by James Birk
Chapter 21
It was Judgement Day at FFS. We were about to find out our fate.
The previous day at three thirty an email had been sent to all staff. It was from Clara Bridgeforth, one of the senior executives at head office.
Dear colleague,
As you are no doubt aware, FFS has been undergoing some dynamic restructuring as we aim to remain as competitive and vibrant in the twenty-first century as we have always been throughout our rich and prestigious past. Inevitably this will have an impact on each and every one of us and I would like to invite you to a meeting tomorrow, where I will highlight the opportunities that this exciting period of development will mean for every member of the FFS family.
C Bridgeforth
Director of Operations
It was accompanied by a further email from Grant that revealed the meetings were compulsory and would be taking place in small groups in the training room. My team were scheduled for quarter past twelve, which was when I usually had my lunch break.
‘I can’t believe I'm missing Bargain Hunt for this,’ I moaned to Tim as we traipsed into the meeting room.
Red and Yellow teams had already had their meetings, but it had been hard to get information out of anyone as Grant had issued instructions that anything discussed in the meeting with Clara was to be treated in the strictest confidence and he was patrolling the floor like a Nazi storm trooper, ensuring that no one indulged in any idle gossip.
It was therefore surprising to discover that our meeting was not with Clara herself, but with a television screen beaming Clara’s image. It was infuriating to discover that this was not even a live video feed, but rather a recording of Clara, and that Clara herself was in engaged in other activities at that moment in time. Beryl from HR was in the room, briefed to answer any questions we may have had, but also to serve the very useful function of pressing play on the DVD player.
After a few murmurs of discontent, we all sat down and faced the screen. Beryl carried out her primary role and Clara sprang into life.
‘Greetings fellow FFS colleagues,’ she began with a warm maternal smile on her face, ‘and thank you for joining me today at such short notice.’
‘Would’ve been nice if you’d bothered to turn up as well,’ said Tim loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. Beryl and Kirsty both shot him a warning look, but Clara carried on unperturbed, being in both a different location and also in the past.
‘As you are no doubt aware, we are going through some exciting times at Freedom Financial Services. Our global operations have expanded to India [an image of happy call centre workers in India appeared on our screen briefly before Clara returned] and business has never been so good. Structurally the organisation has been making changes closer to home [image of the Birmingham office from the outside] and we have been taking on new staff in all our offices to facilitate these changes...’
The whole speech went on for forty-five minutes. Forty-five dreary minutes of Clara Bridgeforth expounding on the many virtues of working for FFS and the countless exciting projects that were currently underway. And at the end of the forty-five minutes, not one question had been answered, not one area of confusion had been cleared up and not one of us in that room knew if we still had a job or not.
‘Ok,’ said Beryl pressing pause on the remote control and turning to face us. I hope that’s cleared everything up for you. Are there any questions?’
‘Just one,’ said Tim, ‘what the bloody hell was that supposed to have cleared up?’
‘Well,’ Beryl raised her shoulder defiantly, ‘obviously we wanted to make you aware about the changes that are happening here, at FFS and how they will affect you.’
‘And how will they affect us,’ I asked.
‘Well I think Clara was quite clear,’ Beryl twittered.
Tim gave up his usual sarcasm and malevolence for something rather more hot tempered.
‘Are we going to lose our jobs!’ he bellowed standing up to reveal his hefty frame.
‘Well obviously there will be some redundancies,’ Beryl was cowering, obviously unsettled.
‘And when will we find out about them?’ Tim growled.
‘In due course,’ said an icy cold voice behind us. Stood in the doorway was none other than Greg Tanner, Grant’s boss and all round nasty piece of work, ‘although I wouldn’t count on being with us much longer if your current behaviour is anything to go by.’
Tim spun around and for a moment I thought he was going to punch Greg, who to his credit remained impassive and unmoved despite Tim’s menacing demeanour and intimidating size. Instead Tim stormed out of the room, brushing past Greg with venomous intent.
Greg looked at the rest of us icily.
‘I think the rest of you should get back to work as well,’ he said.
We all did so, feeling not a little shocked by what had just happened.
