Hi monkeys,
about to move to France and start my career in IB. I was just wondering if there is anything special when it comes to culture etc. in France?
Are there any no-go's a foreigner would not know about? What's different compared to London, Frankfurt, Milan?
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Lots of assholes are in IB in France. France has the old school culture, where an MD will yell at you and treat you like shit for no reason. French banks have a hierarchical structure, and people look to use their power as soon as they get some. I worked at a French bank and literally had a French vp call my boss from France, asking me to upload a file on a sharepoint that he sent to me during the call with my boss.
The amount of laziness at French banks is incredible. I worked in the marketing department where we worked on equity derivative pitches. It's hard work dumbing down difficult financial engineering instruments and also ensuring it's legally compliant.. Anyways, people from some departments would send us random stuff to format, which did not fit into our job scope. The number of arguments my boss had with others about this was incredible. Some other memories include vicious cursing and yelling at employees. Nepotism towards French employees.
French culture sucks, but it is bit better if you're French. In NY, French employees jump ship to American banks asap.
French are such retards man, truly destined to be betas in the world power order. lets review a few of their accomplishments over the years:
- Fumbled being arguably the number one power in the world multiple times in the 16th and 17th centuries
- Put autists in charge of the construction of the Maginot line. Did you not realize Germany could just go around it if it wasn't an actual completed wall?
- After shitting the bed defensively, surrendered. Shoutout to the resistance though, salute to them.
- Fumbled french indochina right afterwards. Maybe if you dickheads treated them properly they wouldn't have spent 20 years trying their hardest to fuck you
- Also fumbled Africa (what is your obsession with abusing the natives of your colonies???)
- Absolute shite economy, no innovation, everyone is trying to leave
- I literally knew a guy who immigrated to America that told me every parents aspiration is to get their children out of france.
Wow. I understand why your managing directors are so pissed. What a disgrace
Got cucked by a French guy? Lol
Nah I just have a bit of a disdain for modern day western Europe. The US absolutely carries NATO year after year, if it weren't for us then im sure Vladimir would have moved in years ago. Western Europe never wants to fight any wars with us (other than Brits) and won't pony up money either. Sick of their shit geopolitically.
Bro wtf are you talking about. I don’t give a shit about geopolitics, we’re talking business here ? If you want to discuss geopolitics history (btw as an American you can thank France for the existence of your country ?), join a debate club.
Btw buddy if you want to go that route thank you for giving power to the Talibans and countless other groups and dictatures, thanks for invading Iraq as well, thanks for Guentanamo, thanks for the subprime crisis and thanks for creating a lot of news headlines by making guns openly available in your country. Sorry buddy but America isn’t perfect.
I don’t live in France, but next time I go I hope not to see you there.
You guys are giving this chap a lot to look forward to lmfao.
Not sure why the others are being so negative - I'm sure you'll have a great time in Paris. The city is absolutely gorgeous, the culture is insane, there is a plethora of weekend trips possible whether that's to the mountains or to the beach. The work-life balance is possibly poorer than in the UK but that's made better by the proximity of office to where you could likely live - offices which are generally considerably nicer than London's (i.e. no huge Canary Wharf towers unless you're at SocGen / BNP). The pay is similar. Possibly less HF opportunities but similar in PE - you could always leave the city.
Perhaps one thing to be wary of is the old boys culture in place. There is no wokism, quotas - extremely white, male, heterosexual dominated. Most MDs know each other, come from the same schools, have their kids in the same schools, go to the same sports clubs and so on. There is also a LOT of nepotism going on fostering a considerable reproduction of the elites. GL!