Getting The Boot
Redundancy is a fact of life. I knew a girl who would hunt out jobs she figured she had a fair chance of being made redundant from. Within five years she’d accumulated enough redundancy pay-offs to buy a house — and get herself a steady job.
I have never been made redundant, but I have been sacked. It was the week before Christmas 1974, and I was Publicity Director (not a director at all, just a big title for Manager) at the publishers W.H.Allen, and also Master of the Universe. Fresh from placing a W.H.Allen author as the lead guest on the Parkinson show every week for six straight weeks, I could do no wrong. I was called into the managing directors’ office. I went in jaunty at the prospect of a big rise, and came out jobless. No reason was given. I had to clear my desk by lunchtime.
Back then there was no such thing as job protection. People could be hired and fired at will. I racked my brains as to what I’d done wrong, and came up with nothing. But there was no comeback to be had. That was the last job I had; I’ve been gainfully unemployed (thanks for that one, Mike) ever since.
Last night at a party at the Irish Embassy I saw the man who had sacked me for the first time in 34 years.
“Are you Jeffrey Simmonds?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m Gwyn Headley. Why did you sack me?”
First there was blankness. Then bluster and denial. “Who are you again? I never sacked you.”
Then the dawn of recognition. “Are you that Welshman? You were always going off to rugger matches.”
“You sacked me for that? I went at weekends.”
“No, I’m beginning to remember now. You went off to a rugger match and you had done an ad for the Sunday Times, and it was much too big for the space booked, and they came back to us and you weren’t around and I had to redo the ad entirely myself.”
“And for that you sacked me? That was a sackable offence?” I couldn’t recall this at all.
His mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish. He looked like a pathetic old man.
And you know what? I felt sorry for this person I had once wanted to kill.
