Are the Goldman 13 analysts experiences exaggerated

Spoke to friends of a roommate in the Healthcare and Industrials teams at GS who mentioned that they all were having rough experiences but it hasn't been over 100 hrs a week on end and many people are not looking to quit as a first year.

Was wondering how the experience has been across the street on how many people are having such rough weeks that they have contemplated quitting.

Personally at a sweaty mm Piper / Jefferies NY, and have been having a rough experience but not to the point where I absolutely hate what I'm doing.

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Not OP ,but at a similar group to the ones described above at another top BB JPM MS, a few of my college classmates have also mentioned how it hasn't been mentally damaging per say but they absolutely hate the lack of freedom on weekends. Didn't mention any plans to quit or join PE.

 

Also concerned about this, incoming analyst at a place that is known to be sweaty and it's honestly scaring the crap out of me after seeing so many of these threads, really don;t want to think about what it could be a year from now

 
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I tried telling my employees this after their 10th straight all-nighter, but the ungrateful sods couldn't even keep their eyes open to listen to my speech! Will be looking for former investment bankers to work at the plant from now on, at least they're used to long weeks. Thank you for the advice Mr. Hoovertower! Treat it like jail, I like that idea. Will implement it right away and see if I get a little more elbow grease from these useless workers.

 

As noted above, the TMT groups are really the ones getting crushed the most out of all groups. I've heard a decent chunk of bankers say the GS survey is exaggerated but when I dig deeper into their backgrounds, I realize that they're all from non-TMT groups that have not experienced as great deal flow from the pandemic. 

Every TMT analyst or associate I've talked to unanimously agrees that this type of lifestyle is unsustainable and even their group heads have said that they've never experienced such deal flow in their careers. Heard from a friend that at his BB the group head says they are turning down $500mm deals in the TMT space because they have no capacity, which is a pretty big deal given they're no GS / MS / JPM TMT

 

Friend is in a non-TMT coverage group and says he's pulled two all nighters this past week

 

That's definitely true. Deal flow has been great for people in terms of building their resumes. I'm noticing most people are leaving now right after their deals are announced so they're trying to get the most they can from their bank and then leave. In my group, 2nd year analysts would have usually only 1 deal done soup to nuts by the time they left. Now, first years have 2-3 deals done before they're even 2nd years. 

Either way, things have been so bad in terms of workload that people are leaving as soon as they find a good enough job. And most aren't leaving for PE or anything high finance-like. They're done with banking and have realized that money is not that important to them to dedicate their entire lives and wellbeing towards.

 
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not at goldman but another BB and the below pretty much sums up what my experience has been like lately

had surgery on a monday morning. told everyone about this far in advance and continued reminding them regularly up until the day of. this was a pretty significant surgery.. not like i was just getting my wisdom teeth out or something. i get home from the hospital later in the day of my surgery and immediately have to log on because i'm being blown up. end up pulling an all nighter that night and close to an all nighter on the next night, in a lot of pain by that point. by tjhe following evening i was in the ER with severe complications probably a result of not being able to recover. spent the rest of the week and the weekend in the ICU, where i continued to work and get blown up even after telling people what was going on. 

so yeah.. not having a great time 

 

This is just a sign of terrible culture. Did you tell them when they started blowing you up that you had just had surgery and have to recover as you had mentioned to them in the weeks leading up to surgery? I know you didn't want to get in trouble, but what if your complications were so bad that you ended up having irreparable damage because you didn't take time to actually recover and relax? Your job is absolutely NOT more important than your health. 

 

This is just a sign of terrible culture. Did you tell them when they started blowing you up that you had just had surgery and have to recover as you had mentioned to them in the weeks leading up to surgery? I know you didn't want to get in trouble, but what if your complications were so bad that you ended up having irreparable damage because you didn't take time to actually recover and relax? Your job is absolutely NOT more important than your health. 

yeah they were aware, when i logged on after getting home from the hospital i commented that the work would probably not be great quality since i was still kind of groggy from anesthesia... that didnt seem to phase anyone. absolutely nuts 

 

While your group is evidently made up of the stinkiest assholes out there, it's ultimately on you to respect yourself enough to tell them to fuck off when they need to fuck off. If you don't come out and say that you're not going to work because you got out of surgery that day and instead are passive in the way you address it, you are inviting people to walk over you.

Take care of yourself, dude. Others clearly won't.

 

Not in TMT, but average hours since starting has been 93 based on my trackers. Have had multiple straight weeks above 100/105. I do not think the commentary from the GS analysts is super accurate in my experience (worse than foster care, etc.), but the hours have been pretty terrible. A few weeks I have been lucky to even shower/cook a meal from Monday-Friday. 

I understand the hours have always been long in banking, but people are outright lying if they say pre-covid they consistently did 90+ every single week for 12-24 months with 95% of those hours being real work (as opposed to the in-office loafing: grabbing lunch, coffee breaks, team happy hours, etc.)

 

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