The axe missed

One thing that prevented me from really enjoying our holiday in the Lakes this year was the knowledge that I was coming back to the week in which the company would decide which of us was for the chop.

Two months ago, a large chunk of the workforce - 6,000 - were put on 90 days' notice of potential redundancy, with the expectation that 20% - 1,200 - would go. Since then we've all been living under the cloud. Not knowing whether we'd be one of the 1 in 5. Not really knowing whether we could do anything to make ourselves a less attractive proposition for attrition. Wondering what life would hold in the Big Outside if the axe fell our way.

I'll admit to having approached this with an uneasy admixture of resignation, pragmatism and hope. Not in equal parts, nor in unequal parts that retained their share of the mixture. No, the balance between the three shifted on an hourly basis. My thoughts circling endlessly around those three pillars: I can't do anything to influence the decision; we can probably survive on one wage and my pension; at least it'll give me the time to write full-time.

Today was D-Day. The day when those selected were to receive both email and couriered postal mail telling them their fate. In a move that smacks of no little incompetence, not to mention an almost total lack of understanding of what their staff have been going through, those NOT selected were to receive no confirmation that they had not been selected, and so were instead left to watch their inboxes and front doors anxiously, all day long, wondering whether they had indeed got away with it this time, or was it just that the message had been delayed?

Well, I've left my mailbox open two hours past what could be considered a "normal" end to the working day, and nothing's arrived. So I guess a tentative sigh of relief is in order.