City Diaries: Your comments

The City Diaries are written by people who work in the finance industry and have had a front row seat as banks have failed or been bailed by the government.

BBC News website readers have been sending us their reactions.

Read the City Diaries

Do you work in financial services? Send us your comments

YOUR COMMENTS

Reading "Caroline's" diary made me smile - I could have written them myself. Employed by a large bank in a high street branch, imminent takeover, major job uncertainty and trying to carry it off with a smile and gallons of positivity every day! Most of the senior managers I interact with are spending their time trying to cover their own backs in an attempt to secure their jobs. It's a very worrying time for everyone. I am very fatalistic about it all. If the axe falls then I will take a completely different direction - away from the financial sector. I can feel a remake of 'The Good Life' coming on!
L, Manchester

I retired from a City financial services job in the early 1990s so I can remember the grim atmosphere of the early 1970s and the Nat West general manager having to deny his bank was bust. I was mortgaged to the hilt on a property, soon worth less than I paid for it, so I know about negative equity too. I think the difference then was the media had the unions and the Labour government to blame. Now the real culprits are the top brass who are incompetent managers but have left pocketing millions of pounds of shareholders money. My sympathies go out to the ordinary employees trying to do an honest job in dreadful circumstances.
John, Kent

I started working in the City in the last recession in 1991. Like many of us who enjoyed the party over the last ten years, those dark days seemed like another lifetime. As our deals became larger and the bull market raged, we convinced ourselves that we would defy the odds. I find it difficult to believe that the majority of us truly thought that the party would never end. I think most thought that we would get out just in time. Now sitting here on a Friday afternoon watching my colleagues making themselves look busy, I have to ask "was it all worth it?" The answer, for most of us, will be yes. After all, it was a party of a lifetime.
David , London

I don't work in finance but it seems to me a bit harsh for those who do to be asking for too much sympathy. In the 1970s and 1980s, those of us who lost our manufacturing jobs or those whose jobs were lost through the corporate mergers which made millions for investment banks, hedge fund managers or private equity firms, had our noses rubbed in stories of £20 dim sum snacks and the like. It really is pleasant to see some chickens coming home to roost. The only sad part is that the big bosses who made trillions won't even notice a billion lost here or there.
Mark, Liverpool

It is our fault. For all the people that feel sorry for themselves, I have the world's smallest violin playing for them on my desk. I just started working in financial services five months ago so I could very easily say it's not my fault and I am a victim. But it is my fault, it is all our fault. Society is made up of everyone and affected by everyone, not just people that made it to the theoretical top. When the banks make bad decisions it is everyone's fault. It is time we took some responsibility for our actions and for all you non-financial services employees nodding your heads in agreement, I also mean you! Yes, you who took out a 100% mortgage, yes you who took out a loan to buy that handbag/car/flat-screen. Stop blaming banking bosses. They acted in exactly the same way we would. I would say that those are my two cents, but I'm actually going to deposit them in my savings account.
John, London

Working for a large retail bank in recent months couldn't be worse. Everyday when I get to work, there are talks of further job cuts. The new CEO informs us that our jobs are safe and that our bank is in a better position compared to other retail banks. However, hearing an announcement of a bail-out plan for the bank injects further speculation. I would rather be sacked from my job than wait for it to happen! It's like seeing someone on a life-support machine that could be switched off at any moment.
R, Leicestershire

I worked for an investment bank for five years and was exposed to the greed, selfishness and crudity endemic in this industry. The press is wrong about the origins of this crisis - it has nothing to do with "risk taking". It has everything to do with short-termism generated by the "get rich quick and leave" attitudes of senior managers driven by grossly inflated bonuses and share options. It has also been a political failure to regulate this behaviour. There should be retribution sought against those responsible.
Colin, Gloucester

I don't work in the financial sector but I certainly have comments to make. I have worked in the manufacturing industry for the past 37 years. Talk of redundancy is an ever present fact of life that you learn to live with. Hardly a week passes without talk of the impact from foreign competition - how cheaply they can make the same product in a new factory in Hungary or the Far East, how uncompetitive your product is by comparison, how your productivity is a fraction of that achieved by workers in China and so on. As far as going to spend £20 on lunch, well, that's unheard off. Grab a sarnie in the canteen and back to it. Make sure you hit the targets for today or there may be no tomorrow. I'm sorry I don't have much sympathy for the whiners in the financial sector. Talk of redundancy comes as a shock to them, but it is what we've coped with for years.
Bulla, St Helens

I work in the City as an IT contractor for a hedge fund. I have been in the banking and finance industry for about 17 years. I'm quite excited and cheerful about what is happening at the moment. My contract has been renewed so I have work and income next year. I hope property prices drop even more as I hope to buy something by the end of 2009 in cash. All those years of frugal living are finally paying off. Less people in the City is good news for commuting and less talk about expensive multiple properties, exotic holidays abroad and fancy fine dining is most welcome.
Charlie, London

I have worked in banking since I left school in 1978. Although I have experienced previous recessions, I have never known anything quite like the current situation. Most of the traders where I work are so young that they have never even experienced a downturn. I have heard that some institutions have even had to arrange special training courses to teach them how to make money in such a market. As a sign of how worried everyone is about their jobs, people are getting in earlier, working their lunch and leaving later, even though there is precious little to do. The young people that are lucky enough to keep their jobs will learn more about banking and finance over the next year to 18 months than they would have done over the past 15 years!
Jerry, Upminster

I am a mortgage broker based within an estate agency chain. It is fair to say my industry has been hit harder than most in 2008. You turn up for work and look at your diary previously full of appointments and activity, now two significant meetings or appointments a day is the norm. I'm one of three left from 10 at the start of the year. In some ways I'm lucky to still have my job but how much window staring or people watching can you do?
P, Berkshire