The Cambodian office culture I’ve witnessed is slightly different. Yes, there is a water cooler, but is located right by the men’s toilet, meaning that whenever someone has to go, you can hear. Never mind that doors are only ever half-closed. Then, there are my colleagues. Amazing young people, hailing mostly from the province of Kandal. When I taught basic ESL classes to my colleagues on Wednesday mornings, I used the opportunity to learn a bit more about who they were, because casual conversations seldom take place, probably because they are too shy to speak to me. I’m a foreigner, and I’m a girl. I get a lot of giggles and occasionally the receptionist will tell me that so and so has a crush on me. Never mind that they are married and have a baby. Anyways, in these classes I’ve learned that most of them are the first to go to university, are one of several siblings, continue to go to school and work, and have families of their own. Many of them barely make more than $200 a month, yet have in their possession two things: the desire to learn English and a snazzy mobile phone.
Apart from my colleagues (production crew and administrative personnel) , the rock stars and singers, and my boss, I have one favorite person that works in that building on Preah Monivong: the old guard. Probably around 70 years old, this bone-thin man always smiles. Not only that, he actually kids around with the stronger, younger guards. Whenever I leave the office on my high-tech vehicle--my bike-- he pulls at the back wheel so I can’t go. He makes about $80 a month and sleeps on a cot in the back room of the lobby. This building is his livelihood. His wife comes around sometimes and they sit together on the floor and eat from a little plastic bag of rice. It breaks my heart. Occasionally I bring him leftover Chinese dumplings, a bag of bread or some fruit from my house. He always thanks me kindly and gives me a little pat. Although language is our biggest barrier, we communicate by sign language, and well, charades. I act out being sweaty and hot (or just show up sweaty and hot), going to eat lunch, sticking out my hand and pointing up if it’s going to rain, etc. I brought him back some cute chocolate-reindeer from the States and I swear he did a Cambodian jig. Life is hard for some Cambodians, and it is written all over his wrinkled, smiling face.
Sometimes, we get visitors in the office! Sadly, they are never young and good-looking.
The other day this tall, leggy man, of the same nationality as the original baguette, stepped into the office to have a chat with my manager regarding procuring additional business for a local television station in the Penh. To my delight, this way too naturally tanned skinny twig with manicured nails had the most amazing French accent. As the two figured out how to present a proposal to UNICEF and UNDP, I had the delight of listening to how in FRRRANCE things are done, because in FRRRRANCE this and that. At one point he turned to me and said, “I knooooow you. We met at a bar.” I blinked twice. I think I would have remembered him. “I don’t think so,” I smiled sweetly. He shrugged and continued to explain the innovation of streaming documentary snippets in video-text.
No matter where you work in the world, it can happen to you. It happened to me on the day after I returned to Cambodia, and I have to admit it wasn’t as wholly unexpected. When you work for a private company in an unstable (those some claim, what is now a stabilizing) economic and political environment, things just happen.
It kind of all went down like this:
I fly back to Cambodia to be let go. My boss informs me she is starting a new company and would like to keep me on as her assistant producer, under which our film will be released. Wait a minute? Was I just fired and re-hired? Maybe. Technically, the new general manager at our company fired me. It was my first time being let go, and I can honestly say, I rather enjoyed the whole process. For some reason, as I sat in the conference room, trying to look apologetic, as if I were the one that was doing the firing, it struck me how comical the whole situation was. As a foreigner, and rather generously paid by Cambodian standards, I was an expensive asset to the company, an asset viewed more as a liability when it came down to the bottom line. This of course, I’ve known for many months, but still, one doesn’t like to be let go. Nevertheless, there I sat, with the GM to my side, explaining downsizing and restructuring, or rather, trying to explain these concepts with me actually providing the key word phrases for him.
“I understand, completely,” I said, beaming at him.
Anyhow, to my surprise, upon being let-go I had unknowingly entered the world of alliances. No, this is not some Harry Potter wizarding alliance or other medieval game of make-believe. “I support you always, if you support me,” He said. Who can say no to that offer? Of course, a master at diplomacy (a characteristic I’m beginning to detest), I do the polite thing and just nod my head. Alliances? WTF?
