Remember The Little People
Now that its becoming abundantly clear that the global economy is in a very serious position we have started the blame game in earnest and the media have decided it is most perfunctory to hang most of the blame on “The Bankers”; and so the circus begins.
I’ve been hearing stories of idiots, on the basis of stories in the news of City bonus’, spitting at the poor cashiers at their local branch of RBS. I doubt if they’ve ever seen a bonus in their entire careers. The sad thing is that its it people like them, who played no part in this mess who’ve taken the brunt of a lot of this.
Take a look at this summary of job loses collected by Here is the City, they estimate 133,000 since 2007 but I suspect the true figure is nearer 300,000 and its going to be worse in 2009.
If you go down to the City or Canary Wharf today you will see a very different place to what you might have seen two years ago. Not a load of bankers hanging their heads in shame but simply a very quiet place with a fraction of the workforce because while the news bulletins have been giving you a blow by blow account of every factory and retail layoff the finance industry has been silently laying-off hundreds of thousands. Contrary to the image that most people have of the City 99.5% of the people who work there work in support, clerical and IT services. They don’t earn very much money and they have never been the recipients of obscene bonus’ and with every downturn in the economy they have always been the first to be shown the door, worst of all under the current zeitgeist of outsourcing every possible function to a developing nation the toll has been extra-ordinary this time. Worst of all for them they have been more under pressure than anyone to over-extend themselves with a London mortgage during the boom and now without jobs or any prospect of selling their tiny London flats they face financial ruin after years of sweat and long hours in a dreary office. These are not the fat-cats but the lean mice who toiled away from all the glamour barely making a living in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
The UK seems to be the most hit for the moment. I cannot imagine what it may look like in the city. And many believe it is just the beginning. We are still seeing only the tip of the iceberg. I suspect this is your work environment and I hope that everything will turn out fine for you.
Great post – I have a colleague who has worked at Tower Hamlets (I think) council. She once remarked the offices where she worked, she could look out of one window and see Canary Wharf and the city and other the worst inner city depravation imaginable and often wondered how two worlds so different could be so close.
The media do like to deal out their spin and make out that the majority of people in any sector earn lots of money and bonuses, when in fact it is really a minority that are so privileged. I guess if they told the truth they wouldn’t sell many papers!
I receive regular emails from former colleagues, with families who are hoping we have work but all I can tell them is that its the same story here. Everyone is working their hardest in the hope that they won’t be next to be shown the door, I can’t possibly convey the sense of hopelessness and betrayal.
All the nonsense about the bonus’ in the press is quite infuriating and self-defeating, I have never approved of the monstrous remunerations as they engender an environment of extended risk but proportion rather than abstinence should be the order of the day now.
[...] Whatever you think of Sharon Shoesmith, there is no excuse for making death threats against her and her daughter. Likewise, however angry you are about the mess RBS and other banks have dragged us into, there can be no justification for walking into your local branch and spitting at the cashier. [...]