Solace in Stamps by Patricia Morgan

Author:Patricia Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2022-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Bleak Times

1992

British 18 pence Stamp – ‘Wintertime in the Four Seasons’ Series

Literally, out of the blue, came the news there were going to be redundancies made within our department. Ten people would be going overall and whoever was chosen would get a telephone call before 10 am the next morning. When my telephone rang, I was stunned. I knew that due to being conscientious I worked harder than my male counterparts. Two of them would often skive off work when out on site visits and one was a part time fireman. When his beeper went off, he would just leave his work and run out of the building. I do know that their respective area valuers had given them properties with higher rental values. This in turn meant they could charge a percentage fee rather than when dealing with the minimum fee cases I seemed to be constantly working on. Yet, if you remember, I did have the chief valuer’s support in that achieving my own personal targets was not deemed to be a problem.

The head of Property Services summoned me to his office. I was in such a state that I couldn’t really take it in. I certainly wasn’t thinking straight. I asked him why I had been specifically chosen out of all the assistant valuers. He replied, ‘You have not hit your targets in the past year’. When I defended this by telling him of my previous discussions with the chief valuer, his response was that ‘I could take him on if I wanted to’. I went to see the chief valuer in the hope that he would support me if I challenged this reasoning. But I learnt that he was also being made redundant and he didn’t see what he could do to help. He was coming up to retirement age so I’m not sure it was such a blow to him, other than to his pride of-course. I went home devastated. As with the other nine unlucky souls, I had been given six months’ notice. This in itself was awful because I now remained working with all my colleagues who were staying on. I felt the lowest of the low, and my self-esteem hit rock bottom. When I went shopping one night after work, I had a panic attack.

In those days there was no chip and pin. You had to sign for your goods and this signature was then compared to that on your debit card. Well, my signature was queried by the checkout girl and so I was asked to sign again. With shaking hands, I scribbled my name again and it was subjected to even more scrutiny. It was at that point I couldn’t breathe. I felt rooted to the spot but wanted at the same time to leave my shopping and run out of the store. It was as though the checkout girl was questioning my whole being. I later learned that this was a typical ‘fight or flight’ response. From that moment onwards I couldn’t sign my name.

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