Constructive disengagement as a recession-beating tactic

This is the first recession - depression, slump, whatever you want to call it - that's going to hurt me personally. I can feel it. I don't yet know how badly it's going to hurt, but I know it's going to happen.

It's an odd feeling, after a lifetime (45 years and counting) of privileged insulation from what are the harsh economic realities of life for many people, to know that finally I'm going to feel the pain for a change. It may just be a mild inconvenience - a blip in the value of my house or a momentary judder for my pension fund - or I may lose my job and really start feeling the heat. Time will tell.

I work in internal communications for a large company, which means that I'm privy to some of the conversations that senior managers have about the way to present bad news to the foot soldiers. So I know that it's all about the numbers in the end, and nothing to do with the people, whatever they say publicly. Which is why, as I sit here waiting for the train to come thundering down the track, I get irritated beyond measure to hear insincere corporate fuckwits telling me how awful it is that someone close to me - and I mean close in the sense that they've worked near me for a few years (and even when I say 'near me' I actually mean organisationally rather than geographically) - is going to have to be asked to leave the company because the numbers dictate that it must be so.

It's irritating because it's true and because it's unavoidable. It's irritating because I'm not doing anything about it. It's irritating because even if I wanted to do something about it there's nothing I could do. But mostly it's irritating because the company expects you to give your all to keep it healthy and it gives you fuck-all in return and when it's in trouble all it does is haemorrhage people as quickly as it can because people are its most expensive assets and the numbers dictate that they're the ones you get rid of first when the shit hits the fan.

So in the spirit of rebellion, albeit rather feeble rebellion, I'm going to do as little as possible and keep myself as disengaged from the whole sorry mess as it's possible to be without actually getting the sack. If my efforts actually made any difference to the course of corporate events in the grand scheme of things, this could be seen as a somewhat counterproductive strategem. As they make no difference whatever, it can't!