AN2 is Paradise

What it's like to be an AN2

You finally made it. You stroll out of bed, yawning while checking your phone. Only 5 urgent emails from the night before. "Not bad." You think to yourself. After being an analyst for over a year you have much more time for yourself. You leisurely grab your bag and head into the office. Another day in "Paradise." You arrive into the office at 9:00 on the dot. Your MBA associate is already preparing a laundry list of tasks for your day. You cannot help but laugh. "I can't believe he gets paid more than me, and cried when our MD called him retarded" you think to yourself. You grab the list of tasks and gently settle into your desk. Calm is in the air. 

Across the bullpen a greener than green first year analyst is on the job profusely sweating. You can tell that something's wrong before they ask. Their Macy's white collared dress shirt is blasted with a dark line of sweat in the arm pits. Sure enough the analyst turns to your desk and shouts at you "How did you update this set of comps?" You take a look at their screen and quickly realize that they did not install the necessary CAPIQ and Pitchbook plugins and you show them where to grab old files. "Thank you so much!" AN1 says. "No problem at all" you say, remembering that you do indeed still have that dog in you. "This must be how my associate feels" you think to yourself. I must be on the right track.

Lunch rolls around and you decide to hit Sweetgreen with your analyst coverage group. "How about we grab something healthy?" The skinniest rat looking first year asks. "That works for me" you say, with the confidence of a cape buffalo mating in the savannah. After eating your 3rd Sweetgreen bowl of the week for lunch, a fire drill erupts out of the pit. Your MBA associate is freaking out about some comments from the VP and hands you a deck of comments to fix on the CIM. You take the comments and plop them on your first year analyst's desk, that is on the deal with you in a support role. "Here's some more wood to chop" you say. "Try not to spin your wheels to much, and if you do, I won't have time until tonight to get to it." Your first year analyst's eyes gleam with excitement. They've never heard such euphemisms before. You on the other hand have to get back to a model that your VP expects to be done by midnight tonight. You rip through the model and send it to your VP around 6:30pm. "Perfect timing" you think to yourself. As an AN2 the tasks that used to take you an hour now take you 20 minutes to complete.

You email the updated model to your VP and they respond with a few immediate comments. You respond back "I'm heading to the gym, I'll correct them soon." This is the most power you hold over your VP. Scheduled gym time. Yes it is the one thing that your VP must respect. You can feel the VP's effusive resentment building, but they have to let you go. You grab your Insert IB Name Here gym bag and head out to the nearest Equinox. "Ah why yes, arms." You've hit arms 3 times this week already, but you have a potential date Friday night at Chad's birthday party that you need to look shredded for, so you cannot possibly risk hitting legs. "I wear pants all the time anyway" you think to yourself.

It's 7:30pm and the local Equinox is packed, but you finish your workout and head out fulfilled, ready to finish some comments on the model when you get back to the office. As you finish updating the first year analyst's mistakes on the comments around 12:30am. You head back home to your apartment and check your email. There are 2 additional headhunters reaching out to you. One for P/E and one for a HF. You think to yourself, "How could I ever leave Paradise?" You jump into your King sized bed and drift off. Dreaming about tomorrow, dreaming about paradise.

This same day has come and go in a couple variations over the course of the week. It's Friday and after paying your dues as an An2 you can finally celebrate your bestfriends birthday this weekend and absolutely get after it in the bars. "This is paradise." You think to yourself. This Sunday you even plan to golf 9 holes and blabber on and on about it to your first year analysts below you. Almost brag about. Headhunters continue to spam your inbox for various buyside roles around the country, you sit back in your gaming chair Sunday afternoon and feel wanted again. Internally you understand that if you ever left Insert Bank Here these emails would quickly slow. You'll stay on a bit longer. Life is good.