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A Letter of Love and Hate
Friday, April 27, 2012 posted at 4/27/2012 12:38:00 PM ♥ 0 comments
I would like to start my new life by ending it with a soliloquy of the past five years.
For the past five years, I've been working for a very prestigious broadcast company. Everyone told me that I'm very lucky to be able to be a part of this company since everyone I know or everyone in my course wanted to work there. It was as they say "to die for". I'm not really sold to the idea that it is worth my life but people I knew working there says that its worth every sweat, tears and blood. Its the first company to call me after graduation. I told myself, "Why don't you try it? You have nothing to loose? You need money and your family needs you." So I decided to accept it. Armed with a little determination and experience from my old school, I enter the company.
Unlike any other people I know who was accepted in the company with ease (backer theory and conspiracy), my entrance with these company was full of toiling and walking on my own. I applied through the internet and maybe I was accepted on the strength of my resume. Somehow I feel proud of myself.
After two weeks of training, me and my cohorts were deployed to our assigned programs or shows. My, my. I was put on a what they call "lifestyle show". A show were designer gods, and interior design lords reign. I did not know a bleep about fashion, home design. As far as I remember, the closest thing that I have on my closet - what I call my fashion statement - are jeans and t-shirts. And the only thing I know about decorating a home was making my bed every morning which also I did very often. Scared was an understatement. I was horrified! I can feel the chill running through every follicles of my hair. Nonetheless, I accepted this challenge. I told myself that I can fare with them. I have my college-production experience on my left and my stock knowledge at right. Nothing could go wrong. Yeah right....
The moment I started with the job, how can i put this? - I was dismal. I'm shocked to the point of awe. My first day was far from decent. But still I managed to pull myself through it all. I told myself - I can do this. I will do this. The next days were worse than my first days. And I can say that every step that I take was a mistake and I really got a taste of cruel, rude world. I experienced being harassed by a old, sleazy jeepney driver while picking up bags at Caloocan City. I experienced being robbed with a man pointing a gun on my head and many other things. And I'm called a lot of words like dumb and defensive which my boss take back come night time. I'm thankful to her. She maybe cold and uncaring but I can tell that she is a very good person. I remember that I cried more than the usual and I spaced out most of the time.
But its not all bad. I made new friends there and learned new things. There was Ana, the boisterous demeanor uplifted me in down moments. Mostly I'm with her, forming solutions, solving problems over food. It was then we concluded that everything can be solved by having conversations with our plates. And Marie, the serious one who is very competent in her job. Chini, whose love for unheard movies really impressed me and Sweet, whose determination was unfathomable. I remember this conversation with Sweet. It was our "dark days". We were hopeless and on the verge of tears. I was giving up when Sweet told me something. "Kung hindi ko lang pangarap 'to, matagal na akong umalis", then lamenting how she really wanted to work there since childhood. I admire her persistence then and now. Sweet's words got me to thinking: Do I really want this?
I worked there for a year and before I left, I learned how to mix paints, do some jewelry and do some fixtures in the house. Up to now, I still carry with my those knowledge that my mother was very proud of me for doing some house chores.
After my stint with a lifestyle show, I applied for a spot as a researcher for a true-to-life drama show. I was excited. Again, I told myself that I could do this. It is what I really wanted. My first day was very good. My eyes scanned what is going to be my new office with glee. I already liked it there. The place, compared to my previous workplace, was crammed with paper. Things were scattered everywhere and ten people were cramming in an obviously small space. But I was happy. I can finally breath.
But that calm was temporary. On the next few years, I never thought that I'm going to experience hell on earth. Should I have known, I would not enter such place. The "Great Depression" and "Dark Ages" started. My bosses, unlike my former lords, were strict and cold as ice in the Arctic Circle. On the outside, they dressed simply. Jeans, blouse, rubber shoes. But on then inside. They were hard core.
