31 year old analyst is paradise

7:30am: You arrive at the office, park your Nissan Jetta, and trudge your way to the doors. You walk into the office and the attractive 23 year old assistant says “good morning” (you think she may be flirting with you). You set your stuff down and head to the kitchen to make a breakfast - oats and protein powder - that you fucking hate, but eat every morning in an attempt to cut (you’ve gained 20 pounds since starting in IB). 

8:00am: As you force the vile protein oats into your mouth, you open up your email to start on tasks for the day. You immediately see 37 teams notifications of comments from your VP (He’s 27 and makes 4x the money you do) telling you to fix mistakes on a CIM you’ve been working on. The mistakes were actually made by the other analyst, the VPs brother, but you pawned off the work and must take credit for the mistakes.  

11:00am: The 20 year old intern walks up to your desk and asks if you know who Rufus du Sol is. You say that you saw him at Coachella and he smirks, responding that you might be too old for coachella. You tell yourself that 30 is not too old for coachella. 

To get him back for his disrespectful comment, you grin and remark passive aggressively that without mommy’s credit card, he would never be able to attend such a prestigious event as Coachella (he makes more on an hourly basis than you). You sit back and bask in your self sufficiency while your intern returns to his desk and buys tickets to the upcoming music festival with his hot young female friends. What a loser, he’ll never get past his technicals when he parlays to a bulge bracket, you think to yourself. 

1:00pm: As you sit down at your desk to eat your overcooked ground beef and rice, your phone vibrates – it’s a hinge match. You smirk thinking about the different ways you can work “investment banking” into the semi-pervy pickup line you’re about to send. With a mouthful of dog food, you open the app and to your chagrin it’s yet another obese transvestite. You quickly turn your phone off and choke down your last bite. Soon, when you’re shredded, you’ll finally get the balls to ask out the assistant (she’ll never say no, you’re a fucking  investment banker).  

2:00pm: As you click through excel (using only mouse), the insufferable “asset management analyst” waltzes into your office. He’s just arriving to the office after playing golf all morning with a client. What kind of career is asset management anyways, I bet he couldn’t even tell me what EBITDA is (his salary is double yours and he’s 25). He brags to you how he shot under 70 for the sixth round in a row and spent his entire morning shmoozing and crushing Modelos. You remind him that you don’t have time for frivolous things like “golf” and that you work a real job (investment banking)  (You’ve never broken 100). He then starts droning on and on about his trip over the weekend where he hooked up with “hella hot chicks.” You remember that it’s been two years since being intimate with a woman. As he walks out of the office you let out a deep sigh and open hinge again. Maybe a transvestite wouldn’t be all bad… a hole’s a hole after all. 

3:30pm: You’re snapped back to reality by a stern yet respectful ping from your prepubescent VP reminding you to realign the stock images on the CIM that his brother fucked up. Something about his delivery and tone reminds you of how someone would scold their grandpa for forgetting to take their medication. Disappointed, but awkward because you’re so much fucking older than him. You demonstrate your alt key mastery while correcting the mistakes (the client will want to delete the slide anyway), and throw on “I’m losing it” by Fischer to help you lock in. The loud sound of your 26 year old associate packing his things up early gives you a break to check your stock portfolio. You make sure everyone in the office knows that NVIDIA crossed 3 trillion in market cap, thinking about the financial freedom your investments are providing despite your analyst salary (your Robinhood account is still in the red after buying GME at $100/share). Fuck, you think to yourself. 

4:00pm: Bored and ready to leave, you jump on Wall Street Oasis. Quickly browsing the top posts, you come across one titled “JPM or EVR Junior Summer Analyst: Which offer should I take.” You click on the post and comment multiple times, citing how your experience at a similar regional boutique (think QATALYST) has been exceptional. You bash JPM and think, “I would never work in a greedy bureaucratic hellhole like that” (you worked at Deloitte for years). 

7:00pm: As you get ready for your 4th hinge date of the week, you pour yourself 2 extra strong drinks, telling yourself “its to loosen me up,” when in reality, you have crippling alcoholism and depression. You Uber to the fancy greek restaurant you picked for the date (its CAVA), and to your surprise, your date actually isn't fat. Your stomach immediately floods with nerves, as this is by far the only attractive woman you’ll have spoken to outside work in multiple months. You give her an awkward side hug and start racking your brain for conversation topics. With nothing interesting to talk about, you, flustered, started talking about investment banking. You are absolutely astonished she does not know what a sell-side process is. She asks where you work and you tell her it's a regional boutique (think EVR/CVP/LAZ). She asks about your role and you say that you’re an analyst, but that titles are irrelevant at this elite boutique. 

10:00pm: The date ends. It actually went well and you are incredibly fucking surprised. She even gives you a slight peck at the end and you get hard. You hurry to hop on the bus so she doesn't see (you can't afford a 2nd uber that day). As you cruise across the city, you think, “wow, she might actually be the one.” You shoot over a quick text to the asset management analyst saying “date went great, even got some play.” He likes your text and you gleam with joy. You crave his approval.

11:00pm: You begin to get ready for bed, brushing your teeth, applying your anti-aging cream, and setting out your outfit for the next day (you only own gray pants and white button downs). You begrudgingly turn on your alarm for 5am the next day (you have an equinox membership you can barely pay for) and prepare for a night of restless tossing and turning full of nightmares about your 40s. As you get into bed, you question whether you are actually content or unbelievably depressed. You push away these thoughts as your head softly hits the pillow. Time to do it all over again tomorrow, you tell yourself. 

Ahhh, 31 year old investment banking analyst is paradise