In 2009 I was fired from my job as a corporate trainer for a London bank, for blogging that I was working for a London bank. A whole six people read the blog before I could take the post off the internet. But it was too late – I had breached the bank’s confidentiality agreement. As a New Zealand accountant in a foreign land, just after 10,000 accountants had lost their jobs because of the world financial crisis, in London, I was shocked, scared and angry at the injustice. As I licked my wounds and found another job as a university lecturer near Oxford, I started writing a novel about someone being sacked from a London bank for breaching their confidentiality agreement. I wrote a whole 2,000 words and gave up as other concerns took over my life … till I felt prompted to continue the story a few weeks ago. It’s up to 33,000 words now and it started like this …
Feeling as cold and lonely as the last bus home in the rain, I started packing my desk up. I knew I’d never see it or anything else in this familiar office again. What do I keep and what do I take? There would be no chance to come back for anything; once I was out the door, I would never be back. When one door shuts, another is supposed to open; but, today, only the sound of slamming doors could be heard in my soul.
I shook my head, hoping all would turn back into the world I was used to, but it just hurt my head and everything was still upside down. I was the only one who seemed to notice. There they were, dozens of heads on shoulders, staring at computer screens just like they always did. They controlled the world with their little buttons, and my world was out of control. I had just been deprived of my little buttons and my screen to a world concocted by Microsoft, Mozilla and Money, as well as the desk on which they sat, along with my comfortable executive chair. They had divorced me … no, I had just been told that they were leaving me because I had been unfaithful. I had proudly blogged to six followers that I had a job at Empire Bank Ltd and, since banks were all about secrecy, that was forbidden. A naïve, country boy in a suspicious city.
I shook my head again, but the vast office was still filled with ordinary people doing an ordinary job on an ordinary British day, and no one noticed my shaking head. I was not at the CIA or MI5. Nope, no badges or guns or secret agent stuff about me I confirmed as I patted myself. Just an ordinary pin-stripe suit as befits a bank’s corporate trainer.
I shook my head as I couldn’t think of a more useful thing to do. I smiled but the rest of my body couldn’t respond to a mind that refused to start.
“You alright, mate?” asked Martin.
What do you say to a question like that? I’m fine, Martin. I’ve just been sacked for being thrilled to be working in this great place-the job of my dreams. And everyone else thinks it’s okay, doesn’t care or doesn’t know. If I start thinking about it anymore, I’m going to get bloody nasty, punch your stupid pink face in and burn this lousy place down. Probably best not to say that. I could feel my anger rising as my mind went into first gear. I stopped it going into second for fear of the consequences. I quelled the revving motor inside and tried to think of an answer that had nothing to do with my twisted reality but would suit the other world in which ordinary, employed people live.
“Yeah fine, Martin. Just great,” was the best lie I could dredge up.
Every year of my life was leaping into my face, demanding explanation for this sudden turn of events.
“All these years at university – wasted!” hissed my twenty-three-year self, vehemently.
“Yeah but I was only …”
m“And all that time as an accountant and business coach,” whispered my thirty-three-year-old self, sadly, interrupting my reply.
“But it wasn’t all wasted …”
“Not wasted? Not bloody wasted?” demanded my thirty-nine-year self, menacingly.
“Well, no, and I didn’t know …”
“Didn’t know? Didn’t ruddy well know?” shouted my fourteen-year self in my clamouring brain as I tried to concentrate on clearing my desk and computer under Martin’s watchful eye.
“Didn’t know? Didn’t know, he says!” shouted my forty-year self into my echoing brain. “You always loved to break the rules!”
“But they didn’t explain them properly …”
“Explain them properly. You never ruddy listened,” interrupted my twelve-year self in my cranium, sounding suspiciously like my father.
“But it was only a family blog, easy to delete …”
“Family blog? It was a blog, dumb arse! Blog equals the whole wide world,” offered my thirty six-year-old self (from last year), helpfully.
“But … an innocent mistake … I just wanted to tell my friends how proud I was of this job …”
“So proud you get turfed out,” said my twenty-two-year self with vague strains of my mother in its voice.
“Oh hell, I didn’t mean to stuff it up …”
“You okay, mate?” asked Martin hesitantly, a real voice interrupting my inner rant as I said goodbye to my desk.
“Ooh, aah, yeah … well, not really,” I said, quickly returning to the tangible world as I turned and we set off, the bank’s green carpet passing beneath my black business shoes. We walked shoulder to shoulder past desk after desk after desk, all containing heads-down-pretending-to-be-working inhabitants.
“Damnably awkward,” said Martin helpfully, perhaps afraid of the silence that had descended in this massive acreage of office.
“Awkward? Bloody unnecessary, actually,” I said, louder than I’d meant. A bout of sniggers burst around us and was quickly quelled by Martin’s withering look at the red faces.
“Just keep it civil, old chap, huh,” he whispered as we neared the double doors; one of several double doors my security card opened – the card that was now safely deposited back in the HR department’s custody … the security card I would never see again.
