The plane lifted off. Gravity pushed on my face and insides like an invisible barrier. As the ground slid away, the tugging subsided and the world below faded into obscurity. A chapter of my life flipped shut.
Beginning again, with nothing and no one. It was not a new experience.
A lifetime of lurching from place to place had torn up any roots long before they formed. In their place I had grown legs. First crawling, then stumbling, then running, and now leaping.
Leaping right off of a cliff.
Hopefully my feet would land solid on the other side. In any case, plummeting to the rocks below would be preferable to the alternative; planting my feet in the dirt, closing my eyes and pretending to be a tree. Better to die in the wilds then live as topiary in someone else’s garden.
In my hands I held my future, for better or worse; a one-way ticket across the world. Everything I owned — sold, gifted, or discarded.
Two suitcases were all that remained.
★ ★ ★ ★
My destination was a long way away. Twenty two hours trickled by like cold molasses. One stop in Chicago, then another in Istanbul. I spent nearly six hours stuffing my face full of free samples of Turkish delight. It was not a filling meal, but money was tight, and the gummy cubes saved me one overpriced airport meal.
The final leg of the journey arrived. I popped two expired sleeping pills in celebration. They had the paradoxical effect of creating both a profound desire to sleep, and an unbearable skin-crawling sensation that prevented me from doing so. I writhed in discomfort for the better part of eight hours before finally losing consciousness.
Skidding wheels jolted me awake. I stared confused and bleary-eyed for several moments before remembering where I was. A plane. Rolling into an airport.
Hong Kong.
I shuffled, cramped and jittery, through immigration. My legs moved without the need for any conscious thought. They brought me to the baggage claim.
I waited…
…and waited…
…and waited…
My bags were not here.
My stomach sank as I approached the lost baggage counter. The toad of a man squatting behind croaked out my judgement:
“No bag.”
The staff would have them sent to my hostel if they found them. In the meantime, I should contact the airline directly for any follow up.
No bag.
Everything I owned in the world, save a small sling and the clothes on my back, gone.
No bag.
I didn’t have the money to replace the things I had lost. I had never seen this city before, and I didn’t know a single person I could contact for help.
Truly a lovely start.
★ ★ ★ ★
The air was hot and thick. Beads of sweat bubbled up and rolled down my face at predictable intervals. My dirty shirt clung to my back and torso.
I hung up the phone and stared over the hostel roof at the cityscape before me. As predicted, the call had ended unsuccessfully. Four days had passed and I was no closer to locating my bags.
Each time I dialed the designated number, I was dragged into a labyrinthine game of pass-the-buck. I was put on hold, re-directed, and told to call different parties. Somehow I always ended up at a line with no answer. The only concern anyone seemed to have was getting the problem passed to someone else. I made a solemn oath never to fly Turkish Airlines again.
This was the final straw. Clearly these calls were going nowhere. I had fortunately paid for my hostel in advance, but being unable to change clothes, shave, or properly prepare for my new life was driving me to the edge of reason.
Not that making preparations for my internship even mattered, since the loss of my bags had been compounded with equally appalling news. My training visa, which was supposed to be ready for pick up on arrival, was nowhere to be found. I had sent the paperwork to the relevant company administrator far in advance of the deadline. After grilling her for nearly an hour on another of my rooftop calls, I was finally supplied with the true reason for this lapse. She had only submitted the paperwork two weeks prior. The visa could be ready tomorrow, or two months from now. There was no way of knowing. In the meantime, I would be unable to start work or collect my pay. My already miserly budget would be past the breaking point within a matter of weeks.
Anger and frustration boiled through my veins. I wished I had the company administrator, the airport toad-man, and the entire staff of Turkish Airlines on the roof with me so that I could throw them over.
Enough. This was going nowhere. I wasn’t going to waste another minute with disembodied voices that vanished like puffs of smoke each time you drew close. I resolved to take my problem to Turkish Airline’s only office in Hong Kong; the office which, on a phone call several days earlier, had told me that they exclusively dealt with sales and could do nothing to resolve my issue.
I got up early the next morning and trudged ten blocks to a towering office building. The July sun was blazing and the humidity created a repressive blanket over everything. My clothes were again soaked with sweat by the time I peered into the office window. I’m sure they smelled terrible.
Closed. I looked down at my watch and saw I was early. The office would not open for nearly another two hours.
So I waited…
… and waited…
Finally, the lights flicked on and the door unlocked. I stepped inside.
“Welcome! How may I help you today?” A perky staff member beamed up at me as I approached the counter.
“I need to speak with someone about my bags.”
