In December 2008, I wrote a piece about Barclays, criticizing the expensive £7 billion capital-raising from Middle East investors and the decision to purchase Lehman’s US broker-dealer last September when the outlook for investment banking was at its most opaque. The article elicited howls of outrage from Barclays’ supporters. One indignant reader snorted: “I am encouraged by your criticism of Barclays’ management.”

"How the hell do you think I’m doing after losing $1 billion?"

The past two turbulent years have also redefined the adjectives that are acceptable to describe a chief executive in the financial services industry

The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street widens.

Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income traders have not excelled and in 2009 the firm has failed to capitalize on opportunities in the flow businesses

A number of senior financiers made an enormous effort to join the party

Some are wondering who might be in line to succeed present chief executive Mike Geoghegan should he move on in a few years

Have we learnt anything from the unsettling events of the past nine months? I have learnt that bankers have short memories and exceptionally short recall regarding painful reminiscences. Maybe it’s part of the human condition. It certainly seems to be part of a banker’s DNA.

This edition of Abigail with attitude includes a guide to decoding the underemployed senior banker’s vocabulary.

In today’s hostile environment, no amount of money could induce me to work as a CFO at a US financial institution.

A more frugal future looms, one where simple is the new sane.

Eighteen months ago, the chief executives of major financial firms were revered. We envied their elevated status – the jets, the bodyguards, the limousines and the layers of gatekeepers. Now these men are reduced to squirming schoolchildren who’ve been caught stealing from the communal cookie jar.

As the terrible fourth-quarter results were unveiled, Bank of America started briefing against John Thain, Merrill Lynch’s chief executive. This is always a high-risk press strategy. A public relations specialist comments: "Washing dirty laundry in public is dangerous. Now even grannies in Topeka, Kansas, know that Bank of America is in chaos."

Those of us involved in finance tend to treat the vagaries of investment banking as a matter of life and death.

Beleaguered Barclays, Delphic Deutsche, bank bonuses and preempting press releases.

A few incidents from that weekend remain in my mind.

The list of badly flawed financial institutions is long: Barclays (crumbling shareholder value), Société Générale (poor controls), UBS (total mismanagement), Lehman Brothers (vainglorious leadership), Bear Stearns (dereliction of management).

A week, they say, is a long time in politics. We now know that a week can be an eternity in the financial markets, especially when it starts with Lehman Brothers going bust and ends with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley becoming licensed deposit takers so that they can snuggle closer to the Federal Reserve. Oh, and in between, you had the rescue of the largest US insurance company, AIG and the proposed Stalinization of US capitalism financed by the Land of the Free’s taxpayers.

"Why did I tell you that? Please, please forget that I mentioned it," a chief wailed.

I hate to be the ugly fairy at the wedding but I'm starting to wonder if John Thain will turn out ot be Merrill's messiah after all.

It’s a truism that hindsight is 20/20 vision. But those who spot the signals of turning markets are visionaries and those who act on these signals are true geniuses.

“If you’re going to call on shareholders, you’d better be first at the feast not last into battle.”

The world is starting to resemble a spinning top: one week the markets soar, the next they sink. Even mighty masters of the universe are confused: hedge funds and banks had a dire month in March.

We are engulfed in a tornado of gloom. Wall Street titans and employees alike have seen their share options decimated, pension pots plummet and everyone feels insecure about job security. I’m hearing that investment banks need to cut 20% of their employees to accommodate lower profitability.

Credit Suisse’s convoluted saga is a calamity for the banking sector as a whole. People might assume that banks don’t understand the numbers they are dealing with and that the numbers that are reported are not reliable.

The credit crunch has been a tornado that has shown no regard for the reputations of formerly revered individuals.

Ruling Citi would be like ruling the Forbidden City. There is so much breadth to the institution that it would be hard for any one individual to span the various sectors: investment banking, consumer banking, wealth management and retail brokerage. And as for structure, I’ve had mud baths that are more transparent.

Despite all the jawboning over the past few years about succession planning, banks seem woefully unprepared if they are forced to jettison a flailing chief executive because of cauldron-like shareholder pressure.

"You’re fired" is the new "You’re free".