Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

alleyways back from the Thames and they consisted of three rooms. In the main office, which could not have been more than ten feet by fifteen, there were four desks: one each for Melanie, Peter, Fabio and Aidan. Leading off the main office on the left-hand side was a small meeting room and to the right wasanother office in which Rupert and Olly had their desks.
    ‘We haven’t actually found you a space quite yet,’ Rupert said apologetically.
    I managed to find a chair to sling my coat over and was given brief introductions to the rest of the team and then asked to get coffee.
    ‘Do you prefer Starbucks or Nero?’ I asked Rupert.
    He looked aghast.
    ‘Oh, we don’t go out for coffee. Got to keep an eye on the cost base. There’s a kettle over there in the corner.’ There it sat, on top of a mini-fridge in which I found some decidedly iffy milk. I nipped down to the newsagent to get a fresh pint.
    ‘One of your duties, I think, Cassie,’ Rupert said. ‘To ensure we always have fresh milk in the fridge.’
    The second task of the day was to sort and distribute the post. After that, I just sat around for a bit, on my chair in the corner of the room. Without so much as a computer screen to gaze at, no Internet to surf or solitaire to play, the morning passed slowly. I had expected Rupert, Olly, or someone else to give me a more detailed run-through of how everything worked and what I would be expected to do day to day, but everyone, apart from me, seemed frantically busy. Peter (fluent in German and Spanish) and Fabio (fluent in French and Italian) were constantly babbling away on the phone to suppliers. Aidan was fixing a problem with the office network and Melanie was negotiating prices for a full-page advertisement in Decanter . Noone had time to show me the ropes.
    Around midday, Rupert popped his head round the door and summoned me into his office.
    ‘Sorry everything’s a bit disorganised today,’ he said. ‘We’ll get you properly sorted tomorrow. Now, as I mentioned last night, we’ve got some potential investors coming in this afternoon, and for some reason or other it doesn’t look to me as though the meeting room was cleaned this weekend. The management of this building leaves a bit to be desired, I’m afraid. In any case, I spoke to one of the maintenance guys and he’s given me a key to the closet on the fifth floor where they keep the cleaning stuff. Would you pop up there, get the vacuum cleaner and give the place a once-over? Not just the meeting room, the whole place actually? We do want to make a good impression.’
    This, I thought, as I lugged the vacuum cleaner (which appeared to be older than I was) down the stairs, was not what I signed up for. I can be the coffee maker, the milk monitor and the post sorter – these are not things I’ve dreamed of becoming, but I don’t mind taking on those roles in the short term. But what I am most certainly not is a cleaning lady. It was humiliating. Rupert and Olly had disappeared out for lunch but the others were all still in the office, beavering away at their desks, making calls and typing furiously. And there I was trying to hoover around their feet, clear away their dirty mugs, empty their bins. Utterly humiliating.
    I had just returned the surprisingly heavy vacuumcleaner to its closet on the fifth floor when Rupert and the investors – two middle-aged men in grey suits – arrived in the office. They gave the place the once-over; they looked less than impressed. I didn’t blame them. If I were Rupert I would conduct business meetings elsewhere. This dive hardly gave the impression of a thriving and vibrant company.
    ‘Would anyone like coffee?’ I asked, taking the investors’ coats. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but it seemed like the thing to do.
    ‘Lovely, Cassie. We’ll be in the meeting room.’
    The investors left after about half an hour. Rupert and Olly retreated to their office looking fairly glum. A couple of hours later, we were all called to a staff meeting. The five of us trooped into the bosses’ office and arranged ourselves against the wall, as though lining up to be shot. The atmosphere was sombre.
    ‘No dice, I’m afraid, chaps,’ Rupert said. ‘They’re looking for an operation that is at a more … advanced stage of development.’
    There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence before Rupert spoke again.
    ‘Don’t worry about it, guys. We’ve got some more people coming