Snapped!

Obviously the fashion world can be difficult. I mean, just imagine pumping a room full of queens and divas with big egos and little intelligence (and zero promising sexual partners). Things are bound to get a bit... dramatic.

I just started working at a new office in the super-lux handbag market. The office is small. Like, five-employees-in-one-open-plan-space small. Having come from a massive corporate enterprise, I welcomed the change. Sure, I was forewarned that the owner was a bit of a (self-proclaimed) diva. But, I've handled difficult personalities for years now, and I've developed quite the thick skin. The other employees seemed nice, though a bit zaftig... a rarity in the fashion world. Still, being the aesthete that I am, I was swayed by the showroom. In a word- breathtaking. Priceless art from all over the world, everywhere you looked. There's a freaking Rauchenberg in the bathroom! I knew I would nail the interview with my Art History minor, and the second I mentioned that Yves Klein blue was my favorite color, I saw his eyes light up and considered the deal sealed.

Two days later, I took my place in the showroom, behind a sleek widescreen Mac in the chicest office I'd ever seen, overlooking Central Park. We have a waiter and maid who attend to us all day long, and no HR department to regulate our computer usage (or language usage!). However, the luster soon faded when I realized with whom I was sharing this lux life.

Directly across from me sits the worlds most annoying man. I kid you not. He's incapable of maintaining silence for longer than five minutes. He has a penchant for such esteemed singers as Lindsay Lohan and that woman from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. I now- rather painfully- have had the chorus' drilled into my head. I once timed him, and he breaks into some semblance of a song (or creatively ad-libbed chorus) at least once every five minutes. FIVE MINUTES! It's enough to drive anyone stark raving mad. But that's not the least of it. He is quite the food fanatic, and eats at least six times a day. I don't even need to look up to know that he's snacking, as the symphonic sounds of his smacking lips and heavy nose breathing alert me to his every craving. On top of all of this, the man only speaks in cliches. He's like a wind-up-gay. "Tranny-chic!" "Did you love it?" "Hey, troll!" I hear variations of these words all day every day. I never knew how many words could have 'chic' tacked on to them. At night, after I've escaped the daily verbal barrage, I can still hear his words/song lyrics looping though my head. I knew I'd have to kill him once I caught myself accidentally referring to someone as a troll. It was just too much- he'd begun to brainwash me.

At least then I understood how the other women in the office could stand him. They'd already crossed the threshold and were now drinking the Kool-Aid. They had become completely immune to his grating habits. I envied them a little bit. I tried all sorts of tricks to keep myself from lunging over the table and strangling that last heavy breath/snort out of him. I brought in my iPod, I took walks, I practiced my deep breathing. Sometimes my mother would call and ask where I was... "A construction site?" she'd guess. "No, Mom" I'd sigh, "And this is actually a quiet day."

Now don't get me wrong, the other women in the office are no treat either. Something about an open-plan office makes everyone feel as if their lives should be an open book. I am intimately familiar with the VP's musings about whether or not she should divorce her hard-partying husband. Another just recently became engaged and sprouted into a full-scale Bridezilla seemingly overnight. All day long I am treated her her pet names for her soon-to-be husband, including the crowd-pleaser, "Cock Meat Sandwich".

But all of this was nothing, NOTHING compared to the owner of the company. The owner who, on my interview day, kept me waiting for three and a half hours, because he refused to leave his house when it was raining. I should've walked then, but my Chanel booties had already survived one too many puddles (as I had, of course, sprinted through the rain to make it on time). He comes from an ungodly amount of family money- old money- which you would think would make him humble and casual. Oh dear god, no. Everything is name-dropping this, price-dropping that. "I bought this yacht, I'm sleeping with this Abercrombie model, I closed down the Great Wall of China (true!)". It's enough to make this middle-wage girl more than a little put-off. He was traveling the first month of my employ, so my contact with him was limited to his late night drunken phone calls telling me how fabulous I was, and that he had hired me for my looks. ahem. Still I tried not to think too much of it, after all, he was a braggart and a blowhard...surely nothing he said was serious.

Then, he returned. I was warned that he was a perfectionist. I am as well, and I've worked for some pretty notorious personalities, so I was confident I would impress him. And I did. I curated his apartment with his new purchases, and prepped it for a profile in the New York Times Style section. I single-handedly secured him an almost-impossible Visa to Japan, Korea and Russia in only six days. I was on top of everything and I knew it. Unfortunately, some others in the office were not as on top of their jobs as myself, and I quickly learned that the office MO for survival was blame-shifting. They passed around responsibility like a hot potato, constantly in fear of the famed wrath of our owner.

I soon saw the crazed rage first-hand. Upon his return, his Blackberry stopped updating his schedule to the office computer. Rather than call our IT guy and explain the problem, he screamed at him-in public- for two hours, calling him crazy, whining about the problem, telling him not to touch the Blackberry, and accusing him of stealing from the company. It was full on insanity, and it was embarrassing for all involved.

Not two days later, he called me from the Four Seasons where he was having his afternoon cocktail. "You don't know the difference between a Euro and a dollar!" he accused. I calmly told him that he needed to re-read the email I had just sent as it rather clearly stated that I had used both currencies correctly in my correspondence with him. He denied, and refused. Several times. He then told me that I didn't understand that there were different forms of money in different countries and that I myself must be "crazy". I was literally shaking with rage, but I managed to keep my voice even and calm, as if speaking to an insolent child. I assured him that all was correct and if he could just re-read the email, he would be reassured. Finally, after ten minutes of this verbal volley, he acquiesced. Not five minutes later, I received a meek email in my inbox. "You are right".

But that mea culpa was too little, too late. I had snapped. Exhausted from years of being assumed to be stupid, I called my parents and told them I was going back to school. I was officially done with fashion.

Not ten minutes later, my phone rang. Like a siren song, it was [Major Fashion House] offering me my dream position.

School can wait

*scorpio*