I just went 3 days without sleep to see what i-banking felt like...honestly I don't believe ANY of you! (My hourly breakdown)
No, this is not a joke. So we've all heard from multiple sources that the typical first-year analyst's day goes from 6AM through 3AM, leaving about 3 hours of sleep in-between. Many of you still even had chances to work out.
So I tried to emulate the exact mental and physical strain to see what it felt like (and if I could take it). Don't worry -- this is my winter break.
Background: I'm 21 YRO, around the age of most first-year analysts. I'm a pretty healthy guy.
I started 3 days ago:
Saturday 6AM - Wake up
Saturday 11PM - Not tired at all yet. Dig up next semester's "Intro to Stochastic Models" textbook and start cramming the first 3 chapters.
Saturday 3AM - Starting to feel drowsy, not to mention incredibly BORED and exhausted from doing textbook review questions non-stop for 4 hours. I grab some redbull, took a shower.
Saturday 7AM - First 24 hours awake. In order to emulate the physical strain as well, I grab my coat and walked (not drive) 20 minutes to McDonalds for breakfast then walked 20 minutes back.
Saturday 12PM - Ate lunch. That did it. The extra load of food must've knocked me out because I don't even remember falling asleep.
Saturday 3PM - Woke up (my stereo was still blasting). Got 3 hours of sleep. Back to "work."
Saturday 11PM - Had some drinks with friends. (to emulate drinking and partying on no-sleep)
Sunday 2AM - left the bar early. I was about to pass out, not from alcohol, but I was so godammn tired!!
- Went home. Set alarm for 5AM. Passed out asleep -
Sunday 5AM - Took cold shower. Took out stochastic models textbook again.
Sunday 10PM - Sat at desk all day and I've worked through 50% of the book by now. (completely new material). ENORMOUS headache. Drank 2 cans of Rockstar energy. By now it took me 10 minutes just to read a new paragraph. My eyes could barely open and I couldn't even multiply 346x17 by hand without getting it wrong! I could barely comprehend what I was reading, even after switching over to my USA Today paper.
Monday 2AM - My entire body is now FREEZING despite my thermostat set at 82F. I'm getting bad chest pains. My left hand felt numb. I set my alarm for 6AM and passed out.
Monday 6AM - Took me 40 minutes of hitting snooze to finally get up. I have a MASSIVE HEADACHE the size of texas, mild chest pains, and am about to throw up. I took a shower, ate breakfast, and came onto WSO to let you guys know that this is IMPOSSIBLE!
By the time I hit 36 hours of no sleep, either I passed out without me knowing it, or my comprehension and mental abilities shrunk to the size of an acorn. There is no way in hell a first-year analyst won't be making 100000000 errors on his excel spreadsheets at this comprehension level. Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets bad chest pains doing this. I'm a really healthy/athletic guy too.
Also, wasn't there some research done a while back that continuous sleep-loss can lead to sudden death? I don't see any analysts collapsing.
So in conclusion, I DO NOT believe that the typical analyst works from 6AM to 3AM day after day, and STILL have time and energy to hit the gym and go clubbing. It's biologically INFEASIBLE unless you want an irregular heartbeat somewhere along the way.
Prove me wrong, please. ps: I just got notes for half the textbook already for NEXT SEMESTER. So some good came out of this :D






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First of all, thanks for
First of all, thanks for sharing your rather mundane story. Second, most analysts do not work 6AM-3AM , those hours are exceptions, not the rule. Generally speaking, its about 9AM-2AM..on average. "biologically infeasible"? Its definetely feasible, strongly unrecommended, however. Yes IB sucks, and that's why no one does it for over 5 years.
no.. a typical analyst does
no.. a typical analyst does not work those hours everday, if he or she did for two years, they would die
there are certainly weeks/months like that, but the lighter days help you catch up on sleep and whatnot. I don't know if your test is a joke but its its pretty funny, considering it only emulates being tired and crushing red bulls. If you want it to be more realistic...I guess.. stare at a computer screen for long periods of time, constantly type on your keyboard, induce a sense of pressure or stress, have a few buddies to burn the midnight oil with.
there are some analysts on the street in certain groups who get absolutely crushed and work absurd amounts. but for the most part, a typical analyst does not work 6AM - 3AM everyday. Even if they work till 3am often, they will get in at 9:30 to 10:00, leaving them with 5-6 hours of sleep, which is manageable.
"Even if they work till 3am
"Even if they work till 3am often, they will get in at 9:30 to 10:00, leaving them with 5-6 hours of sleep, which is manageable."
Analysts can come in at 9AM?? Wow that's a first. I guess there's a lot to clear up here because up till now, everything I've read, including the "Day in a life of a Banker" Vault Guides, has analysts waking up at 6AM and getting to work at 7.
#1- You need to go make some
#1- You need to go make some friends
#2- 36 hours without sleep is not as brutal as you describe, you're obviously a huge poontang
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If i-banking hours are more
If i-banking hours are more lax than I've heard, than why does everyone make a big deal about it? 9AM to 3AM isn't much different from the lawyer who works 9AM to 7PM, then continues working at his home office till 3AM or the surgeon who gets called in at 10PM to perform a 4 hour surgery...
I have family members who are IT Consultants and, even though they get home at 7PM, they rarely talk to their family because they have to continue working late into the night...my uncle works for a top software company making $170k/yr as a developer and has a quick dinner with his family at 8PM, before working at home till 3AM.
Anyone who makes more than 90k usually has lots of work to do, even if they come home earlier, so then what's the big fuss about i-banking hours? Shit happens in IT as well...uncle used to tell me his company would have database crashes at 4AM and they'd have to ring his blackberry.
get a life!
get a life!
