Taking it on the chin

So I've been having a little trouble with my job - nothing major, just eagerness and high expectations being slowly squished by reality - but it's been eye opening.

After a few days of drooping energy, my Nicarguan colleague, Eddy, called me over into the office nook, where he looked hard at me.

"I'm worried about you," he said.

"I'm just... It's just... And then... And you know how..." I replied, eloquently.

And Eddy began to rant.

This is real life, he said. Real life sucks, he said. Real life REALLY sucks. And you can't let the suckage of real life get you down, you have to just bite down hard on the stick you put between your teeth so you don't bite off your tongue and you get on with it. People, he said, people will always try to screw you, keep you down, hold you back. That's just the way it is.

All of which whooshed me waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy back to a time when, wandering the graveyard in which Diego Rivera (but not Frida...) rests his communist head for eternity, the guy I had been dating said sadly to me that the thing he hated most about Mexico is that Mexicans (his words, not mine) will steal the bread from the mouth of their starving neighbour. This was, he explained, his reason for deciding to walk away and move to Texas the next month. (Which he subsequently did, never once looking back with a flicker of regret or nostalgia.)

Watching Eddy set his jaw and furrow his brow and stare me down, pupil to pupil, that morning, I realized that Eddy would have agreed with my ex. Eddy, scratching and clawing his way up to a promising mid-level consultant position in Mexico - that was entirely his accomplishment. No one gave him a boost, an edge, a toe in the door. His wife and children follow him here because here is a step up from there, but this step is only one of several for this man determined to take on the world with eyes blazing.

I cried while Eddy talked to me, but perhaps not for the reasons he believed. Yes, I was frustrated, and, yes, I had spent a large part of the two days prior on the verge of or giving over completely to frustrated tears, but that morning... that morning I cried for how sad I found the assertion that life was a fight to the death with everyone around me.

Am I naive? Is that how it works in Canada?

I have lived in a bubble in many ways, spending my life up to the point of moving to Mexico in the high intensity but relatively barrier-free world of theatre. Never seeking to be an actress (and therefore never really going through the harrowing ordeal of being too fat/tall/redheaded/freckled/whatever for a role), I coasted through academia and producing judged only on my ability to write a grant proposal and balance the books. As a producer, people came to me hoping I would give them work. Opening nights were flurries of promises made for future projects, egos petted, friendships and business relationships exploding and coming together.

Ok, so, admittedly, this... THIS... is my first taste of the corporate world. I've just decided to up the ante a little by trying to play with the boys in a language not my own, in a country famous for its machismo. So I honestly don't know where the cultural line should be drawn here, if at all.

But I am baffled and I am lost.

I'm not implying that glass ceilings and nepotism and whatnot do not exist in Canada, for they most certainly do. Without question.

Nor am I tempted to glorify my homeland by crossing my fingers behind my back and earnestly repeating that we are brothers who believe in opportunity and dignity for all. I have taken direct hits from a woman terrified that I was gunning for her job (I was, although not immediately), both personally and professionally, and it's taken some time to come to terms with the fact that this woman was actually, actively trying to hold my head underwater and that that's okay. It happens, that's just how it is.

But this overarching sense of having to watch your back at all times? That I don't remember.

I'm hardly the only one experiencing some frustration at work, however much we may respect the company as a whole. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about promised opportunities failing to manifest and bosses who just don't seem to care so much about the dipping morale. I do, however, seem to be the only one who actually believes that the General Manager's door will fling open someday, and out will pour fluffy bunnies and rainbows and gold coins for all; the majority of my fellow malcontents seethe and plot and resent, and periodically check their backs for dagger handles.

Is it me that's naive or is it my culture?

When you come from a land when there government will top up your income if you're not earning enough, perhaps you do end up feeling snug and cosy in the idea that someone has your back. Everyone may not like me or support me, but I rest comfortably that I am guaranteed my chance and only my personal level of effort and skill will decide if I progress or not.

Back in Brasil, my Mexican doctor said to me that it made him sad knowing that one day he would have to choose between his ambitions and his country. It made me sad too, at the time, as I have always believed my country is all about enabling me to reach my goals.

Perhaps we're both naive, me and Canada. Ask the native boy growing up in Kapuskasing, Ontario whether Canada is all about supporting us to reach our true potential.

I like naive. Naive is bolstering, naive is empowering, naive is "you can be anything if you just want it badly enough."

Naive is struggling right now at being told that there's just no room for her to be all that she can be.

Naive is sad at the fact that this country might be full of people who feel that the cards are stacked high and mightily against them, and that only with bloodied fingernails and lost teeth do they ever have a chance of rising above their Now.