Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

failed to get a mark out of his favourite shirt (why did I insist on taking his clothes to the worst cleaner in London?) and how on earth could he be expected to read the speech I had typed up for him for the analysts’ dinner next Thursday when the font was so ridiculously small? I didn’t bother to point out that it is the same font I have used for every single speech I’ve typed up for him since I came to the company. What would be the use?
    The only things he didn’t blame me for were that morning’s one and a half per cent fall on the FTSE and the previous evening’s four–nil drubbing of Chelsea by AC Milan, but these events only darkened his mood further. So when the food and beverage director from the Hempel rang to confirm arrangements for the party and some idiot on switch board put themthrough to Nicholas’s direct line I thought he was going to have an aneurysm.
    ‘In my office, Cavanagh. Now.’
    I trailed in, my heart sinking into my shoes.
    ‘Yes, Nicholas?’
    ‘I’ve just had a call from the Hempel,’ he said, his voice ominously low and even.
    ‘Oh, God, why are they calling you? I didn’t give them your number.’
    ‘I don’t know why they’re fucking calling me. I do know that the price they have quoted for this bloody party tomorrow is nowhere near what we agreed. Nowhere near!’ He was yelling now. The other PA on the floor, Christa Freeman, glanced over nervously. ‘How could you sign this off with out checking with me first?’
    ‘Nicholas,’ I said, my voice trembling just a little, ‘I know it’s slightly over budget but I did go to a number of places and there were cheaper quotes but they simply weren’t the sort of places that would impress our clients. This is one of the best hotels in London, it has a great reputation . . .’ I was rambling hopelessly. ‘I can show you comparative quotes,’ I said.
    ‘I honestly don’t have time for that. The markets are in fucking freefall, for Christ’s sake, and you want me to start planning parties? That’s what I asked you to do.’ Some of the traders were rubber-necking now. Nicholas’s tantrums are legendary.
    ‘Nicholas . . . I . . .’
    ‘You’d better hope that this is a success, Cassie. Thisbetter be the best bloody party we’ve ever thrown. I mean that. This needs to make the Vanity Fair Oscars party look dull.’
    So, no pressure then.
    Back at my desk I went over the party plans again and again. If I’m completely honest, it wasn’t just Nicholas who I was looking to impress. It mattered to me that Dan thought I’d done a good job, too. And while it may sound ridiculous, it mattered to me that all his trader buddies thought I’d done a good job. I have no problem with what I do – I don’t think there’s any shame in being ‘just a PA’, but I often get the sense that his friends see me as, well, a bit ditzy and pointless. Which is completely unfair. I have opinions about world events. I read the news papers. OK, I mostly read Metro and occasionally the Sunday Times style section, but I can name at least four members of the Cabinet and probably one or two of the Opposition front bench. I can point to Syria on an unmarked map of the world. I might not understand how a derivative works, but neither do they. Not really. They’re just salesmen.
    Not that I would ever say that to their faces – a lot of them really do think they’re God’s gift. I remember the outbreak of unbearable smugness in the office when it was revealed, a few months ago, that scientists at Cambridge had discovered that the higher the testosterone level a trader had in the morning, the more money he was likely to make that day. So not only could the day’s most profitable trader crow about how much money he’d made, he could also crow abouthaving the biggest balls. One night in the pub, I pointed out that studies also linked high levels of testosterone with slow social development in childhood and baldness in adults. That didn’t go down very well.
    I really admire what Ali and the other handful of women on the floor do, but I can’t say that I envy them. They have to work seventy-hour weeks in what is sometimes an unbearable environment – the stories you hear about misogyny and bullying in the City are fairly accurate. The pretty girls spend their time fending off unwanted advances and the less pretty girls have to put up with incessant cruel remarks. I am fortunate enough never to have been the object of either –