With the exception of people, I love the job. It was the kind of work where you can interact with people, know their lives and learn their pain. You can relate with them since you know that you have the same experience with them. You were able to share their joys and their triumphs. And I admire those people. Talking to them feels like I'm being human.
However, when I return to my office world, everything should be cold and calculating. Five years of working there, I feel that I became less of a human and I saw how those well-meaning people evolved to a different person. They become humans filled with hatred, worry and self-loathing feeding from our lord's anger and indifference.
I felt suffocated. Everyday, I had to put on my guard and look out for myself since I suspect everyone will stabbed me in the back. It happened before and it happened many times. On the surface, we were friends. We laughed, ate lunch together and talk nonsense things. But the inside we don't know anything about each other. We tend to discriminate every little thing some of us do. I admit that I was a part of that but at the end of the day, I feel horrible for saying such things.
In that place, I learn to be angry and cunning. Trusting anyone would be fatal and helping someone is a sign of weakness. It got me going for a while but along the way, I cannot hide the fact that I'm still me. I'm still who I'am. With that, I decided that I would return to my former self. I begin to have high hopes that everything would change for the better. And again I was wrong. In that world, then again rise of hatred and people, who is used to that system, cannot abandon their cunning ways. They said that its better to be cunning and rise than to be meek and fall. I follow and it cause me my destruction.
I've been trampled, wronged and accused of something that I did not do. For the first time, I received a memo from my boss. It's not my fault but then again, they need a way out. They cannot blame my immediate boss because its one of their favorites. They cannot blame the new one because its becoming their favorite. I'm the only one. I'm alone to take that blame. But I faced it. I answered that memo and tried to go on with my life. Someone, also from that program, told me that I should not be the one to answer that. I told him, "I don't know. Maybe I don't have that power."
After that phase, I tried to get on with my life. But its too late to realize that it's starting to crumble on my own eyes. Mistake after mistake. I know that some of it was my fault and I'm not denying it. Maybe its so good to see that I'm participating in ruining my own life. And also, I thought, people, especially from that same world. My mistake. I should not have done it. And now that people who I worked for most of my working life are standing on the other side and I'm still alone on the opposite side. Looking back, I realized that all the things I learned from that place were not technical. Its mostly how to survive in the workplace
Tired of everything, I admitted to that faults. I wrote that I would take the blame. The society are forgiving, the people are not. Inside, I'm angry. I'm angry with them because they wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt, I'm angry with myself for doing such things and angry with everyone else from that place. I despised them. No one even talked to me after. They distanced themselves from me. Its from them that I learned that no one will stand up for you but yourself. With a little dignity that was in me, I left. I guess its safer to entertain anger than to admit that I was scared. What will happen to me now?
For weeks, I wallow in self pity. I was depressed (as I was diagnosed two years ago) and crying. I'm still angry. I harbored that feelings for a long time and thoughts of life inducing pain and revenge occurred to me. I take pleasure from thinking on how I'm gonna make them suffer. Rage became my friend. I vowed that I will avenge myself from them. No one knows the pain that I'm experiencing. I'm self destructing.
It took me a long time before I open up the pain. I joined a group that would help me realized that I'm not alone. My mother and my father helped me realized that it is not my fault. For the longest time, I'm feeling awful about myself but I realized, its not the end of me. My family needs me and someone loves me. I've abandoned them to locked myself in my misery. Then it just hits me. I need to wake up from that awful nightmare. It's the first time that I feel good about myself. It is the first time that I value myself more than them. My mother said, "If they don't want you, then you have no business wanting them. Let them suffer on their own." I believed her and I will be forever thanking my mother for that.
Right now, I'm still taking baby steps towards a new life. It is hard not to be consumed by thoughts of hatred but I'm still trying my best not to. It is fine to entertain anger for a while because I know it is a part of life but I wont let it take over all of me. As for the people who wronged me, well, I'm still taking my revenge, in the form of making myself better than them.
