that I might come back to the apartment at some point and find Diggler or one his cronies packing my underwear into big bags...but that has not happened thankfully and if all goes well I can get my stuff sent out of here tomorrow morning without unwelcome interference. I do lock the apartment from the inside though - just in case.

So instead of dealing with this crap I decided to go on a culture/art/flower therapy. Yesterday I went to a Matisse exhibition, a very small one presenting his late work: stuff that he painted during the ten or so years after he had almost died and today I did a day-trip to Giverny, Monet's old house that has these amazingly beautiful gardens featured in many of his paintings. The weather was beautiful and I felt a bit like while I was travelling last year. I had to deal with the little menial challenges of the road: as I was about to jump on the train to Vernon, the small town in Normandy just next to Giverny, my sandal broke so once I got to this sleepy town spent about 45 minutes trekking through the streets barefoot to find a shop that was open. I forgot that in the country shops still close between noon and 2 pm so it took a while before I found the one supermarket that was open anyway where I could conspicuously exchange my broken shoes for a pair of cheap slippers.

OK! At this point, as I was drafting this post Cina showed up informing me that Diggler was going to show up tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. with the movers. I knew the f*ckin quiet was justquiet before the storm. Damn. I have been serenely packing my stuff and was almost done but now I just do not know how to handle the situation. The problem is that even though he has no right to throw me out of this apartment and I have every right to tell him to fuck off or even call the police (which was the useless piece of advice I got from Tom on the phone to me from some loud strip club in Budapest where he is having his stag night right now) but I don't see myself involving the police. Ernest, Tom's personal assistant, a chirpy Australian ex-cook just texted me that he could come over but of course there is no train that will get him here on time. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Cina's first advice was that I should leave with instructions as to where he should send my stuff and come back a couple of hours later once he is gone. But I feel that I need to stay just to make sure that everything goes to the right place and he doesn't screw with my stuff. Besides, this is unheard of, a violation of my privacy, an intrusion into my life, all that but this intellectualizing does not help me. The bastard will be here in about 7 hours and I am stuck as to what to do. I wish I was freakin' Uma Thurman from Kill Bill (the movie that has accompanied my packing) HELP!!!!!!!!!

Dallas in Paris - Part II

So I went, saw and - instead of winning - got kicked out of Alcatel. Friday morning, as planned, I went to the offices as required by my contract. I had not, to that point, received any communication from anyone that I was no longer needed on my project. Just before lunch, I ran into the Mexican bitch who as usual was wearing a skirt shorter than the prostitutes I had seen the night before on a dark alleyway behind the Galleries Lafayette. She asked me why I was there to which I responded that I had not been officially informed by anyone that I did not need to be there but that as soon as I was I would leave. She told me she would send me a message and I went down - for one last time - to Alcatel's elite French cafeteria. As soon as I returned to my office, I began to draft an email to the project managers notifying them that I was no longer working for them and informing them that I would leave all documents in their offices. While I was drafting this mail, and literally 3 minutes after I arrived upstairs, the woman stormed into my office and threatened to call security. I was obviously - but perhaps un-perceptively - shocked about this, as there was no legitimate reason whatsoever for her to do that. Just for a minute I was tempted to dare her to do it but then I chickened out and merely told her that I thought it very unprofessional of her to ask me to leave without asking me to do a proper handover and that I was doing that exactly to make sure that no documents go missing and no disruption is caused otherwise. On my way out, I went into her office, returned the laptop that I had received from Alcatel to the other manager - a fifty-ish, friendly Canadian with a slow wit and the looks of an anteater - sitting in her office at the time. I apologized to the anteater - he had always been stupidly nice to me and is a decent albeit not exactly upstanding guy - and told the woman that I thought her utterly unprofessional, completely inappropriate and that I hoped never to see her again. I was very proud of myself that I managed to remain calm and civilized despite the huge lump I had in my throat - a natural physiological reaction to the stress caused by the treatment I suffered. What I really wanted to do was to slap that stupid woman's face and tell her that she was a sad cheap old whore who despite her pathetic efforts probably couldn't even get laid anymore and that I knew where she could try her luck if and when she would be out of a job...but I didn't. It feels good to write it down though!

