The following post is Part 2 of an investment banking analyst's nightmare all-nighter.

If you missed Part 1, read it here.

After getting ready to leave work at a reasonable hour, you get bombed with a nasty email and get caught up in a fire drill that will have you pulling an all-nighter at work. You just got through an unbelievable load of late-night additions to the pitchbook you've been cranking on, and you're catching a breather after sending the latest draft to your VP....

mod note: see part 2 here

Since I’ve been writing for WSO, my most popular posts have been about banking experiences. The All Nighter is perhaps one of the most quintessential experiences of investment banking. While I agree with bankerella in that you can assuage some of the pain of working through an all-nighter with attitude adjustments generally involving ‘sucking it up,’ for most of us, there’s something about that very raw blend of stress and fatigue that just won’t go quietly. And so every year, generations of junior investment bankers – some of the most elaborate whiners on the planet – pass on their legendary tales of brutal nights spent at the office. Relive the horror of yesteryear (or yesterday).

When you work 80-hour weeks regularly and the staples of your diet are $25 Seamlessweb pasta dishes and burger combos, inevitably, nature is going to call – on your office line. For the majority of analysts on Wall Street, working at an investment bank is your first time in a professional office environment.

To the uninitiated, the bathrooms at investment banks might be imagined as marble palaces, freshly stocked with the finest supplies for bankers’ quiet time atop gold-plated commodes. To those in the know – well, you know it’s not so. Five observations regarding your favorite place to catch up on Words with Friends while at the office:

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the way people in our corner of the world use email. As even the greenest summer analyst knows, on Wall Street, email is the primary means of communication – in other words, the primary method of transferring and generating work. The curse of the buzzing Blackberry afflicts thousands of young analysts and associates, who dream of the days when they only carried one cell phone. On the weekends, the Almighty Blinking Red Light is like a beacon of doom, a grinding reminder of the very much tethered existence of the typical junior financier.

It’s Saturday morning and you’ve slept in hard after a long week of late nights and life-threatening levels of caffeine consumption. You forgot to take out your contact lenses before passing out last night, so your eyelids are fused shut. Buzz buzz – oh no…

You answer the call of the Almighty Blinking Red Light with dutiful purpose and a heavy heart. You fumble with the keys until you hit the unlock sequence, and the screen illuminates. It’s a uniquely terrible feeling waking up to multiple work emails. Deep breath.

From: Jason Brownoser
Subject: Fw: Re: Re: Re:

Not good. Immediately you can tell this is a long email chain, denoted by the multiple response tags. Additionally, it appears as though the conversation has occurred via Blackberry, as there are no all-caps tags (as there would have been if the chain was sent through Outlook).

As financial professionals, most of us have to wear some variation of The Suit and Tie to work every day. Most of us live in large cities and either walk or rely on public transportation for the daily commute. And while we spend the vast majority of our waking lives in fluorescent-lit, climate-controlled offices, for a few minutes each day, we brave the elements to get to work. Given the unpredictable/often miserable weather in New York, people who wear suits everyday have to deal with commuting in creative ways. Chances are, you’ve adopted some commute-specific wardrobe modifications for the subway and streets. Some general observations after the break:

It’s midsummer in the city and the vaunted investment banking group outings are upon us. It’s time to loosen the cravat and enjoy the smell of steamy, urine-coated Manhattan concrete while kicking back a few with your fellow indentured servants. Whether you’re lucky enough to be invited to the group head’s Hamptons retreat or you’re slumming it at a roped-off section of the Ace Hotel Lobby Bar, one thing’s for sure: you’re getting after it at the summer party. But what does your libation say about you? See if these quintessential banker quaffs fit the personalities of people you may know:

With the Independence Day holiday behind us, the dog days of summer are officially here. The army of investment banking analysts across Wall Street breathes a collective sigh of relief as MDs begin to leave for the Hamptons on Thursdays and staffers start to hit the gym at 3 pm. It’s a magical time of free afternoon-game Yankees tickets (MD had to catch the last heli to Southampton), happy hours that start at 4 (staffer is on vacation), and summer analyst open bar events ripe for crashing (started drinking at the stadium then blacked out during happy hour).