New Year's eve in the office. It's very quiet. All the talk now is of cuts and redundancy packages - people hoping for the right one, others hoping to avoid it. It looks like my area will have to deliver a 65% reduction over 3 years, with much of that front loaded into the coming year. So we're all nervous.

The practical upshot is that it has become very difficult to actually do anything. Any change or improvement to working practices is fought off strongly - because people are afraid that it might facilitate job losses. That's a bit of a nuisance when you're working on an improvement project like the one I'm involved in.