ALL day long yesterday, CNBC and Bloomberg Television were giving updates about possible job cuts at beleaguered US financial giant Citigroup. As I glanced up at the TV set above me occasionally to get the latest figure, the number jumped from 10,000 at mid-afternoon, then to 30,000, 40,000 and finally 50,000 just before I left the office at about nine at night.
The experience was unnerving. Even though I have been reporting on the global financial crisis since it erupted last August, I am somewhat distraught by the latest developments.
I get this surreal feeling that I am watching the movie Titanic over and over again, as one troubled Wall Street titan after another runs aground in treacherous waters, killing its many occupants as it sinks.
And like the friends and relatives who hang anxiously around waiting for the latest scrap of news on whether their loved ones survived the crash, I find myself becoming similarly worked up over the many Citi people that I got to know over the years.
Will they survive the culling of the herd ?
When a major financial institution such as Citigroup goes into crisis mode, it is unlikely that Singapore, where it employs over 9,000 staff, will be spared as heads are lopped off across the globe.
Even my usually ebullient colleague Francis Chan was affected. We heard him last night exploding about an email sent out by Citi to postpone Thursday's year-end media party.
Nothing in the email had given any indication of the cataclysm, about to overtake Citi, which had been given plenty of airtime by the foreign TV stations.
It merely said: “We have received feedback from many of you that the proposed date for the party (Thu 20 Nov) is not ideal, and have decided to postpone the event to a later date.”
As one friend noted in an SMS, pressing ahead with a party at such a time would have been extremely insensitive. “Won’t it smack of Nero fiddling while Rome burns ?” she observed.
But what I find extremely galling is the glee which some people seem to be greeting this bloodletting at Citi.
One British newspaper this morning described the job cuts at Citi as a health kick which was long overdue.
“A headcount target of 300,000 helps to stop snacking on the odd new hire here and there,” it said.
Doesn’t this newspaper realise that it is people’s jobs and the lives that have been messed up which it was referring to? It is almost callous to describe them as snacks to be eaten and then spat out at will, if they don’t prove out to be tasty enough.
I could still recall the bright spark of anticipation on a former colleague’s eye as he left to join Citi some months ago.
I had watched his departure with some misgivings, as he was moving to a bank whose financial problems had been widely reported, and at a time when job security should have been of paramount consideration.
But he is single and has few commitments.
I was also delighted at the enthusiasm he was bringing to his new job and the contributions that he might be making there after learning his ropes here. I hope he is still doing okay.
The financial crisis will continue to unfold and surprise us in other ways.
It is also turning into a big reality check like nothing, which Singaporeans who had entered the workforce during the last couple of boom years, have experienced before.