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I am grateful for my job which provides me with a steady income and decent benefits. Moreover, I am proficient at my work. Similar to Earl of Kent in Shakespeare’s King Lear, I am qualified in what an ordinary person is capable of. And the best quality in me is diligence.

The only thing I am not content with within my current job is the company culture dominated by the employees, my so-called colleagues who like to form cliques, their clubs of buddies and gals sharing the same linguistic background, which I call cultural and ethnic affinities. Never have I experienced such a shocking sense of isolation. It never occurred to me in New York City or even New Jersey, where I spent 30 years of my younger self. This clique mentality is a thing of the West, especially in Los Angeles, CA. It’s like being surrounded by high school or teenage students whose mental ages stopped growing. Maybe I am getting old, but as a person of keen observation, it is a new type of discrimination. You are unwelcome in their circle if you are quiet and look very different. They will not even bother saying hello or hi and not even include you as an existing human being.

When I was on the East Coast, where the history of cities is longer and the culture more civilized and cosmopolitan, such estrangement was hardly felt. But then, I can’t complain about my current job as long as it provides me with a livelihood to support my elderly mother, two cats, and my aging self. If the people at my work were kind, friendly, and mature, my current job would be the kind of business I love. I would rise and go to it with delight. But beggars can be choosers.