I then spent the afternoon calling lawyers, discussing the story with Tom and the others over and over again - but really it felt so unreal and I kept wondering how on earth I could have gotten mixed up with these people: people I didn't know existed in real life and I certainly didn't think I would ever have the dubious pleasure to meet.

It gets worse though.

After a nice weekend in London, where I went to a couple of parties and I could not help not giving pretty much everyone the story in a nutshell I went to Tom's flat, which is also the "London office" to find out that I, along with Nicolas and - get this! - Tom have been dismissed for "gross misconduct" by Dirk Diggler, the biggest scumbag on the face of the earth. (Calling him D. Diggler is an offense to the movie character. He only deserved this because of the identical first name - based on reliable sources it has come to our knowledge that Tom's nemesis is far less well-endowed with respect to his nether regions than the protagonist of Boogie Nights...) Needless to say, the letter that he sent to me was basically a series blatant lies. The same was true for the letter he sent to Nicolas. We both responded - I disproved every single paragraph in it, as did he. The most preposterous thing, however, is that he attempted to dismiss Tom, which he can naturally not do considering that Tom is the owner of the company. These little details do not bother DD, of course. Meanwhile, the mercenaries continue to keep their mouths shut and believe (do they really?) the malicious lies that DD is spreading around about all of us.

At this point, I am trying to set the record straight with respect to my position. In my letter, I rejected the dismissal and informed him that in any event it would be considered "unfair dismissal" by any employment tribunal. Tomorrow I will also be sending my resignation letter. Either way, he is obliged to pay me four weeks salary, which may or may not happen but I am very tempted to (a) whistle-blow on him at Alcatel (I am encouraging Tom to do that) and (b) report him to the National Insurance authorities in the UK where he fraudulently obtained a national insurance number based on a fake employment contract and fake proof of residence (he never spends any time there), (c) report him to the French labour authorities, tax authorities and any number of other authorities (and boy, do they have authorities in this country!) that I can get in touch with. Of course, (b) and (c) would hurt Tom as well, so I probably will not go for it. But I will threaten to, just in case.

Oh, and tonight I found out from my friend Cina, an ex-employee who is still speaking with DD that he asked her to call a professional moving company to have my stuff removed from the apartment here and have it sent to me wherever I may be. (He thinks I am still in London.) Of course, he cannot do that because I am a named tenant in the rental agreement and - again - the Frenchies are very particular about these things: you cannot through anyone out without at least one month's notice. I think I will let him do it anyway, and have the f*cker pay for my moving costs. What he doesn't know is that he will have to pay lots of money to have lots of stuff shipped to New York because that is where I will be spending the next couple of months starting in the beginning of July.

I was and still am pretty stressed out by this all. Last Friday was bad, as was yesterday. By now though, I feel strangely removed from it all and can see this for what it is: an unfortunate and unpleasant, yet ultimately insignificant and strangely educational episode of my life. Ready to move on.

Those middle-aged, egotistical idiots in Bermuda were one thing. The 50 year-old insurance broker from Kentucky was a strange creature - albeit an interesing cultural experience considering that I rarely, no, never had the chance to have a two-hour discussion about US and world politics with a bona fide Bush voter- for thinking that there was a remote possibility that I would be willing to sleep with him. Ultimately, I didn't care because throughout my time spent discussing social security and gay marriage with Mr. Kentucky, I had already meta-communicated with the extremely cute, 20 year old, black bartender that we could have some fun that night. (Of course, the feminist in me says that we, women, should be more ruthless and tell presumptuous old as*holes to f&ck off more often...but then, that wouldn't be feminine or nice I guess and that is sooo important...)

All this, however pales in comparison to the other presumptuous, 40 something f*cker that has made my life a misery in recent days and weeks. So here is the story as I know it to be true and there is not ending yet - happy or otherwise - but considering the state of the affairs I feel I need to document the events.