Her face fell.
“Ah, I’m sorry, but this is a sales office. You will have to direct any baggage or other post-flight inquires to our phone service line.”
“I tried that. It didn’t work.”
I described the endless loops of redirects and unanswered lines that I had been trapped in since my arrival. The clerk apologized again, repeated that this was a sales office, and offered a different number to call. I informed her that I had already dialed that specific number and received no answer.
The clerk resumed her robotic response, “Ah, I’m sorry, but there is nothing else we can do. This is a sales office and—”
“No, I am tired of being passed off and hung up on. Everything I own is in those two bags and I NEED THEM BACK. This is a Turkish Airlines office and you are going to tell me where my bags are and when I can get them.”
Rage had crept into my voice. It was even, but heavy with menace. It was not just the loss of my bags, but the utter apathy and dismissiveness which was snipping away at the last few threads of my patience. It was not only this clerk, but the fact that every single point of contact had exactly the same attitude: “This is someone else’s problem.”
The clerk was noticeably uncomfortable. “Perhaps you can try the number again later and someone may pick up.”
“No. I am NOT LEAVING THIS OFFICE until you FIND MY BAGS.”
My eyes were bulging as I hissed the final words between clenched teeth. By this point, the full depth of my anger and indignation was written on my face. The clerk’s eyes had gone wide in response. Her body was frozen with hands hovering stiffly above counter.
“Ah… Eh…” Her eyes flicked between me and her computer.
“Eh… Maybe I can try calling our airport staff.”
The next hour followed with a series of phone calls. I was only able to pick out bits and pieces, as most of the dialogue was in Cantonese. Despite this, I could tell the clerk was making significantly more progress than I had. She updated me at intervals on the status of the search.
She spoke first with several parties at the Hong Kong airport, who then put her on hold to contact their counterparts in Istanbul. There was a period of waiting as the Istanbul team conducted their own search.
Finally, the bags were located. They were, in fact, sitting in a baggage depository in Istanbul. It was clear from the clerk’s embarrassed description that they had not been on any track to recovery, and could well have sat there for weeks until the local staff got around to sorting them. As it was, they would be placed on a flight this evening, and would be dropped off at my hostel the next morning.
An immense weight lifted from my shoulders. I gave my reluctant savior a heartfelt thanks and floated out of the office and back to my hostel.
True to the clerk’s word, the bags were delivered to my hostel common room the following morning. I felt like writing her a love letter.
I had my possessions back. There were not many, and none were particularly expensive, but they were all I had. Several pairs of clothing with varying levels of formality, my shoes, whose large size made them exceedingly difficult to replace in Asia, toiletries, and laptop laid stacked on my hostel bed. I vowed I would never trust my possessions to checked baggage again. Better to throw away half of the little I had, in order to guarantee the safety of the most important items.
I returned my organized collection to the suitcases and laid down on the bed. Plans and next steps formed and dissolved in my mind. No amount of haranguing company administrators or government clerks would get my visa processed any faster.
Now there was truly nothing to do but wait.
★ ★ ★ ★
Ten days later, the precious document arrived. It had thankfully made good time, as the visa could have taken another three weeks and still been well within the processing window allotted by official estimates. This would have been far too late for my dwindling reserve of funds, and I was left considering whether it would be possible to downgrade any further from my current nine-bed hostel accommodations. As it was, I would narrowly scrape by until my first month’s pay was dispensed.
I phoned and informed the company that my visa was in hand. They reserved a slot for me at an orientation session scheduled for the coming Monday.
When the day finally arrived, I donned my ill-fitting suit, stepped over a drunken backpacker sprawled on the floor, and headed off across the city.
Lybrand & Waters
The name floated on broad glass doors. It looked impressive to the young man standing below. Fresh out of a tier-four university, this massive and powerful firm stood a mysterious monolith; one of the behemoth machines that underpinned the workings of modern civilization.
I pushed my way inside. The front desk staff directed me towards the training room. I took a seat and waited for the day to begin.
Gradually other participants trickled in. Within twenty minutes the large room was almost half-full. As the orientation staff set up their equipment and prepared to start, I surveyed the other suits dotted across the space.
They were all so small. Not just in terms of physical size, but in their age as well. They looked like early college students at most. I might have guessed even younger if the environment didn’t make that seem so implausible.
The awareness made me somewhat uneasy. I was on an internship, but I had come to the other side of the world for this. This was not just a short summer stint to build my resume. I had staked all of my tiny savings on this endeavor. If it fell through, I would be in a truly dismal position. I shifted in my seat, feeling oversized and a bit like a juvenile delinquent in a class of fifth graders.
