1st Year Monkey

So I recently landed my 'dream' job, having brush aside all the 100 hour week chat about how your life gets swallowed up and how you are literally working every waking hour.

So yea talking about it, and doing it are 2 totally different things.

I've read WSOasis for a while but have never posted so I just wanted to put my thoughts out there and see how many people relate to make myself feel better.

How can you take this for 5 years, seriously....I mean it doesn't even get better at Associate level its just horrendous.

I'm 4 months in and the honeymoon period ended 2 weeks after my first day.

Permanently feel like shit, sick to death of all things powerpoint related and have gotten to the point where I'm constantly worried about how much work is going to get dumped on me at 6pm on a Friday, its horrendous

I just want to know how people got through their first years of IBanking, because it really has nothing to do with intellect, it is all 100% stamina and I'm struggling to motivate myself because yea the money is good but am I really learning anything apart from ridiculous attention to detail and the ability to work for 15 hours a day?

So yea, some words of advice from the career bankers out there because although the senior guys at work seem to really enjoy what they do....it is SO far away for me!

Thanks

Edit: Re-reading it sounds pretty grim. I mean I'm thinking about exit options but I'll do this for at least a year, I just am intrigued to know how people got through it, if they actually enjoyed what they did? Some of the technical stuff we do is genuinely interesting and requires some thought process but the majority of the work...christ.

8 Comments
 
eula

I just want to know how people got through their first years of IBanking, because it really has nothing to do with intellect, it is all 100% stamina and I'm struggling to motivate myself because yea the money is good but am I really learning anything apart from ridiculous attention to detail and the ability to work for 15 hours a day?

I'm a first year at a BB and know what you're going through. I think the worst part of the job is how you're intelligence is measured by your attention to detail.

 

Tell me about it!

I recently got my ass handed to me via email because I missed the font size change and the fact that the figures on the tables had been brought in by like 0.1cm and I hadn't picked up on it.

Off to work on a saturday....joy

 

As a third year analyst I can honestly say the only reason I have made it this far is due to the group I am in. Had I been stuck with a bunch of pricks there is no way I would have stayed on. That and regardless of bonuses being lower then what they used to be - it still feels pretty good to see your number hit your account at the end of the summer.

 
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