At what point in your career did you break through proverbial finish line?

VP? Senior Associate? MD? 

I'm curious when it was that you were able to look and say "I did it", and not have to constantly be at every MDs whim, and lose sleep over every edit turn, and answer every email immediately. When did you hit the point where you finally hit cruise control and enjoyed the money?  

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Have you met any MDs? They are not on cruise control at all. Might be even more stress than an analyst because they are under actual revenue generation pressure. Once you retire, I guess? Even then, I think a lot of retired people feel unfulfilled.

IMO you have to find this balance yourself. Don't answer emails immediately. When you go to sleep, phone goes in another room, and you don't let yourself think about work once you're logged off. Might not win you popularity points for hardest working if you stay in IB, but if you spend your entire career looking for a finish line you're going to spend the entire time making laps around the racetrack.

 

Yea, thats fair, but then that makes me wonder if VP is maybe the ideal spot. are you in a perfect little comfort zone of high pay with enough authority to not stress the little bullshit that makes IB difficult? 

regardless, you're right. at some point you just gotta treat this shit like what it is: a job 

 

Meh. VP is a hard spot too, VP1/VP2 especially, because you are transitioning from checking every little detail as associate (and having to learn to give up control over every last thing) and also expected to generate revenue for the first time. Also on a way higher number of deals than associate, plus you lose the protections afforded to juniors (vacations no longer protected, can't tell an MD to kick rocks if they ask for work on a protected weekend). I've seen VPs working more hours than analysts trying to get it all done.

I don't think there's any awesome spot to be in IB. It's why the attrition rate is crazy high - the stress and hours continue all the way up the chain.

 

You guys have been getting protected weekends and vacations??????

And yea, that makes sense. Cant expect anything to be low on stress in this industry

 

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