RESIGN CLUB

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more open
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance
And if u get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance


Gue Sammaria, bukan siapa-siapa tapi mengangkat diri jadi ketua umum Resign Club selama 4 periode mendatang . Sudah sesumbar akan resign dan menjadi filmmaker sejak bulan pertama bekerja. Tetapi gak resign-resign karena malu kalau gak punya perusahaan yang mempekerjakan. Padahal semua orang sudah resign, sementara si ketua umum belum juga resign.

Takut resign karena gue bukan siapa-siapa. Gue cuma salah satu dari jutaan sutradara instan yang bermimpi jadi sutradara beneran. Sejak tingkat tiga kuliah, gue sudah sesumbar. Pokoknya gue harus jadi sutradara, gak mau jadi arsitek!

Setelah lulus, gue terserang ketakutan kelaparan yang mendamparkan gue ke singapur dan jadi arsitek di sebuah perusahaan berinisial SAA, yang gue akui ke teman2 gue adalah kepanjangan dari Sari Astrid Architects. Pertama kalinya punya kartu nama bertuliskan SAM MARIA- architect. Bangga punya kartu nama arsitek, walaupun gak punya karya dan tiap hari ngomongin film. Bangga punya gaji awal SGD 2050 padahal 450 dollar lebih rendah dibandingkan lulusan Singapur.

Maybe it’s not the job. It’s the company. SAA terlalu korporat buat mahkluk bengal kaya gue. Akhirnya gue melamar ke salah satu biro boutique di Singapur yang karyanya, Duxton Public Housing, menginspirasi tugas akhir gue sampai akhirnya gue diganjar TA terbaik, masuk majalah, diundang seminar, presentasi, bla bla bla. It didn’t realy impress them. Interviewnya beda banget ama korporasi-korporasi lainnya. It took about an hour. He asked me to draw some house, snake, water, and other psycho analysis stuffs. The interview was more like a nice conversation in your living room. By the end of the one hour he said...

“There’s a production house next door. Why didn’t you apply there instead?”

Damn. I shoulda known that this guy has a graduate degree in psychology. He is into that mind reading stuffs. I didn’t say anything about movie making during the whole hour and still he gets my thoughts.

“This is the worst no I’ve ever got,” sahut gue sambil melangkah ringan ke kantor tetangga.. a production house.

Gue ditolak lagi.

Penolakan is a penundaan for penerimaan. Gue lamar semua PH di Singapur. Gak pernah dapet, tapi dapet banyak teman dan a bit of glimpse tentang jenis2 production house selama interview. At least now I know which kind of production house I will have. Have? Naaaaaaaa. The admin work is just to much. I just need to find one that smells like home so I can learn how to make a movie. That was my plan.

Gue gak mau resign. Takut. Mungkin gue harus dipecat dulu biar gue kepaksa nyari kerjaan lain. Nice idea! I can get out of the company and make 3 months pesangon kalo dipecat.

So I wrote this song on a dinner and dance held by my company. I complained about all the long hours and how bad the company treated us and bla bla bla... moga2 senen pagi gue dipecat. Yeyyy!

Monday morning: the director calls me to meet him. Yeyyy! Gue dipecat.

Ternyata he gave me a raise. Damn!

Di bulan ke 12 gue belum juga resign sementara semua anggota gue di resign club sudah hijrah ke perusahaan lain. Akhirnya with no job offer in hand, gue resign! This is it. This is my ‘no turning back’ point. Merdeka atau mati!

Sebenernya gak seberani itu juga sihhhh. Gue mencoba melamar ke sebuah perusahaan advertising berinisial ONM. Gue rasa ini langkah yang bijak. PH di Singapur masih kecil-kecil, gak sanggup bayar jaminan ke pemerintah buat hire foreigners. So advertising is a good step. Gaji masih bulanan, but one step closer to filmmaking. So I thought.

“Why do you go into advertising if you actually wanna make movie?” tanya sang creative director yang ganteng dan smell like home. Hmmmmm...

“Because I wanna be like Yasmin Ahmad,” jawab gue dengan bangga.

“Do you know she used to be a guy?”

Gue terdiam. Shock! Merasa seperti anak kecil yang gak tau apa-apa.
Padahal harusnya gue bilang aja ... “Do you know I used to be a guy too?” biar si creative director yang shock hihihihi! Biar bibir basahnya menganga terbuka sedikit. Hmmmm...

So he gave me a chance to pursue Yasmin Ahmad’s path. Or so I thought.

Sementara menunggu visa keluar, gue balik dulu ke Indonesia. Do some charity work in my kampong, write a damn good novel I have been so long talking about (and never wrote), and loose some weight. So I could go back to Singapore and look fabulous on my first day working in one of Singapore most prestigious advertising company. That seemed like a good plan. Or so I thought.

And my story began.