I see women throw snacks half-eaten into the bins beside their desks, and wrap chocolate bars back up and stow them in the backs of drawers with furtive looks. I see muscles that have been worked to snapping-point in obsessive hours spent pressing benches or whatever it is they do in gyms, jawlines hardened by nightly gurning, skin like poached leather from jogging in the sleet.And then there is Elinor, my prime suspect for the churning sounds emanating from next door. My obsessive eyes spotted her on the first day because joy obviously left her world at some point and never came back. Pale, drooping Elinor, no use to anybody in the morning because the effort of dragging herself in to work each day has obviously worn her out. Elinor, who has gone so far on the starvation trip that she has loose clothing to disguise her skinny ribs, huge specs that highlight how small her face is, hair tied back in a careless ponytail. Elinor is no longer banting to be beautiful; Elinor has lost the will to live.I consider this as the retching gradually dies down to a few soft snuffles and, finally, a heartfelt moan.

Decide that I’m going to give up dieting; not only is it making me obsessive, but it could lead to what’s going on on the other side of the partition. I’ve worked in dozens of offices, and this sort of thing has gone on in more than I could enumerate: tell- tale smells in the loo, lunch-time misery, desperately low blood-sugar levels leading to tantrums at 4pm. Why do women punish themselves? You don’t catch men doing it. If the price for all-round success – job, home, figure – is this, isn’t it too great a cost?Next door flushes, and Elinor shuffles out, turns on a tap. Thinking maybe I should say something, but knowing that I won’t, and will probably just stand there nursing quiet contempt when I see her, I follow. She’s bent over the sink, elbows on the top, splashing water on her face and looking miserably in the mirror. I start washing my hands, catch her eye and receive a wan smile.The door bursts open and Brenda, a motherly Australian, appears, catches sight of Elinor and comes over.

“Oh, dear,” she says, “you off again?”Elinor nods, dabs at her face with a dampened paper towel “I can’t believe it,” she says. “I thought it was supposed to have died down by now.”Brenda pulls a sympathetic face. “My Karen was so bad with her first,” she says, “She was practically throwing up on the way into the delivery room.”"Oh, great,” says Elinor, “That makes me feel a whole lot better.”"How long have you got to go?” asks Brenda.”Another four months,” says Elinor. “I tell you, if it’s always like this, Daniel can forget about having a large family.”. LATE LAST year, the chief executive of a company which was in the midst of downsizing decided to lightheartedly remind his staff that they were still valued. So he sent them a mail-merge letter wishing them a merry Christmas.

“PS,” he added, “Don’t worry about the redundancies, we’ll let you know next year!”

According to a recent study by Collinson Grant Consultants, this kind of communications cock-up – which inevitably causes employees to worry more rather than less – is increasingly prevalent. The poll of UK employers reveals that a staggering number of organisations fail to plan how they will tell staff about restructuring, resulting in rumours – and consequently anxiety – becoming rife. Indeed, some 140 of the 193 employers who have restructured their firms in the past five years admitted to having had such problems.
For secretarial staff, the consequences can be severe. “Not only do they have the same concerns as every other employee, but they also have to deal with the common assumption that secretaries – particularly those at the top – know exactly what’s going on because they are most likely to be `in’ on the meetings and may even have access to the relevant documents,” explains Angela Edward, a policy adviser for the Institute of Personnel and Development.Susan, a 34-year-old PA in the City, knows this all too well. “Last year, no less than 40 employees came to ask me whether rumours were true about redundancies and who was on the hit-list. I genuinely didn’t know anymore than them and feared for my job as much as they did.

But I was disbelieved and even shunned by some staff members.”Careers adviser Ellen Richardson believes such attitudes are on the rise. “In a climate where job insecurity is at a peak, employees get more frustrated than ever at rumours about downsizing. Since they can’t risk venting this in the direction of their superiors, the superiors’ assistants may be the next best option.”According to business psychologist Marie Mosely, PAs and secretaries should take advantage of their role. “Because it is you whom people are approaching and you who has the rare opportunity of spending time alone with managers, you’re probably in the best position to point out the repercussions of poor communications systems,” she says. In 43 per cent of the restructured firms polled for the study, for example, staff turnover rose during the changes, while in 41 per cent stress-related illness, lower productivity or short-term absenteeism caused problems. “Propose a general meeting, a series of informative memorandums and even a staff rep who can be responsible for making a note of the most common concerns,” she advises.