On Friday, DBS Bank announced its disappointing third quarter results at a townhall and said that they will cut 900 jobs in Singapore and Hong Kong as part of a streamlining exercise. Although this came as a shock to me (though DBS is not a government-owned bank, general perception views it as such given it is the largest South-East Asian bank by assets and job cuts are rare in civil service), I thought I should not be affected given I am in credit risk management and this IS a credit crisis afterall. Possibly getting axed would be the backroom operations and front office staff given the slowing volumes, I thought in my head.

To my bitter surprise, my big boss (my boss's boss) briefed the department the following Monday morning. Apparently, my credit department is overstaffed compared with similar credit departments in other banks. This made no sense to me because we have had long work hours and this is a sign of being over-stretched, not overstaffed. Well, the long and short of it was that there will be cuts at my end but the list of affected staff is still being prepared by HR.

This is my first restructuring exercise in my very short working career (it has been 3 years and a couple of months but it feels as if I have worked forever and I am ready to retire tomorrow). Though the list of laid-off staff is not out, morale is very low and there is an overwhelming atmosphere of melancholy in the office as co-workers pack their tables clean in anticipation of being axed. I try my best to continue working as normal and busied myself tying up loose ends so that whoever taking over would not have to figure out such stuff.

I think I have found the three "R"s in the work environment. In a recession, beware the oncoming restructuring exercise which will inevitably lead to a retrenchment...