Been a difficult couple of weeks. Redundancies announced at my company last week, but unclear who impacted as news trickles out through rumours, or if they tell you, or if their Slack is suddenly deactivated. I think everyone is a bit nervous. Some react with bravado, some with aggression, some continue to be toxic and seem to believe they walk on water and everyone who disagrees is wrong, some keep their head down, some withdraw into themselves, some seem relatively unaffected.

The IT guy in the London office was made redundant. He told me himself, as we get along reasonably well, and I’m in his wider team. I was really quite surprised… because the cost savings from cutting him must just be spare change, compared to some other overpaid and under qualified folks in the company. And how can we do without an IT guy – the only one! – in our UK office? Are they going to fly someone out from Amsterdam for any issue? Or are they closing down the UK office? (I would be shocked if they did. But I’m also shocked that they cut our only IT guy!) I feel bad for him because I think he’s getting married later this summer too.

The Fearless tries to cheer his Leadership Team up and boost our spirits in our team meetings when we look too sombre after discussions of cost cuts and implications. On one hand, he wants us to do a better job – and having some level of threat / stress is good – on the other hand, I suppose he wants to keep the morale up.

Been having relatively frequent (but relatively minor, compared to before) panic attacks and my chest hurts from time to time. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it is not too bad, in context of the high level of volatility and uncertainty – redundancies at my work place, the macroeconomic environment, changes in personal life. But it is annoying to have a feeling of tightness in the chest – like there’s as steel band around the heart – which sometimes lasts for a long time, until I almost manage to block it out, because I’ve become habituated to it.

Met a friend for dinner and drinks tonight. At some point, while she was at the ladies, a guy came over and tried to chat me up, trying to speak Chinese. I found it a rather disturbing experience – I can’t decide if I should be flattered, creeped out, or take it in stride. I suppose because I’m just never “hit on” any more really. I gave him a bit of a hard time, which I kind of feel bad about. But he’ll probably shrug it off or forget it in the morning as he was smashed.