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The ‘one day I’ll show you’ syndrome

published: 2008-11-19

“One day, I’ll show you all.”
How many times do we catch ourselves thinking this? It usually happens when we are treated unfairly, yet find ourselves unable to roll up our sleeves and put up a fight. Instead, we stick our tail between our legs and whimper “you just wait and see, one day, one day…”
I was recently treated to a one-day-I’ll-show-you event. I had rented office space for a relatively large sum of money. The purpose being: to be able to close the door behind me in order to write in silence. This worked for a few months but suddenly my landlady turned against me after I had gone through a really busy phase (remember that Sundance screenplay deadline?). She then started stomping around the office, huffing and puffing, making excessively loud phone calls, inviting rowdy Italians friends over who found it necessary to elaborately discuss anything but work on chairs posted demonstratively right next to my door. I should have decided then and there to pack my things and go, this kind of thing is
deadly for writing. Instead, I desperately tried to reclaim my writing sphere by asking what was the matter. She then screamed at me that I had become an arrogant witch, It was flow she was looking for, FLOW! I think she was drunk.

I tried shrugging it off. But the scowling continued and I started having to apologize for my every move. So a week ago, I informed her that as of 1st January I would no longer be renting that office space. I said it in a friendly way, claiming it was because I wasn’t making much use of it and so on and so forth. I could have told her the truth, but I had become afraid of this woman. And rightly so for she exploded anyway.
She said that in my case (yes literally “in your case”) I had a two month notice to adhere to which meant having to pay up front until february ’09 (???) and then and only then would she return my two month deposit. There was no reasoning with her. It left me no other option than to pack my things immediately. The result being – she has managed to take three months rent from me (the month I had paid in advance plus the two months deposit). And I now find myself without office space, trying to figure out where to write and whimpering, “one day, I will show you.” 
So one day, one day… one day I will write a piece about this woman. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, ha! In it, I will describe how people like her have perfected the art of stealing from creatives simply by treating them like shit. To think this woman even exploits a gallery.






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