Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

this afternoon I am a genius. OK. ‘Listen, pop into my office for a bit, I’d like to have a chat.’
    Oh, my God, I thought, she’s going to ask me to stay on. She’s going to offer me a job! Thank God for my PowerPoint skills.
    ‘Have a seat,’ she said, wafting her hand in the direction of one of the leather chairs facing her enormous desk. I sat down. ‘As you know,’ she said, ‘you’re here to replace Ellie, who’s had malaria, poor darling.’
    ‘Oh, how awful,’ I said.
    ‘Yah, terrible. For her honeymoon – she married a fabulous American, can’t remember his name now, anyway – for their honeymoon, they went to Kenya,’ she pronounced it Keenyaah, ‘and the poor girl got malaria despite taking the pills that the government tell you to. Doesn’t surprise me really, this government’s so useless. Get everything wrong, don’t they? Can’t wait till Dishy Dave takes over! Ha ha. Anyway, turns out that the bout she had is not as awful as they’d thought and she’s actually feeling much better, so she’s going to be coming in tomorrow.’ My heart sank. ‘So, awfully sorry, Cassie, but that’s it for you and me! Still. Been lovely to have you in. Do hope you enjoyed it.’
    As I left her office, Becky was passing.
    ‘Oh, Becky,’ Stella called out. ‘Did you hear the good news? Ellie’s back tomorrow.’
    ‘That’s great, Stella.’
    ‘I know. God, hasn’t it been just awful without her?’
    As I wandered through Canary Wharf on my way back to the DLR I passed half a dozen bars, full to bursting point with City boys, a sea of men in suits, drinking and shouting, talking over one another, flashing expensive watches, talking about expensive cars, betting on anything from who could down a pint the fastest to which one of them was mostly like to get that blonde with the long legs into bed that night. I made my way through the throng of smokers, braying about their latest deals, talking to the guy in front of them but always keeping an eye out for someone more interesting, someone more worthwhile speaking to.
    It struck me that I didn’t miss this at all. I missed the perks. I missed the good salary. I missed hanging out with Ali after work, drinking cocktails. And thanks to the Frenchman, those days were over – for now at least – in any case. I didn’t miss the rest of it. The rest of it was awful. And, as far as I was concerned, boring. I was never interested in how the markets work, how the traders make their money. I didn’t care what a derivative was or whether Bank X merged with Bank Y and what the implications of that would be. My mother was right. Mothers usually are. I had to get myself a job in a field that I was at least vaguely interested in.
    On the tube on the way home, squeezed into the carriage between overweight City boys in need ofsome anti-perspirant, I made a mental list. Top six fields in which I would like to work, in one capacity or another, in descending order:
1. Fashion
2. Food or booze (catering, events, running my own organic food company, etc.)
3. Media (preferably glossy magazines or TV)
4. Interior design
5. Public relations
6. Showbiz (a girl can dream, can’t she?)
    At home, I went back to the now all-too-familiar recruitment websites on which I spent my days. Nothing in fashion or interior design. Plenty in food, but you needed relevant experience. Ditto media. There were some interesting jobs in public relations, although I suspected that they would probably also go to more experienced people. Reed Recruitment don’t have a showbiz section.

15
     
    Cassie Cavanagh is on the breadline
    Bank Balance: -£1,755
Overdraft limit: £1,800
Expected arrival date of payment for temp job: unknown
    I was starting to think that I was destined to dog walk for the rest of my days when fate intervened, oddly enough as a direct result of dog walking. Mrs Bromell had told me a few days previously that Mrs Mellor, owner of Thierry and Theo, wanted to speak with me. I had never met Mrs Mellor – she worked, so I usually just returned the dogs to the grumpy housekeeper or the au pair.
    I turned up on Mrs Mellor’s doorstep fully expecting either to be castigated for some transgression or another, or simply to be sacked. Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant past, I used to be a glass-half-full type of girl, but the past couple of months had persuaded me that whether the glass was half-full or half-empty, the milk was bound to be sour.
    The door flew