Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

stay on to cover the UK equities desk. I would be paid until the end of the month, plus a ‘generous’ redundancy package, but I could leave straight away. My services, Nicholas said, without looking up from his computer screen, were no longer required.
    I just stood there. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. For what seemed like an age, a perfect silence descended over his office. Eventually, he looked up at me.
    ‘I’m very sorry, Cassie. That’ll be all.’
    And just like that, I was dismissed.
    I could feel them watching me. Everyone was watching me as I emerged from his office, my face burning, desperate not to cry. They knew, I thought. They all knew. Looking back on it, they probably weren’t watching me; they almost certainly didn’t know. Why on earth would they care if Nicholas Hawksworth’s PA got sacked? Most of them would struggle to remember my name, they wouldn’t beconcerned about me losing my job. But Christa bloody smug Freeman certainly knew – she gave me the sickliest of saccharine smiles and then went back to her typing. I still have work to do , was the subtext.
    I looked for Dan but couldn’t see him. I searched for Ali and caught her eye. Seeing the expression on my face she ended her call and came straight over to me – committing the punishable-by-sacking crime of leaving her desk during trading hours.
    ‘He didn’t, did he?’
    ‘He bloody well did,’ I said. ‘Did you know this was going to happen?’
    ‘Of course not, Cassie. I knew all our jobs were on the line, though. I told you that. I warned you.’
    ‘I didn’t realise you meant mine,’ I said, tears welling up in my eyes.
    ‘Don’t cry,’ she said, slipping her hand into mine and squeezing it. ‘Cry later. Don’t cry here.’ She went back to her desk and I started to pack my things. Someone (that bitch Christa probably) had thoughtfully placed a couple of cardboard boxes next to my desk while I had been in Nicholas’s office.
    Ten minutes later I was perched on a stool in a corner of the Beluga Bar having just ordered a large gin and tonic from the beautiful Czech girl behind the bar, a favourite among the Hamilton traders. I took a gulp of my drink. I couldn’t believe it. This could not be happening to me. Cast aside. Redundant. Just a few days after lauding my incomparable organisational skills, they were sacking me. I hadbeen dumped, deemed the lesser assistant, labelled dispensable.
    About halfway through my second drink, denial was replaced with rage. By the time Dan turned up, a couple of friends in tow, I was simmering with fury. Dan took one look at me and carefully steered his friends to the other side of the room before eventually coming over. He ordered a beer and another G&T for me, but only after making small talk with the pretty Czech girl. By the time he turned to talk to me I was just about ready to explode.
    ‘I’m sorry, Cass,’ he said, enveloping me in his arms. ‘It’s a totally shit thing to happen. Nicholas is such a prick.’
    ‘It’s unbelievable,’ I hissed at him. ‘I can’t believe they chose to keep Christa on and they’re sacking me. I’m fucking indispensable! Do they not realise that?’
    ‘Cassie, you’re not indispensable, you’re a secretary,’ Dan said in an unhelpfully condescending tone. I burst into tears. An expression of panic crossed his face and he glanced around the room to see if anyone was watching. Dan doesn’t do emotional melodramas, particularly in front of his friends.
    ‘Jesus Christ, Cassie,’ he whispered. ‘Please don’t do that. Don’t make a scene.’ He fished around in his pocket and handed me a second-hand Kleenex. Then he said, ‘You’re being really selfish, you know that? You’ll get another job – you can work for any type of company, you can work for bloody Sainsbury’s. If I lose my job, or if one of the boys over there gets sacked,we’re screwed, do you understand that? We’ll never get re-hired in this market. Now go to the loo and sort yourself out, you look awful.’
    I fled to the ladies. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I was being selfish. Traders like Dan and Ali stood to lose a great deal more than I did if they lost their jobs. And my skills were a little more transferable. He certainly had a point about me looking awful. I scrutinised myself in the mirror. My face was pale and blotchy, my mascara had started to run and I seemed to have managed (God knows when) to have dribbled coffee down the