A friend of mine forwarded this to me today. Made me think, have the golden handcuffs lost their luster? Or has the environment at work turned so sour that people like being there even less than they did pre 08?
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I believe that it would be difficult to work the amount of hours that junior bankers work and have the realization that your compensation is not completely dependent on your performance and be fulfilled on a daily basis.
I mean these are highly intelligent people who have worked very hard to either attend a top school or worked even harder to get a foot in the door from a non-target to do work that is not really all that intellectually stimulating. You couple that with the feeling of not being in control and its a recipe for unhappiness.
On the other side of the coin, its hard to sympathize with them because no one forced them to enter the industry and they are still getting paid insanely well for their age group and in general with no to little risk.
Bankers do get paid well, but given the hours worked its not great, especially since the pain of the additional 20 hours of going from 80 to 100 needs to be compensated very well.
Then what do you believe constitutes high intelligence?
Granted, simply being a hard worker and attending a good school does not necessarily correlate with intelligence. Maybe you are confusing immature douchebaggery and a general social retardation with lack of intelligence. While there might not be someone on the level of a Stephen Hawking roaming the halls and bullpens of GS, MS or JPM, but one can almost certainly ascertain that those people have above average IQs.
1) Obvious article is obvious, as noted by the obsession with exit opps on this board.
2) However, this article refers to associates and VPs, which is a new wrinkle, as those people are generally assumed to be in it for life. Interesting.
hahaha point 1 was the first thing that popped into my head. such an enormous amount of people go into banking solely to get into PE, so i don't know why this is such a huge surprise...
Boo fucking hoo. So many people in this world would love to have a job that pays that well. If they don't like it they should leave.
I agree with this. I don't see how college kids earning 6 figs or VPs/MDs earning upwards of 250k can be complaining about bad pay. Most people will never see 6 figures even after years of working, forget about right out of undergrad. I understand that NYC's COL is high and that they work long hours, but I seriously doubt that someone making 120k+ is struggling to make ends meet even in Manhattan when there are people living on 60k (to me, that signals spending too much on frivolous items). And as far as hours go, I'm sure there are plenty of people working 2 jobs in this economy for much less pay plus, if one wants to make his or her own hours and get paid more, start a successful business. I don't see how one can expect to get paid a million dollar+ salary and only work 40 hours a week unless he or she starts a company that is very successful. No one pays you to sniff the roses.
I tend to be more sympathetic to the young bankers... as someone who works 100+ hours a week maybe once every 2 months AND always gets tons of positive feedback and support from the senior professionals when I am forced to do that, I can't imagine working those hours consistently AND getting shit on by people all the time... that sounds like complete torture.
anddd then, on the same page Will Cohen has a video saying Wall Street pay should be cut in half! ... http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73951664/
this article immediately makes me think of a quote... im going to butcher it because i forget where its from (gotta be a movie or something)
but "as soon as you get something the countdown starts until its gone" ...
employers no longer expect employees to stay forever,
relationships dont stay together forever,
you bust your ass in the gym and get a 6-pack... its a countdown until you dont care to work out anymore
these are the rules of engagement and it isnt surprising that junior bankers want to transition into something that is more desirable... and once they get there the countdown starts again for when they want to leave
vicious cycle huh?
There is a lot of truth to this, I myself am feeling it.
The pay has gone down, the perks have gone down. The hours and stress have gone up. The lack of job security is certainly a big problem as well. What is most concerning to me is that banks are now having profitable quarters and still actively laying off staff. The dead wood and underperformers were pruned in 2008 along with all the mortgage related desks whose business just disappeared. The mediocre to decent guys just slogging through hoping to pay the rent/mortgage were cut around 2009. The guys I have seen cut the past two years seem really arbitrary- some were political, some just stopped killing it for a few months usually due to things beyond their control, and some were guys that were moved to new roles and struggled a bit with it. Having a bad month? Watch your ass.
I think all the little nitpicky cost cutting has hurt Wall St more than anything. Back in the day there were dinners, outings at the bar, yet now you are chastised for printing a powerpoint in color. Being stared at in the office supply closet while the secretary judges you for taking the nice pens over the bic's... feels a lot more like Walmart than an investment bank. There used to be a work hard/play hard ethos that now just seems to be "work hard." any small company outings are now usually on my MD's dime and not the firm's.
And yeah the pay is good, but my friends who are working out in silicon valley, or at other large fortune 500s, are catching up and in the same league. Also, this is worth an entire separate post, but the money hasn't exactly been life changing. My household income was in the hundreds of thousands last year, but I don't feel rich, especially considering the volatility in the industry these days.
I am not saying Wall St. is over, but I think one really needs to examine the trade-offs these days. I chalk a lot of this stuff up to the financial crisis, but its been 4 years now, and things are relatively stable, yet the desirability of working in banking seems more in question than ever.
I really hope these people in the survey plan to leave. Then that leaves me more opportunities to get in!!
I will gladly take their "unhappy" jobs...
Derek.Garner - baha good luck son.
Completely agree with the sentiments in the article; the sacrifice of a normal social life is only worth it at 2007/8 levels of pay. I'm less enamoured with PE as an exit opp too, though; I'd like something corporate development or strategy related at this point with significant visibility on work hours.
P.S. I'm an Associate; the feeling's definitely there at my firm among Associates and VPs at the moment. The realization that if we're still doing this for equivalent pay at 35, we'll all kill ourselves. Analysts aren't all that familiar with the feeling of stress and ownership of a deal/task that comes at that level; I can honestly say that despite working (slightly) worse hours and having no one to delegate to back then, I was less unhappy as an analyst.
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