How is everyone else workload been as of recently. I have been nonstop going at it for almost 3 weeks straight and getting fucked on the weekends. Its Sunday (now monday i guess) at 3am and I've been working all weekend and gonna wake up at 7am to finish up.
Shits getting to me.
Are other people in a similar boat. Been regretting this whole IB decision hard as of recently.
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been having a really rough stretch myself. i hate this fucking job
2021 has been pretty non-stop bad for workload and weekend work. Went hard last weekend and during the week, because my shop was trying to give us the benefit of a 4-day weekend (Good Friday and Easter Monday). We ended up doing a half day on Friday only, generally took Saturday and Sunday off, but today is a full workday. So for a firm mandated 4-day holiday weekend, we generally actually got 2.5 out of the 4 days off, so that's not terribly actually. But the juniors are still pretty pissed that they aren't getting today off also, and I'm a bit worried that the days we did get off are just going to make this week pretty rough catching up.
Yup, even if i have an opportunity to "take the day off," i just end up falling behind and shafted during the week. I've worked nonstop for 3 weeks and 2 weekends now and question it every second.
Seems like everyone across the street is like this i guess
Hi fellow JPM (unless other banks did this exact same thing)
MS did the same
VP (first year) here. I've put in a solid ~80 hours a week for a month straight. So if I'm doing that, I'm guessing analysts are having an even less of a good time.
Pretty much the same here. We’ve had some attrition recently as well so half my deals I don’t have any associate or analyst support and the other half only an analyst. I’m the staffer too and basically have to tell MDs no we can’t staff your random book you want to do let alone some live deals.
Would you be willing to do a Q+A about being a staffer during COVID? I am really curious how that experience has been given the lack of in-person training, insane attrition, and absurd deal flow everywhere.
I second this, would love a Q&A on this.
What are VP hours like in non-covid times?
Analyst minus 15 - 20
Working on the weekend like usual
Way off tweaking footnotes at 3am like usual
MDs assigning pie-in-the-sky pitches, we already doing too much
Just did my taxes and got no refund I'm too turnt up
+SB
Poetry sir
"Cry now cry later"
Tough scene, hate to see it.
Sorry to see this... remember being there recently as well and wanting to quit. Things are likely to be fairly tough this year given the spike in deal flow from the market rally and surge of activity ahead of capital gains tax changes... cautiously hopeful that this year will lead to gangbusters bonuses (but not holding my breath).
Does your bank have a protected weekend policy? Thankfully mine has been taking it pretty seriously given everything that's going on across the industry with junior banker workload recently.
They recently gave us cut off times of 8pm for Friday and Saturday (basically we shouldn't be working past 8pm on those days), but if there is work to be done there is work to be done. Idk we'll see what happens but im slowly falling into a depression from not being able to see my friends and having to wake up every saturday to pop an addy to get me motivated to grind lol
That's not sustainable at all. Interested in lateralling to a shop with protected Saturdays and a good culture?
Sorry to hear that man....and it was also Easter weekend in case anyone forgot. Disgusting to make your team work until 3 a.m. Monday.
Our society seems to be hyper sensitive to everything these days, but I guess the holiest day of the Christian calendar doesn't matter.
Off-cycle intern at a good but regional (east coast) boutique, weekends have been consistently 1-8 hours on Sunday and nothing else usually can stop working by 4 pm on Friday. Monday-Thursday is hard but we have our weekends, which is a godsend. All analysts have this at our bank too, I will rarely see any activity on Saturday. Not wasting the free time but honestly, I feel pretty bad about how nice WFH IB has been for me compared to some of these stories.
It’s crazy how much just one off day (or even a light day with like 4 hours or less of work) can do for your mental health. I can get grinded until 3 AM every other night but if I can just get one day per week to do something other than work it dramatically increases my mood and I work so much better the other days... With that in mind, it’s even more frustrating that banks don’t take protected Saturdays seriously. It can make your employees that much happier and more productive. Just give me one damn day a week
I've been having an easier time over the last month but I got really fucked around January/February, and especially fucked from September to November. Everyone says WFH is even worse, but I was having just as shitty of a time in the office before, to the point where people were trying to legit comfort me because I was in the office when the group head and some of the more senior MDs would roll in super early at like 7-8am. I doubt it will get any better. It definitely makes ya wonder sometimes haha.
Bro same man 100% fucking sucks
Well on the upside at least you aren't one of the Moelis bankers who hasn't gotten a weekend in 8 weeks rather than 3...
Moelis bankers get weekends?
change to PE
Going a bit against the grain here.
PJT implemented protected saturdays for Analysts thru VPs about 4 or 5 weeks ago. Obviously some have had to work on Saturday for bake-offs and live situations but it has been largely followed in my experience. Literally went from 7ish straight weekends with sat and sunday work to having had the past 4 saturdays fully off and had time to do friday dinner date and then drink / get dinner with buddies all day on saturday without fear of getting blown up. Generally working on Sundays but I don't mind that as much, especially to get a jump on the week and have brunch/dinner on the firm.
It works because to get a Saturday exception, a senior banker needs to request permission from both our senior operations people and the staffer (given we're so small relative to peers). Approval can only be given by the people who are talking the talk about making things manageable (as opposed to just applying to a middle management layer below the people saying to take time off). The staffer has really been tasked with trying to keep things manageable, and asks us to email if we're working past 12am to get a sense of who is getting killed, and when I've flagged that I'm in the blender, I've gotten help.
Haven't gotten the spot bonus or gifts that others have, but honestly - not really worried about that given the bonus numbers from last year. I can buy my own fruit and peloton.
There's obviously the same issues that everyone has and I think that certain top 2nd year analysts may still be getting killed given their ability relative to the 1st years, especially in the mega hot gaming and sports deals and SPACs, but they're all out the door in 2-3 months anyway.
Sounds very promising, good for the guys/gals at PJT.
Sir we are drowning here. Never had a weekend off for the past 11 weeks from what I've counted. No time to even take a walk outside the house. Which group are you in exactly? Sounds like a really nice respectful group. I feel like my body is failing me now. Gained so much weight. Having constant headaches and pain on my chest. Most analysts are leaving. I can't believe the attrition. How can a firm sustain this much turnover? Things are not great here. I should leave too. But I should get back to work first. This is slavery.
Reach out to people you know at the firm and I'm sure you may be able to get the lateral process started, especially if you're at a good firm.
Sorry to hear it, hang in there. I'm an A2A promote and in the same boat - going on week 10 of working all day Saturday and Sunday until ~2/3. The most difficult part is having to be in front of a computer all day Saturday. Without any real promise of time to relax, it's very difficult to press on.
This will pass. As great as WFH is, it has created a culture of "virtual facetime" where senior bankers are online 24/7. I think (perhaps optimistically) things will revert to pre-covid levels where only some weekends are blown up. If not, maybe we all jump ship...
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