I have two bosses: Thomas H. and Dierk T. Tom is my friend's fiance, a couple of years older than me and a pretty friendly, straightforward guy. My other boss - whom I already talked about before - is 42, a child of the 80s a complete spinner and someone who blows hot air at a rate that it would dry Whoopi Goldberg's hairdo in a couple of seconds. Until recently I thought that the guy had a serious psychological problem exhibiting all the symptoms of a hypomaniac with a narcissistic personality disorder: pathological lying, no sense of reality whatsoever, megalomaniac tendencies, outrageous spending habits, sleeplessness and sleeplessness-induced alcoholism, etc. In the last couple of weeks I understood that he was also a crook in the strictest term of the word. He essentially took Tom - the founder of the company - for a ride, has been taking out hundreds of thousands in unauthorized distributions and has charged (often double-accounted) tens of thousand of euros worth of expenses.

The story is perhaps banal. Young guy wants to become his own man, trusts older guy whom he takes on as a partner because the older guy has a client that they could poach together from the firm that they both worked at previously. It was perfect, because Tom had worked at the client, knew them inside out and was able to do all of the actual work. The client was Alcatel, and one particular department of that company for which we were "providing our services" - unbeknownst to us, the employees, in more ways than one. The reason Dierk could so easily poach this client were his world famous contacts, especially with a woman, an ex-consultant that used to work for him and who presently is co-heading the department in question. (Whether or not he is still sleeping with this woman is almost irrelevant, or the icing on the cake, so to speak, considering that in the past they apparently had a great arrangement whereby he made her a rich woman through semi-legitimate(?), untaxed consultancy fees paid by his former company.)

On its face it was a fairy tale setup: new company, constant cash coming in from one high-paying client, everybody will be rich and happy in a couple of years. One guy doing all of the actual work with the stable cash-flow that provides for unpressurized business development that Dierk was ostensibly doing to build up the company using his gazillion business contacts acquired over long years as a high-level manager of various other companies. Few months pass by and young guy notices that older guy is taking out cash. Lots of it. More and more. Of course, there is no shareholders' agreement, no board meetings, barely any legitimate employment contracts - it is all a matter of trust and flexible business handling, as advocated by Dierk. Thomas starts freaking out, doesn't know what to do and basically ends up seeing lots of lawyers, accountants and other professional advisors who all tell him that he is in trouble, big trouble, ie he is being screwed over big time by his partner. Meanwhile there are no other clients, "business development" has led to nothing and the only thing you can find by googling Dierk are hundreds of articles written by a medical doctor by the same name on - how ironic! - the effects of various anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs. No trace of Dierk, the businessman, anywhere; neither his brilliant business carreer, nor his stellar consulting record appear anywhere. I mean, there are more websites about my best friend's dog than this guy. In a desperate attempt Tom goes to see the client and asks them not to deal with his partner without his presence. Naturally, the lady client - who by the way likely still gets "gifts", to put it mildly, back from her company's payments - closed ranks with Dierk and that led to Tom's discmissal from the client's site yesterday. In the weeks that passed up to this point there were lots of meetings, official (with lawyers and accountants that Dierk chose not to attend) and unofficial (that he chose to bullshit through) and the bunch of overpaid mercenaries (freelance consultants is the term they use to describe themselves, I believe) that he has hired to work for our company just let him bullshit through with no further ado. I am not necessarily blaming them (my colleagues with a mercenary attitude) in a way: I don't know how I would react if I was making 10 to 20 thousand euros a months for very little work.

As it is, however, I have been supporting Tom in the background for the past few weeks. I lost a lot of sleep over it because my fundamental sense of justice tells me that this is just plain wrong. I haven't even given the full story: not mentioned the unpaid and blocked salaries and all the other crap that has been given to us over the past few days. This man, Dierk, is the most despicable creature that I have ever encountered: he is a crook, who shirks responsibility every step of the way, blames others at all times, no matter what, steals, lies, fabulates, thinks laws don't apply to him; never says anything straighforward, never writes down anything that could be held against him but carefully "documents" certain lies that he imputes as statements to others, makes promises that he has no intention of keeping, blackmails and bluffs without basis, disrespects respectable professionals, and meanwhile tries to act friendly and charming, a real snake.

