1st Year on the Desk and feeling like shit
Essentially title.
1st year and I can’t take it anymore.
First big ish ask and I absolutely shit the bed and have been shitting the bed for a while now:
How do I get better? I double check everything, I print it out, it seems right, and then I miss something so fucking obvious it’s like Helen Keller was making the deck.
Pretty sure my associate and VP think I’m retarded, and I just want more than 5 hours of sleep a night. I fluctuate between giving it everything I got and being resigned that I’ll get chewed out regardless of what I do.
Does it get better? Or at this point, if I don’t catch these things, do I just suck?
nearly 4 years in the feeling never goes away haha- you'll be alright man just keep your head down and keep working at it
Hey man, sorry to hear things aren't going as you'd hoped. I figured I'd share a story that might help.
I am several years into my career, and started right where you are now. When I started in banking, I couldn't seem to get anything right to save my life. Formatting, formulas, even creating simple slide structures, everything was wrong. I got horrible feedback and worked with one senior for an extended period of time who made every day hell. The longer I worked with him, the more my confidence deteriorated, until it seemed like all my work sucked. It was a horrible spot to be mentally, and working on 5 hours of sleep a night made the negative effects compound significantly.
Ultimately, I left banking for consulting. Maybe it was just me or the firm I joined, but the new role provided a fresh start and that was so key to my long term success. I went from bottom bucket to top bucket overnight. A lot of the brutal lessons learned from banking carried over and while my formatting and errors werent zero, the frequency seemed much lower. I am going to give you a tip everyone should know. When you first start working for someone, if you have the bandwidth, quadruple check everything and make the most perfect work product humanly possible. This will cement the notion that you are a strong and independent performer in their mind, and from here on out you have more trust and credibility. This reduces the impact of mistakes down the line, and also if they trust your work quality, they are less likely to scan every single line and catch other miniscule mistakes (but still mistakes none-the-less).
Between having more time to check my work and marginally lower expectations, suddenly I was the rockstar that could meet even the toughest seniors' expectations. To be clear, it wasn't like I joined a MBB, so again the bar was a bit lower.
I'm not saying you should leave banking, or even that you need to switch firms, but I will say I know the feeling, and that impending doom that hits every sunday morning as you realize you have to do this for another week. You may not meet your current firm's expectations, but that does not mean you aren't cut out for IBD, finance, or that you're stupid / lazy / an underperformer in general. I am now many years into my career and while I still struggle more than my colleagues with the same issues you described, I have gotten so much better.
Last but not least, this job doesn't define you, it isn't reflective of your self worth, and just because you're having a rough go of it doesn't mean you don't deserve to be where you are today. If there is one piece of advice I could leave you with, what has gotten me far in life, and allowed me to become good / adequate at things I was very below average at to begin with, is to not give up. I am not the smartest, I am not the most creative, I was not dealt the best hand, but I do not give up. You can do the same.
Last paragraph is spot on. It’s just a job, it pays the bills and does not define you.
MBB or other consulting? Did you prefer it?
I don't know the particulars of where you fuck up, so generic advice having been in your shoes is sometimes you have to get out of your own way.
Better said, if you're always stressed about making mistakes, constantly thinking "don't fuck this up" or "shit did I make mistakes" or "Asso/VP is going to think I'm an idiot" you get in your own head, get in a tizzy, and end up making more mistakes. Low confidence = low quality. Doesn't help when you're running on little to no sleep.
It does not get better. You'll have more to do and at one point you'll be responsible for the quality of other people's work. Further down the line, you will be the one putting it in front of a client and front lining the accountability. What actually gets better is YOU. You get better at the job. Some of it is natural progression through time and experience.
As a start, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. I'll skip the check list everything / review paper / highlight comments type advice and jump to be deliberate and thoughtful with every part of every piece of work you do. That helped me immensely.
My first 3-6 months were rough too. Very tough manager that I worked for and who deliberately tried (and did) make me look bad. Stressed out of my mind. Couldn’t sleep well etc. Total disaster but somehow with a mid bucket review.
Started working for someone else in the same firm, was way less stressed and became overnight top bucket and stayed there ever since until I left.
Key point is that your first few months don’t define your career. You’ll find lots of people went through this. Try to breathe. Sleep a bit more. Try to have a conversation with your Associate or VP on how they think you’re doing, tell them you’re struggling a bit. They might even say they think you do a good job - you’re not expected to be perfect especially at the start of your first job. You’ll be fine.
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