As the Reuters screen flashed “London traders told stop dealing with Bear” we cheered. After a couple of hours drinking, the news the bank I worked for was in so much trouble had finally sunk in.

Like hundreds of my colleagues, I had left work for the afternoon. There didn't seem much point in sticking around. Nobody would trade with us, and we certainly couldn't work on any deals. There was a steady trickle to the area in Canary Wharf around the Slug & Lettuce and All Bar One from lunchtime, until hundreds of Bear employees - about 90 per cent of all the people left after the job cuts - were gathered.

It was a bit like a wake for the bank. We had been out around here before to celebrate, when deals had just been done or we had just got bonuses and the champagne was flowing. Tonight was more of a beer night.

It all started in the morning when it was obvious the share price had tanked. Then we got an email saying we had liquidity problems, and then heard market gossip that the Fed deal was effectively JP Morgan buying us. The traders all walked out at about lunchtime, and soon most people were sitting around talking about what had gone wrong.

None of us could believe it. Banks don't go bust. It is not meant to happen.I was quite prepared for potential redundancy but other people did not see this coming at all and were devastated. It is almost worse for the senior people who have just lost all their wealth. Their bonuses are usually around 60percent made up of stock options in the bank. Those won't translate into a lot of JP Morgan shares once we get taken over.

All the other banks are on a hiring freeze, so there's not much chance of getting a job anywhere else. There's a slim chance for some of the younger people that they might be kept on by JPMorgan but if they don't there's just the hope of a decent redundancy package. You might be able to live off three months' banking salary for up to a year. All confidence that something could be done was clearly gone by the time I left the pub. This could be a really bad recession and then how many jobs are there going to be for bank workers? Lots of people probably think it is really funny that all these people who are paid extortionate amounts of money have lost their jobs. They don't understand that it means much more than this. If we can get taken down, who's next?

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