05-23-2021, 12:14 PM
Hi Project,
this is the second email I’m sending you and it is the chronicle, almost hour by hour, of my day, that is, the day of a 31-year-old gay guy, who fortunately has been working for two years in an business consultant firm. If one wants to understand how a not unsettled, not depressed, not distressed gay guy lives, it is good to read this diary page.
Monday May 17th 2021, wake up at 6.30, shower and breakfast, reordering of papers to take to the office. Today I have to work staiying in person in the office, because with the covid we take turns. I pack my computer, cell phones, the one private and the work-phone, which I must always have with me, and leave the house at 7.25am. I look at my private cell phone to see where I parked my car, put on mask and carry the hand gel with me, lock the door and go to get the car. It usually takes me 15 minutes or more to get to where my car parked. Fortunately today it doesn’t rain and it’s not cold. I get in the car and open the radio on Radio 24 – The Sun 24 hours, a well-known channel dealing with economics and not on another channel, because if there are significant news at least at hypothetical level, knowing them in time could be very important. Usually I can escape the worst traffic, now, with the problems of covid and smart working, traffic is less crazy, but there may be surprises. If I’m 10 minutes late leaving the house, I get late at work.
8.15 am - I enter the office, the boss is already there with an avalanche of cards on his table, I greet him with a nod and enter my room, because I have a room to myself. At 8.30 am I’m already at work. My work is parallel to that of the boss, I mean that, when we are not overwhelmed by stupid jobs, that in any case end up mostly to others, the boss exposes me a problem he is working on and puts me to do legal research about it. I try to do things in the best possible way but many times I stop because I don't know how to go on and so I have to contact the lawyers consultants of the firm, the notary or other experts in very particular sectors depending on the work we are doing at that moment. The office has a very good secretary, whom I’ll call Daisy here, she answers the phone, filters the calls, puts them on hold, informs us of who called and what the customer wants, before passing the communication. Fortunately, I usually get a few phone calls, but when the important tax deadlines approach it is a bombardment, there is not even time to breathe.
8.45 am - I find a possible solution for a problem on which the boss is working now, but I know that I have to give to him a schematized report, with all the legislative and regulatory references. I get to work preparing the report as required. I finish at 10.13, a bit with my heart in my throat, because the boss always calls me at 10.15 sharp to clarify the outstanding problems.
10.15 am - I enter my boss's room who is absolutely informal with me but speaks only of work. I give him my report, he reads it and tells me: “Yes, but you have to make the customer accept this and you have to make him understand that this way he pays more but avoids any risk. How to deal with him it's up to you! If you convince him you are good professional, but you have to convince him."
10.20 am - I call the client, I explain the matter to him technically, he absolutely doesn’t want to accept, he says that we don’t know our job (which is absolutely not true) and that "another business consultant told him that the problem can be done in another much less expensive way ... "I answered the objections in a technical and punctual way and he said: " Do you really think someone is going to go check it out?" At one point, with my heart in my throat, I told him: "You can do as you want but we cannot engage the firm as consultants and endorse such a thing ..." then I was silent for a few seconds. If we had lost a customer like this, the boss would have killed me, but by now I could no longer pretend that I had not said what I had said and I could not even change my mind, because the credibility of the office was at stake. In the end he replied: "Oh well ... do as you like, I don't want trouble anyway, and remind dr. ... the story of the Bank, he knows what it is." I told him: "I'll prepare the documents immediately and you can come and sign them whenever you want." And that's how it ended.
At 11.10 - I enter the boss’s room and I nod him that it went as we wanted, I was expecting at least a thank you, but Daisy had just passed him a very important phone call and so he beckons me to leave.
11.15 am - I prepare all the documents that must be signed by the client and they are a mountain. Here there is no coffee break, there is coffee that comes from the bar and they bring it directly to your desk with a croissant, because you don't have to waste time anyway. At 13.00 the whole file is in order for the hundred thousand signatures it takes. The client should come and sign but he doesn't. At 1.30 pm I should go to lunch with my colleagues in the pizzeria below, but there is the covid and people cannot eat inside and the place has no outdoor tables. So lunch too arrives directly on your desk, in essence it is lunch time but you must work also at lunch time. At 1.40 pm I remember that I didn't tell the boss that our client wanted to remind him of the bank problem, I call him with an internal phone and tell him and he just answers: "Tell him I'm working on it."
2.00 pm - the client arrives, I take him to the meeting room and I submit the documents to him, he doesn't even read them, he signs everything blindly. He asks me if I reminded the owner of the Bank problem and I say with a very reassuring face: "He's working on it."
2.15 pm - the customer leaves. I begin to eat my lunch but the boss calls me and mentions the question of the Bank. He gives me two phone numbers of very important people and asks me to contact them directly on the phone and remind them of the auction date, then he gives me other minor but very complicated assignments to manage. I just reply: "Ok!" and I go to get to work.
I work until 19.10, I should go out at 19.00, but before I leave, when the boss has already left, I get a call from one of the two important people I had notified about the auction, who tells me that he wants to be called back "immediately" by the boss. I call the boss, but he doesn't answer, and it's strange because he always carries his phone with him. I decide to go look for him and I reach him before he goes up to his house, he sees me and gestures to me as if to say: "What do you want?" I tell him about the phone call. He looks for his cell phone but cannot find it, his face is terrified, he sends me running to look for it in the office where he thinks he has left it and takes my work cell phone. I rush to the office and his cell phone is actually there, I bring it to him with the utmost urgency, he has a much calmer face now. He hands me back my phone and simply says, “Thank you! But now go! " And I go home.
9.45 pm - I get home and finally open the social networks. Two of my friends want to go out with me: Dominik and Luke, a gay couple who is very nice to me, I call them because I would love to spend the evening with them, but they are already out with other friends and have already had dinner.
10.00 pm - I warm up the leftovers from lunch, watch 30 minutes of television and then go to sleep because I'm dead tired!
This is a real day of my life. You can tell me that there is nothing gay. But when you have to work, you can't think of anything else. To the boss, the fact that I’m gay or not in absolutely meaningless, he just wants us to work and there is not even time to breathe, but this situation also has advantages, at least at an economic level. I live in a house that I am paying for and for me it is essential because I no longer have to stay with my family, assuming and not granted that mine can be called family.
What's gay in my life? There is a lot of imagination. Now I’m building my foundations, and then it will come "maybe" time to have a partner. I say maybe because it might very well not happen, partly because of the stressful job, which I can't change if I want to finish paying for the house, and partly because I'll only get in love with a guy only if it will be something very important and reciprocal. The half solutions I don't really want to take them into consideration. If you start off on the wrong foot, you are screwed! I don’t like at all situations of adaptation, maybe then it will happen, but right now the idea of a compromise on the emotional level I don’t really accept it at all.
Am I happy with myself? Yup! Clearly! Am I happy with my current life? No! But I think things will change. If I found a guy who suits me and above all who really loves me, I think I would change jobs to be with him, even if there is anyway the question of the mortgage. However, working at the pace of now, the mortgage times can be shortened a lot. This is my reality and I have been very lucky, I am perfectly aware of it, I just don't have time for psychological problems.