Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

shallow and consumerist, they’re obsessed with money and cars and clothes and things. Things, things, things. The men are pigs and the women know that unless they fit in with the boys they’ll be harassed to within an inch of their lives, so most of them ending up being pigs, too.
    Tuesday went well, almost as well as Monday, but on Wednesday I was a little bit late getting in. Stella, who’d got stuck in traffic on the M25 on her way in from Tunbridge Wells, was also late – but she was late for a meeting with the board of directors, so it was an altogether more serious matter. She came haring into the office, threw her coat and bag at me (much in the style of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada) and hissed, ‘Where’s my Chai latte?’
    ‘I thought I’d wait until you got in before I got it,’ I explained nervously. ‘I didn’t want it to get cold.’
    ‘There’s a microwave in the kitchen, you moron,’ she snapped. A bit taken aback, I offered to go and get her one straight away.
    ‘Well, it’s too late now , isn’t it?’ she said witheringly, looking me up and down as she did so. I was wearing black trousers and a rather bobbly black jumper, my hair scraped back into a ponytail. I’d overslept a bit and hadn’t had the time to put the usual thought and effortinto my appearance. After Stella had disappeared into her meeting, Becky came over to my desk.
    ‘Stella prefers it if we wear jackets or shirts, not jumpers,’ she said. ‘She thinks it looks more professional.’ She said this without a smile. She obviously didn’t approve of my outfit either.
    At the canteen at lunchtime I felt as though I was in one of those awful scenes from a US high school drama where the new kid walks around aimlessly while everyone else makes it quite clear that they don’t want him or her at their table. It wasn’t quite that bad – since most people didn’t know me they just ignored me – but when I spotted Becky, sitting with a couple of other girls in the corner, I could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t want me to join them. It was odd. We seemed to have got on fine on Monday. She obviously really disapproved of my jumper. Too bad. Since I was already approaching their table and couldn’t see anywhere else to sit, I just smiled cheerfully and asked, ‘Mind if I sit down?’
    ‘Course not,’ Becky said, without looking at me. She introduced me to the two blonde girls at the table who also said hello without really looking at me. I don’t recall their names.
    ‘So anyway,’ Blonde 1 was saying, ‘Sebastian wants to go to St Barts for New Year, but I’m like, God, really? Again? I’m so bored with the Caribbean.’
    ‘Oh, God, yah,’ Blonde 2 agreed. ‘Fregate Island, you know, in the Seychelles. That is like, totally the place now. It was on the Forbes list of the mostexpensive hotels in the world.’
    ‘Oh, my God! Really? That sounds amazing.’
    It sounds amazing? All you know about it is that it’s really expensive. Why is that amazing?
    ‘Yah, you should tell him that’s where you want to go. If he won’t take you I’m sure Charles would be happy to step in.’ They all cackled for a bit. I was having a hard time matching Becky with these two insufferable poshos. Why did they tolerate the Aussie?
    ‘Or you should get a villa on Necker,’ Becky said. ‘My dad took the whole family there for Christmas last year.’ Oh, OK, Daddy has money.
    ‘I know,’ Blonde 1 said, ‘I did think about that. But Sebastian keeps going on about the recession, about how he can’t count on a bonus this year, blah blah blah. Well, I’m counting on his bonus, so if he doesn’t bloody well get one …’ They all cackled again. I smiled weakly and regretted the decision not to go and sit by myself in the corner with the paper.
    I thought back to my days at Hamilton, sitting sipping champagne with Ali and the other traders in the Beluga Bar after work. Is this what we sounded like? My God, Ali and I can talk about shoes and boys, we like nice restaurants and good hotels, but I don’t think we ever talked solely about things based on what they cost, or ranked people solely on the basis of how much they earn.
    After a painful half-hour lunch, I returned to the office to find Stella flicking through the papers on my desk.
    ‘Cassie! There you are,’ she said, beaming at me. ‘Really good work on the PowerPoint presentation! This looks great!’ So, this morning I was a moron,