I'll be honest with you, when the crash happened in 2008 I was bloody terrified.
I was working for a global creative network, my office had just lost its biggest client.
We were expecting our first child, like most people our savings wouldn't last us forever.
As usual with the big networks, the Eye of Sauron., brooding in it's tower in New York turned its baleful gaze towards Manchester, it saw numbers that needed to shrink and the consultations began.
I was one of the lucky ones. The sense of relief was overwhelming and yet.....
One the most talented juniors I ever worked with was cut. His boss, my boss, never actually said goodbye to him, he was cast out within an hour by HR.
It's been shown that laying people off in their first job or so, has lasting damage (believe me I know). My team (not the boss) did everything we could for him. He didn't need help with his career, he's now at one the best and one the best there.
He needed emotional support. Kindness.
I can only remember feeling the conflict of relief at being one of the lucky ones, at war with over guilt of thinking thank God it's them not me.
My life is very different now, eldest child is nearly 11, I'm the strategy director, not the minion. It's a very different feeling to worry about your own life, but feel so responsible for all the people who depend upon you at work.
It makes me judge that boss even more. It's not excusable not to say goodbye to someone who's life you've just turned upside down, its just not.
Two months later, the same boss broke down in a meeting because her dog was ill.
Her dog.
She was also caught saying she liked recessions because you cab squeeze more out of your people.
Lots of folks in adland are spouting the usual predictions about how the world will change. At least I guess, unlike the annual January crystal ball attempts to tell us how this is the year of this and that, it's safe to say that the world is changing profoundly. But no one really knows what will happen.
One theme though is that when this all end, people will judge companies who didn't do their bit.
Yet we're seeing the usual global groups cutting deep as we speak. I don't know their numbers, but I suspect they'll be judged too when they need talent for the upturn and their isn't any.
I hope it might be a time for independent agencies to flourish, by being good AND doing good work. But it's only a hope, I don't know what will happen any more than anyone else. So don't judge me.
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