The orientation concluded in the early afternoon. We were shuffled out of the room and down to a shuttle that would ferry us across town. Our first day would begin at the company’s main consulting offices. My adolescent companions glanced furtively up at me and whispered to each other in Cantonese.
Our group was divided between three small transport vehicles. The shuttles would each head to the different office locations depending on which branch of the firm the passengers were employed with. The consulting services group was the smallest, with barely a handful of suits dotted among the bench seats.
We rode for about twenty minutes before being unceremoniously dumped on a random street corner.
“Um… Where are we?” I glanced at my fellow dumpee’s to see if they had any more idea than I. Most were looking about with confused expressions.
Finally, one particularly stiff looking man-child gave a nasally response, “Ah, yes. The office is over this way.”
Our troop followed his lead across two city blocks and up to a glistening office tower. We arrived on the 31st floor, using our new badges to swipe in. My fellow interns fanned out and melted into the patchwork of open desks and cubicle space. I chose a seat at an open table adjacent to a row of cubicles.
There didn’t appear to be any administrators or reception staff. Everybody in the office was busy at work, with chirrups of Cantonese flying back and forth across the large space. I didn’t see a single other foreigner.
I sat pondering what to do next. My unease was mounting as I realized this may, in fact, be the true nature of the internship I had arrived for; dropped into a foreign corporate office to attempt to scrounge up bits of work from the preoccupied staff.
Unclear about what to do next, I sat waiting for any helpful-looking staff.
And waited…
… and waited…
Nearly an hour had passed. Everyone was in such a rush and so caught up in their own work that it seemed unwise to try and disturb them. Nevertheless, it was my only option. It seemed worse to sit idle, waiting for some savior that would likely never come.
I poked my head over one of the adjacent cubicles.
“Hi… Um, excuse me?”
The woman below was buried face down in a pile of documents.
“Hello?” I repeated louder.
The woman gave a visible jump and swung her eyes up me. “AH!… Wah, you scared me.”
I apologized and introduced myself. After giving a brief overview of my day, I asked the woman if she had any idea as to what I should do next.
She looked between myself and the pile of paperwork on her desk, a sly smile spreading over her face. “Well… I can give you some work to do.”
Unsure of any other alternative, I accepted her offer and sat down to several volumes of spreadsheets on a large-scale property development project. The work was tedious, but it was better than nothing.
After several hours of combing through and adjusting various entries, my host abruptly dismissed me. She informed me that she had an appointment to make and that we would pick up the rest of the work the following day.
An hour later, I flopped down on the hostel bed. I was more than a bit anxious about my situation, given that my current patron seemed unlikely to lead me to any eventual employment. The woman only seemed concerned with using free hands to push a bit of work off of her desk. I had one month. If I couldn’t get an offer, or at least an extension of my internship, in that time, all of this would be for nothing. I lay staring at the bottom of the bunk above me.
Very little sleep came that night.
★ ★ ★ ★
“When you’re going through these, make sure to identify any inconsistencies between columns C and F. I know it’s a lot of entries, but if any of these are off it could create big issues with budgeting for that phase of the project.”
I nodded in agreement and my satisfied master walked back to her desk. Three days had passed like this. I was getting quicker at the mind-numbingly repetitive tasks dumped in front of me each morning, but no less concerned about my predicament. Should I place my bets on impressing this random woman, in the far-flung hope that she would help champion my way to an offer of employment? It seemed a vain delusion.
I was in the middle of pondering what my other options might be, when a sudden noise to my left snapped me back to reality.
“Jack?”
I swung my head around and fixed my eyes on the creature in front of me. It looked like some kind of miserable, malnourished bird with half of its feathers ripped out. It’s voice was more a gobble than a chirp. How did it know my name?
“Yes? I’m Jack. How do you know me?”
The thing’s eyes went wide. “Are you here to see Frank?”
My mental gears turned. Frank was the name of the partner I had harassed for those many long months trying to secure this internship. I felt I had pushed my welcome too far when he started giving sharp, one-line replies to my emails indicating he was too busy for further communication. That had been more than seven months ago.
The week of my graduation, I had been shocked to open an email offering a one-month internship at the Lybrand & Waters Hong Kong office. It appeared to be a generic message template, and I wasn’t sure if Frank had anything to do with it. I suspected he may have passed the case off to a lower-level administrator to handle as they saw fit. As it turned out, this was not far from the truth.
I was not here to see Frank, but I realized that I would very much like to see Frank.
