1. You receive yet another “Dear John” letter from your panicking money manager that starts, “As I’m sure you know, the month of June has been very challenging…” and ends with the old tease that, “It is in the most challenging of markets that the greatest opportunities appear.”

2. You tell your wife that the crisis on Wall Street is actually a good thing, as it will bring New York real-estate prices down and make it easier to buy a bigger place. Even though you bought your apartment less than two years ago, have no children and will be lucky to get any bonus this year.

3. You don’t have to lie to your friends anymore about the drive time from New York City to the Hamptons. With the roads empty, it finally takes the hour and 45 minutes you always pretended it did.

4. You receive the eerily familiar email from the company CEO full of resolve that the firm will come out of this difficult period even stronger. Then you realize–it is the same email you received two months ago but from a different CEO.

5. Your cubicle is moved yet again as your office floor undergoes its fourth reorganization in less than a year. You speculate on whether it is a good sign that you are sitting closer to your boss until you find you are the only two left in the department – and you are the one next to the photocopier.

6. You recall how you all laughed about the pilot program to outsource banker work to India. Until it went fully operational, you stopped laughing and were told to pack your things.

7. You are relieved that the value of all your company vested and unvested shares and options is down only 50% from its peak nine months ago. Never mind that you could have easily dumped most of the shares at prices that won’t be seen for another 10 years.

8. After months of naysaying the agriculture boom, you finally succumb and find tremendous value in the shares of a $72 billion fertilizer company that was worth a 10th of that two years ago.

9. You walk around smartly reminding everyone at the firm how you warned them that the traders would finally get their comeuppance. Until you remember that the traders are still running your bank and most of Wall Street.

Yes, Virginia, there is a bear market out there.