One of my closest friends lost his job just before Christmas - he was - or rather, still is - in accountancy at a major City tax firm.
His redundancy deal is basically that they'll keep him on until May, and after that he'll get a redundancy payment of six months' pay including tax - well over £70,000 in total.
I on the other hand was told I'm being let go last week and given two weeks' notice plus two weeks of redundancy pay (about £650 in all) and am now worrying about how I'm going to pay rent, buy food and pay bills, and trying to think of ways to make dd's shoes that she's about to grow out of last a little bit longer. We have some savings but not enough to go far.
I was pouring it all out to above friend and a couple of other mutual friends over a coffee today - not exactly wallowing (alright, I suppose I was a bit), trying to get some practical ideas about what avenues to look down next, expressing my new-found disbelief at actually being entitled to almost nothing in terms of housing benefit and support - when he suddenly started telling me to get a grip, that I wasn't the only person who'd been let go recently, to think of him and his "career in tatters" whilst I'd "only lost a job" which I'd often said was tedious anyway, plus I'm used to not having much money so I should just stop complaining. And more. Long story short, I ended up storming out, crushed and furious that he could be so self-obsessed.
I do feel for him, and I think I've been really supportive - I talked to him for hours when he first found out, invited him round for dinner loads so he felt supported - but part of me also feels bitter. It's not like his redundancy is imminent, he isn't going to have to worry about what to do financially, like many people hit by recent job losses. And regardless of that, there was no need for him to get insulting.
Part of me wants to just phone up and apologise, say I know that he's feeling crap right now, that I know it's tough, that I know he saw his job as a career and a lifestyle as well as just a means to an end. But part of me thinks that despite all that, there's no imminency about his redundancy, and he isn't going to have to worry a bit about what to do financially, and that he was just totally out of order and a right selfish git for saying what he said.
Or am I the selfish one for talking about redundancy in front of him? I dunno.