“Yes, I’m here to see Frank.” I flashed a large smile at the decrepit creature in front of me.
“Oh, good. Well let me take you to him!”
My current chaperone poked her head over the cubicle wall. I told her that I was going to see Frank, whom she seemed surprised that I knew. I gave a quick reassurance that I would be back shortly and set off after the strange bird, who I later discovered was called Prudence.
As we walked, I inquired as to how Prudence had identified me. Had Frank sent her looking?
She happily responded that she had heard her boss mention a young foreigner named Jack late the prior year. When she spied me from across the office, she had a hunch that this might be the same person. Apparently, there were few foreigners who frequented this space. I gave a small thanks for my light complexion and relatively tall stature. Sticking out here had, for once, been a blessing.
We arrived at a large, glass-walled room, partitioned off from the rest off the office. There was a long table running through the middle with two people seated at opposite ends. They didn’t appear to be conversing. Prudence stepped inside and motioned for me to follow.
“Hey boss?”
A stocky Caucasian man in a fitted suit glanced up.
“Yes?”
“I’ve brought someone to see you,” Prudence said motioning over her shoulder. “This is Jack.”
The man cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at me as he stood. He was not particularly tall, but he had a strength and sharpness which made him seem much larger. His cleanly shaved head and manicured goatee gave an air of exacting precision. It was not unfriendly, but spoke of someone with a low tolerance for error.
“I’m sorry… Jack? I’m not sure we’ve met.” It was a polite, but clear, invitation to explain myself.
“Hi Frank. I’m not sure if you remember me. We spoke on the phone last year and exchanged a few emails.” Frank raised his eyebrows slightly as if waiting for more. I continued, “I’m here for the internship we discussed.”
He considered for a few moments. Suddenly his eyes popped open in recognition.
“Jack?” He seemed genuinely shocked at my appearance. “Wow, I had no idea you were coming. I didn’t hear anything back after January so I assumed things didn’t pan out.”
Frank explained that he had passed my case off to human resources earlier that year. Since he hadn’t heard anything further from them or myself, he had put the affair from his mind. Apparently, some unknown staff must have sent my case through all the way to processing without any further screening or communication, assuming it had direct approval from the company leadership. To this day I am not sure if it actually did, or it was merely an accident that blindly obedient staff had unthinkingly pushed through whatever their boss happened to send them.
Frank reiterated his amazement that I’d come all the way here for a one-month internship. I had come for more than that, but diplomatically replied that I was greatly interested in the firm, and was willing to do whatever it took to be part of it.
In reality, I had barely known what a management consultant was a few months prior. I was, however, truly willing to go to any lengths to get this job. I suspect Frank could feel that.
Frank’s demeanor had shifted following our formal introduction. He had become slightly less short and seemed pleased to see me. From the somewhat dismissive way he treated treated Prudence, I gathered that he found her more an annoyance than a help. I would later learn that she had a reputation as an office social-climber; lacking real ability at her job, but always eager to curry favor through political machinations. She wasn’t very good at it.
Frank announced that he wanted to introduce me to “the team” and began leading us out of the office and down the hall. As we walked, he discussed his group and some of the work they specialized in. With a focus on digital technology and social media, it seemed far more interesting than the property development spreadsheets I had been mired in for the last several days.
We arrived in a new section of the open office. As it turned out, Frank’s team currently consisted of only two dedicated staff. Locals from other groups were pressed into service for his projects as needed, but the bulk of the specialized work was carried out by these two. As Frank introduced me, I resolved to become the third.
The second-in-command, Brent, was a lanky, spectacled Englishman. His manner was even sharper than Frank’s, projecting a cold and unapproachable aura. The other, Timothy, was young man from mainland China. His English was not good, but he seemed more amiable than Brent.
I was informed that I would be working with these two for the duration of my internship. I was glad for the change, but expressed concerns about the status of my current assignment. Frank asked that I explain, and I described my work on the property development documents with the cubicle woman.
Frank’s face fell into an annoyed scowl. He turned towards Prudence.
“Why is he working on that?”
“I don’t know boss. I didn’t know anything about it.” She seemed nervous that she would be blamed for whatever transgression had been committed.
The scowl stayed fixed on Frank’s face. “Well go tell her that he’s not working on that anymore.”
Prudence gave an obsequious nod and scurried off to deliver the message. As she went, I noted the distinct pecking order that appeared to be at play. Prudence had clearly failed at this game.
I would need to tread carefully, lest I end up the same.
★ ★ ★ ★
The clock hand ticked to 2:08 p.m.
Late. Again.
