Background story

On the 21st January 2011, I was sitting at my desk in a large engineering consultants doing some mundane task that I had found for myself to do just so that I would have something to pass the time with. My desk phone rang and instantly I knew what was going to happen as I could see that the caller was in one of the meeting rooms where people, who, had in the past been made redundant, were told of their fate.  It was my unit manager on the other end of the line and he asked me to come down to the room.  Just before I left my desk to take the dreaded journey, I sent an instant message to one of my colleages just saying, "I'm a gonner" and she replied back, "oh no". As I made my way down to the meeting room I could feel my heart pounding and as I sat down at the table beside my manager he apologised in advance for having to give me the news.  The whole discussion went by in a blur and I just remembered telling him how I didn't envy the task he had and he told me that I was making his job easier for him by being so nice but in hindsight I was just in shock.  I packed up my belongings while the rest of the employees in my unit were being informed that three people had been let go that day and walked out of the building after being an employee for 4.5 years.