Banker loses his job but can't get out of the car park

Car parks can be a labyrinth to find the way out of at the best of times, but one employee of ABN Amro found it particularly difficult to exit the institution's garage after the bank made him redundant by cancelling his work pass while he sat at his desk.

The failure of the banker's security pass to activate the exit gate of ABN's car park was the first time he knew that he had in fact been laid off last month.

The individual, who worked in ABN's London headquarters in the City, turned up for work on Friday 23 May and parked his car in the staff car park. Yet when he left that evening, his pass did not work.

The car park attendant, who checked the pass, informed the banker that the problem lay in the fact that the card had been blocked because he was going to be made redundant the following Tuesday, according to The Financial News.

ABN Amro would not comment on the incident, which is thought to have been caused by an over-zealous member of the human resources team assuming that the unnamed banker had left London early for the bank holiday weekend.

ABN, along with the rest of the investment banking community has slashed its headcount in an attempt to bring costs into line with revenues, which have dramatically slumped due to the lack of mergers and acquisition and corporate finance activity.