Enter stage three. It seems the GM is eager to match me with a fellow ally… A Thai media company, where he knows some people. While it strikes me as odd that this man I’ve only known for oh, less than a month, is eager to place me with a new company, I am grateful that he is taking my firing so well. I’m not loud, or obnoxious, or call them out on multiple violations to my contract, for I know, enforcement of a contract in a world lacking governance is as valid as getting married to your best friend when you’re five.
In the meantime, GM seems to be more worried about my well-being than I am. I have a job— I’m a less than part-time reporter. I have skills, the most important one being, I speak and write in English. Plus, in this world I hold the neocolonialist advantage of being a foreigner. I decide I must join this alliance game for a time, just to see what it’s all about. After all, how many 24 year olds get to form alliances outside of Facebook Mafia Wars?
Stage four goes something like this:
3 missed calls… I finally pick up: “Can you come to the office today at 3pm? I will take you to my friend.” Oh. Okay. Why not? Does one need to be wearing a suit to meet an ally? Too late for that. At least I put on earrings this morning. At 3pm on the dot (Note: It is rare to be on time in Cambodia) GM comes and finds me and we step into the SUV and I’m whisked off for some alliance-making. As the car tumbles out of downtown Phnom Penh, past Northbridge (school and country club on the outskirts of the city), I contemplate possible scenarios:
- I’m really being kidnapped. I have in my possession a perfectly working ibook G4 (purchased on E-bay several years ago and slightly dirty so never go for white), a cheap NOKIA phone (worth considerably less than every other Cambodian’s phone), and my life (which I value the most). I will be raped, murdered, and left for dead in one of the MAERSK containers covered in mud in one of the shipping yards we just passed by.
- I will meet this person, be offered a job on the spot because I speak English. I will be offered a driver, body-guard, a diamond-studded phone, and VIP access to all of Phnom Penh’s nightclubs. The driver is on account of the difficulty in finding this work place on my own should I have to start work on Monday.
- It really is an interview. Damn. What have I done in my two and half years of work experience so far… I review my resume in my head and think of big “media” words.
We reach the location. It’s not a major media complex. Just some Chinese-style houses put together. Once inside though, the place is maze of staircases, high tech production rooms, conference halls, kitchens, computer rooms, and people (gasp!) working on Colgate toothpaste ads. What did I expect? Certainly, not a full-blown media company in the middle of nowhere.
The interview goes well, though the entire time I’m wondering if I should be pitching the job, or apologizing for the GM’s over eagerness to sell me off to them as he sits in the same room as me, while I’m being interviewed. I am asked to explain multiple points on my resume, which I do rather well yet that fact that I’m not wearing shoes really bothers me. (In most Cambodian homes, you take off your shoes when you walk in).
On the way back to the city, after bestowing my gratitude (honestly, I think I could qualify for the Neutral Olympics), the GM hits me with this:
“You take job, we help each other. You work for (past company) too. I cannot pay all. Then, when I have money, I take you back.”
Translation: If you take this job that I am essentially making my friend give to you, you will be indebted to me until the end of time and therefore will have to work for free for me in the meantime, until I convince the CEO to take you back… All smiles and laughter. I didn’t quite nod at that one.
In a way, I had just experienced what it is like to be an international organization: A foreign pawn in greedy local hands. Not that the GM is greedy, because he is not. He is simply interested in advancing the company he works for and he sees me as one source for advancement. I on the other hand, did not come to Cambodia to sell toothpaste and Chinese-made cars to a population with a disturbingly growing income gap. I am interested in the role of media in developing countries, and this is just another side of it: the mass commercial side. It is times like this that make me wonder what I am doing here. If life really is about fate, coincidences, and the choices we make, than why did I end up in country where I cannot speak the language fluently, cannot actually produce a commercial or documentary, and cannot be bribed to form alliances? One thing is certain: The answer remains unclear.
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