Later that day Tim walked up to Grant’s desk and placed a letter in front of him. It was his notice.
The following few days the rumour mill went into overdrive. Tim was hailed as a hero by many of the other FFS drones, but I guessed that it had always been his intention to resign in such a dramatic style, and the confrontation with Greg had merely provided him with a platform to do so. It was unlikely to save anyone else’s job and by his own admission, he was pretty much due to leave soon anyway.
As the week went on people found themselves being invited into individual meetings with their line managers, and ten minutes later most would leave those meetings in floods of tears or with a shocked and despairing look on their face.
It was no surprise that Ian was one of the first people to be called into a meeting. He was the last to join our team; it was inevitable he would be the first to go. Getting rid of recent starters was the most economical route for FFS because they didn’t cost much to pay off. Ian actually left the day of his meeting, with only a week’s bonus pay for his troubles.
The culling of FFS employees was fairly swift once it had finally begun, and soon we had lost twenty people from the fifth floor. Then came the demotion of the managers. Kirsty was called into a meeting with Grant, and minutes later, she returned in tears, still an FFS employee, but no longer my boss.
Throughout this time I sat with my head down, getting on with my work diligently, in constant fear of losing a job I loathed.
Tim chose to work his full month’s notice, as much to get up the nose of Greg and Grant as anything else, as it was suggested to him that he could leave immediately with a full month’s pay if he chose to do so.
His final day came around quite quickly and as his shift came to an end he stood up and announced his departure to anyone who would listen in a dramatic speech that was eloquent, poignant and almost Shakespearian. He received a standing ovation from several people.
I ignored him and stared at my computer screen throughout, feeling more than a little betrayed. He was a first rate dickhead, of that there was no doubt, but he was also a friend. It was going to be lonely there without him.
He finished his speech, and I could see Grant eyeing him furiously in the distance, unsure as to whether to call security or not. I felt a large hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Tim proffering his other enormous hand to me.
‘See you Chris,’ he said.
I took his hand and nodded.
‘See you Tim,’ I said.
And then he was gone.
There followed more meetings, but these were no longer about depriving people of jobs, these were about restructuring the teams. Everyone was moved to new departments and given new job descriptions, which differed very little from old job descriptions except that they included extra responsibilities and fewer benefits.
I moved from the fifth floor to the sixth floor, which was, in every way identical to the fifth, but now I was in a team of entirely different people, most of whom I had come across before at one time or another in some capacity, but I knew few of them to talk to. There seemed to be a stricter air ab
out the place. However bad I had thought FFS was in the past, at least it had encouraged a fairly relaxed atmosphere. Now I felt as though I couldn’t sneeze without being told off.
Eventually, and surprising quickly, things started to settle down and what had felt like an eternity had really only taken six or so weeks to bring into place.
The strangest thing was that I didn’t really know how to feel as I sat at a different but nearly identical desk, doing a different but nearly identical job, fulfilling absolutely none of my hopes and ambitions, because as much as I would have given anything not to be there, I was relieved to have kept my job. It wasn’t a good job, but it was all that I really had and I wasn’t really sure what else I should do with my life.
I knew that FFS was not a long-term strategy. For one thing, the prospect of promotion seemed fairly unlikely in the current climate, but I knew that even if it was, a well-paid stimulating job in the financial sector still wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I’d always envisaged doing something creative, maybe writing a book or getting into television, but as I tapped in the details of yet another life assurance application, I realised that I hadn’t got the faintest notion how one went about doing those things. I seemed to remember being fairly good at writing stories in school, but I couldn’t honestly claim to have done anything particularly creative since then. Even my degree, which had been a half-hearted effort at best, had been analysing the creative works of other people. I recalled there being a university newspaper, but I’d never had even the slightest inkling that I might like to write for it. When I thought about it, I was sure there had been all kinds of creative outlets on offer, but I’d allocated all my spare time exchanging my student loan for hangovers and an ever increasing beer belly.
Being creative was something I needed to look into, a fresh interest to add to my new found devotion to fitness, but it was not a career option. So I was content to be at FFS for the time being, because although it wasn’t much, it was at least something.