Eight minutes late to a fifteen minute meeting. It was not an encouraging sign. This appointment had already seen a last-minute reschedule, then been cut from thirty minutes, down to fifteen. For an interview that would decide the course of my future, its apparent triviality in the eyes of my judges was vexing.
Two months had passed since my arrival. The last several weeks on Frank’s team had been grueling, both mentally taxing and physically exhausting. At the time, I felt that ten hour days and the occasional weekend stint at the office were painfully long. How laughably leisurely those hours would seem in the coming years.
Much of the work was entirely new to me, and Brent proved to be every bit as unforgiving as he appeared. The slightest mistake would evoke a biting stream of criticism, combining profanity and insults with scalding effect. I once witnessed him hurling expletives at Timothy with such volume and force that even the other battle-hardened office denizens momentarily froze in shock.
Despite this, I made progress. I grew quicker at locating and packaging the information Brent required for his projects. Timothy and I became close, pushed together in our shared suffering. The young man was quite capable, making up for his relative lack of communication skills with a truly deep understanding of the technologies and strategies which underlied our work.
In early August, my internship had been given a month’s extension. That period was now drawing to a close, with less than a week remaining before I was to return my equipment and be cast back onto the streets of Hong Kong. To commemorate the end of my internship, Frank had invited me to lunch. As we sat eating exorbitant calamari, he inquired about plans following my short stay with Lybrand & Waters.
I recognized my opportunity and seized it. I related the entire circumstances of my arrival; my one-way ticket, my lost baggage, and my sheer determination to gain a full-time position with his firm. Frank seemed genuinely astonished when he heard that I had arrived on a one-way flight and had no intention or means of returning. When I finished, Frank thought for a moment and said simply that he would arrange a discussion with human resources.
Now I was waiting for that discussion; the fifteen-minute audience that would decide my fate. Since I had never had a formal interview, I surmised that this was to be a decisive moment. I would need to make my case to both Frank, and the head of HR to have any chance at a full-time offer. Research had shown me that the firm was incredibly selective, with the average successful applicant having a far more prestigious university background, and more directly relevant set of technical skills than I. I would need to show them that my determination was worth more than that. Not an easy task when facing some of the most ruthless businessmen in the world.
Finally, at 2:09, the head of HR walked through the conference room door. Frank followed moments later. They exchanged greetings and took seats at adjacent corners of the table. There was a moment of silence as Frank turned a piercing gaze towards me. I steeled myself for what was to come.
Frank silently turned back towards the HR lead. His chair creaked.
“Well, I don’t want to beat around the bush here. I want to bring him on board. Can we make it happen?”
“Sure Frank, I’ll push him through with the incoming batch next month.”
I sat dumbfounded. They hadn’t asked me a single question. With a word, my long-sought goal had been realized. I felt like a sprinter, struggling on the final stretch of a great race, only to discover that I had passed the finish line fifty meters before.
I sat nodding stupidly as the head of HR told me I would be contacted with follow up information through my company email. The men concluded their discussion and the three of us stood to exit the room. It had all happened so fast that my mind hadn’t quite caught up with my legs.
As soon as we were through the door, the two men barreled off in opposite directions. I snapped back to reality in time to see Frank’s form disappearing around a corner. Realizing that I should do something more than nod my acceptance, I jumped into a jogging pursuit.
I caught up to Frank just as he was about to enter a conference room. He turned a piercing look towards me as I trotted to a halt beside him.
“Sorry for holding you up Frank. I just wanted to sincerely thank you for this opportunity.” His expression softened slightly. “I want you to know that I’m going to give this my all, and do whatever it takes to make you glad you gave me this chance.”
A wry smile crept over Frank’s face.
“Oh, don’t worry. I know you will.”
★ ★ ★ ★
In the coming years, I would see the price for leaping off of that cliff in pursuit of my dream. I had landed on the other side, only to discover a dark and dense jungle looming ahead. Sleepless nights, scheming spiders, and knives hidden behind crocodile smiles. There were few paths to follow, and none to be trusted. I watched vicious and bizarre creatures hunting, fighting, and feasting on the carcasses of their prey.
It was a life I would not choose to live again, and one I did not regret for a moment.
The wilds can be a harsh and unforgiving place, but life is not something meant to be lived from the safety of a cage. Any bird content to exist perched meekly in a coop might as well be a chicken; whittling its days away pumping out eggs for whatever master, too wary of being throttled and thrown in the skillet to chance an escape. If to venture out was to risk being eaten alive, I would take my chances in the jungle.
A life in any cage, even one of one’s own making, is no life at all.
End
James B. Cutchin 