Wait, so you only went 36
Wait, so you only went 36 hours with no sleep (not really since you took naps and all kinds of stuff)? I regularly do 24 hours without sleep and I am old (27). I think it is something you acquire over time. Suck it up, don't gorge or food and sleep on your lunch break if you need to. I honestly think if you had to do a week of insane hours you would be sleeping during lunch and not going out at all. Interesting little experiment you did though.
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I think you got your 7AM idea
I think you got your 7AM idea from reading S&T stuff. You can't mix and match job descriptions to create the worst typical day ever.
Comparing IT and Ibanking is ridiculous. Not because of relative 'prestige' or anything like that, but because working from home on an IT project is very different from spreading comps at 2am in an office. Furthermore, nobody at an established IT company is forced to work 90 hour weeks. Sure, there can be a crazy week on occasion, but those hours are the norm at some IBs and PE shops.
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IBD doesn't come in until 9
IBD doesn't come in until 9 am +/- 1 hour, it is S&T and ER that comes in at 6am, 7am.
36 hours without sleep is no problem at all. I couple of weeks ago, I woke up to work at 6am got home packed my suitcase and watched TV all night, because I had a 10 hour plane flight the next day and wanted to sleep on the flight. Got on the plane at 9 am, waited for over two hours before it took ate some breakfast, then watched a movie before I finally popped a double dose of OTC sleeping pills, which work pretty good, before going to sleep. That is about 30 hours, while a girl next to me used the same strategy, but she passed out the moment she got into her seat.
I once went 50 hours without sleep while camping under tents: I woke up one day, started drinking in the evening and continued into the night. Got drunk, sobered up in the morning, got drunk again in the afternoon, sobered up in the evening, and then got drunk again at night before finally going to sleep sometime before noon two days later.
It is easy to handle a few days without sleep or even a week with minimal sleep. But I could not work from 6am to 3am for an extended period of time (more than 7-10 days). I would simply quit the job if it required me to work 21 hours a day or 147 hours a week (out of 168 hours total).
Do you not study for finals?
Do you not study for finals?
That was what I was thinking
That was what I was thinking when I saw this post. I think I pulled at least a dozen all night sessions this last semester.
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Let me tell you a story
Let me tell you a story ....
21st birthday (on the Saturday).
- Woke up Friday 7am. Was during an internship, so arrived at work at 8.30am.
- Worked until 6pm.
- Got home (from client site) at 9pm.
- Went to a house party, got there at 11pm.
- Up all night, drinking and fooling around with this one girl
- Went back to her place at 4am
- Stayed up all night.
- Went home at 10am
- Straight into birthday celebrations with the family and close friends.
- Finished at 6pm
- Went out for pre-evening drinks.
- Got to the club at 11pm
- Left at 4am
- Went back to another girls' place
- Stayed up all night
- Got home at 11am
- Went to see my girlfriend (I was a cheating ass ... sue me, I was 21)
- Had lunch with her and spent the afternoon early/evening
- Got home at 7pm
- Back on the train (back to client site) had to do some work for the Monday morning.
- Got back to the hotel at 11pm
- Finally slept at 1am on the Monday
I was awake for 66 straight hours. I'm not gonna lie, towards the end, I was hearing stuff and felt like I was starting to lose my mind. I wouldn't ever do it again (I came close in Rio over Carnaval - 50 straight hours of partying), but I'm glad I did it.
36 hours is nothing to brag about.
Let me clarify: In my post,
Let me clarify: In my post, I did ultimately mean that it would be impossible to pull off for more than 2-3 days a week, 4 weeks a month. Once or twice is fine...but more than that, which was what I and many of my friends had believed what i-bankers went through, would be really tough to do which was what boggled me.
As for finals...I've studied till 5AM writing papers and cramming for a final or midterm that was at 9AM more than a few times a semester. I've gone 24 hours no sleep several times a month in college. But the difference was that right after that exam, I'd run back to my dorm and sleep for the next 10 hours and wake up at like 8PM.
IConsult: IT's much easier
IConsult: IT's much easier to do when the activity you're doing is actually INTERESTING. Back in freshman/sophomore year, my frat would party frequently on thurs/fri/sat nights till 5AM and around 7AM I'd be still completely ECSTATIC and not tired at all. The combination of fun, dancing, jumping around, liquor and energy drinks makes it much easier to stay up. Comparing that to 2 hours of calculus 3 and I'm dozing off in no-time.
Ha. I love how you throw in
Ortsman1: how exactly does
If you are the analyst
For the OP, You can't
Becasue only a sad individual
Ortsman1: I'm in the process
Good luck with your choice
I'm sorry but this is the
^Agree with this guy.
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yeeeeeeehawwww wrote: So in
IConsult...how much cocaine
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You're all being really hard
IBD comes to work around 9:30
CoreDuo wrote: This would
Over the course of my two
CompBanker
Compbanker, Thank you for a
yeeeeeeehawwww
IConsult wrote: Let me tell
monkeyface wrote: IConsult
Keep in mind that a good 50%
Humorous post. Ignore most of
I rich, smarts, and totally in debt.
MrDouche wrote: FYI: In IB
You should read "Work smart
Real banker works ass off for
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What a humurous post. Thanks
MrDouche: you are retarded,
1styearBanker: What are you
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LOL
Thank you OP for the laugh.
HAHAHA I loved this thread.
Too much shit being thrown
I managed 4 weaks non-stop
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One thing to keep in mind is