I have tried to be professional and civilzed. But this morning I became a victim, it would appear. He posted a message on our internal company intranet website (supposedly inaccessible to the client) a message insinuating that Tom is crazy and asking us to let him know that he should not jeopardize the client relationship. At this point - this is my father's education, I guess - I could not leave the message alone. I knew that the mercenaries wouldn't say anything and he has already successfully managed to blackmail the only other supporter of Tom's away from Alcatel for the week. Therefore, as a response, I posted a message saying that perhaps he would have better luck contacting his partner if he reinstated his rights to the intranet (he had blocked him the previous day) because I didn't think that that was an appropriate way of dealing with the situation. An hour later, when I attempted to log in I found that I had been blocked as well. When I attempted to ask him about it he waived at me and then sent the client woman after me who then asked me to leave and go to the company offices because apparently I suddenly was not needed on my project anymore. He did not send me an email, look at me or talk to me at all. I found out that he took my post off and posted a message to the rest of the people saying that I was further endangering the client relationship (why, I ask, considering that it was an internal message and not a very threatening one at that). No word from him or anyone ever since though so as far as I am concerned I am still in employment and have every intention of going back tomorrow morning to Alcatel. If there is one thing I remember from my father's and his friends' tactics against the communists is that by playing by the laws and regulations (my employment contract in this case) I can trouble them more than by adapting to their "illegal" and illegitimate actions. So this is where I am right now. I will go back and not walk away with my tail between my legs. I have nothing to lose, but a job that I don't want anyway and they have a lot to lose. So we'll see who wins. I have no illusions but I need to see this through. For my self-respect and peace of mind. Wish me luck!

Bermuda

Back in Paris after spending a few weeks jetsetting around: London for fancy wedding, New York for hanging out and Bermuda for enjoying the "high flyer life".

Weddings are difficult to do right. This one started with a pretty long ceremony in an orthodox church (she is Romanian, so I guess that's why), depressing as ever with lots of hymns and a bit of A. de Saint-Exupery to boot. The reception at the Dorchester Hotel made up for it though: it was a fancy yet tasteful affair with just the right number of people, right kind of drinks and food and great dancing music. The bride's $10,000-dollar wedding dress was amazingly beautiful, as was she and the whole event was elegantly cool, as is my friend the groom.

My favourite city in the world is still my favourite city in the world. Not much more to add - good to see the friends, the brother and the New Haven relatives (who are sweet as ever). Fingers crossed I might be able to go back soon for a bit longer.

On to Bermuda then... I only spent a few days there, but had ample opportunity to practice my social skills that are in danger of becoming rusty here in Paris...The place doesn't feel like a real Caribbean island mostly because - around this time of the year at least - it is solely filled with rich, middle-aged American and European men attending various useless junkets. My friend, Andrea, has been invited to one of these (a fund management conference, which - perhaps predictably - was one of the less glamorous affairs...) and I tagged along as her missus, so to speak. I planned to pass unnoticed, but being pretty much the only women under 40 we attracted quite a bit of attention.

In some cases that attention was welcome. After a whole year I decided to go diving again for the first time as a certified diver, but I was a little insecure about my abilities so I was relieved when a friendly, fatherly 60-ish Swiss man, an experienced and enthusiastic diver volunteered to be my "buddy". I had a bit of trouble sinking in the beginning, but after 15 minutes or so I was starting to feel very comfortable floating among the corals and was looking forward to seeing the shipwreck we were meant to be visiting. To my surprise what seemed like only a minute or two later I noticed that all the others were way below me and that my buddy is pointing towards the bottom and is pulling my arms with all his strength trying to get me to go bakc down. At that point I understood that without realizing it I had floated to the top and I also noticed a bit of brownish water at the bottom of my mask. For a moment it crossed my mind that the brownish water might be blood from my nose and that perhaps I should panic and go up because I made a terrible mistake but then I convinced myself that everything was ok and a sound in the back of my mind told me to breathe out like a maniac and focus on getting down as soon as possible. With the help of my new friend I succeeded and we stayed down there for a while longer without seeing the wreck itself unfortunately. When we came up I faced up to the fact that the brownish water was indeed a bit of bloody water and that I did f&ck up a little. Nice Swiss man explained that it was not my fault and I should put on more weight next couple of times and as long as I am inexperienced.

(to be cont...)