Clarification of "A Day in the Life of an Investment Banker" 
(Senior Baboon, 231 
Points) on 2/16/10 at 1:28am
I was just thinking back to when I read these articles on MergersandInquisitions after reading the thread about whether or not banking is worth it given the lifestyle sacrifice.
In these articles, it is mentioned that you are given work which may take a couple hours to complete, then have an hour or more of 'free' time. In this 'free' time, one would either get lunch (dinner, snack, etc.) or possibly go to the gym for a quick workout.
How true is this? Has anyone experienced this (BB, MM, or boutique) or how have your experiences differed?
You can do whatever you want
by 1styearBankerYou can do whatever you want in your free time. Go get food, meet up with a friend in the city, post on WSO.
firstyearbanker has no
by tothedeathfirstyearbanker has no friends, that's why he makes 90123 posts a day on WSO. he gets laid about as often as browns winning the superbowl
hahaahah
by youngbloodhahaahah
How can you ever have free
by swagonHow can you ever have free time? I thought analysts were always juggling at least a couple projects and thus there was always something to do, leaving no time for stuff like leisure lunches, meeting with a friend, etc.
u do have a lot things. But
by Ricqlesu do have a lot things. But sometimes when you give something to the associate, you need them to get back to you to do more update, or sometimes u need info from the client so you have to wait. The "real" work you do is definitely not 100 hours/ week.
when i was interning at a local boutique, there were a lot times when the analysts have literally nothing to do and take 2 hour lunch breaks. so they maybe do the real work around 40 hours/ week
Oh, well it's good to know
by swagonOh, well it's good to know it's not 100 of intensity...not sure if I could work day and night with no breaks.
Put best from a director I
by AlphaGenerationPut best from a director I had lunch with:
M&A work is not hard and can be done in 40 hours/week. The problem is, you cannot plan when you get those 40 hours of work, so your work week becomes 70-100 hours.
To clarify, the article you
by dosk17To clarify, the article you referenced (one of the first ever written on M&I 3 years ago) is NOT a representative day in the life of a banking analyst: it's one of the more unpleasant days I experienced (though not the worst by any means).
Yes, you will have to pull all-nighters occasionally but it's certainly not an everyday occurrence, no matter where you work. I would say overall the day described in that article was probably busier and had less downtime than most other days.
What everyone else is saying here is also correct: no matter how much you're in the office, there's no way you actually "work" 100 hours a week - it's not even possible to do productive work for 100 hours per week.
I'd say on average that maybe half to 2/3 of your time in the office is spent on actual "work" and the rest is taken up by waiting for people, conference calls, coffee breaks, and doing other miscellaneous stuff like chatting with your friends over IM (or in-person).
You usually have a few hours of free time, but the problem is that "free time" may be spread out in 10 minute intervals every hour, or you might have 30 free minutes and then get tied up on something for 4 hours, etc.
Usually getting food / going to the gym at night are possible, but again you may have to change the timing depending on who's around in the office (face time), what you're busy with, if you're dealing with clients in different time zones, and so on.
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dosk17 wrote: To clarify, the
by M-001To clarify, the article you referenced (one of the first ever written on M&I 3 years ago) is NOT a representative day in the life of a banking analyst: it's one of the more unpleasant days I experienced (though not the worst by any means).
Yes, you will have to pull all-nighters occasionally but it's certainly not an everyday occurrence, no matter where you work. I would say overall the day described in that article was probably busier and had less downtime than most other days.
What everyone else is saying here is also correct: no matter how much you're in the office, there's no way you actually "work" 100 hours a week - it's not even possible to do productive work for 100 hours per week.
I'd say on average that maybe half to 2/3 of your time in the office is spent on actual "work" and the rest is taken up by waiting for people, conference calls, coffee breaks, and doing other miscellaneous stuff like chatting with your friends over IM (or in-person).
You usually have a few hours of free time, but the problem is that "free time" may be spread out in 10 minute intervals every hour, or you might have 30 free minutes and then get tied up on something for 4 hours, etc.
Usually getting food / going to the gym at night are possible, but again you may have to change the timing depending on who's around in the office (face time), what you're busy with, if you're dealing with clients in different time zones, and so on.
That is pretty much what I figured from reading a lot of your articles, but thank you for the response. Clears it up a bit for me.