Is banking awesome? A truthful response.

This girl from my undergrad looked me up in the alumni directory and emailed the following:

Greetings,

I am a sophomore thinking about a career in investment banking. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what you do on a day to day basis, and if you could answer some questions about communication. Specifically, what communication skills does a BB look for in an analyst? Besides pitch books, what other sort of documents do you have to write? How important are verbal/speaking skills? Most importantly, what kind of mistakes do you most often see regarding communication? How does a BB help you develop communication skills and avoid these mistakes?

Thank you very much for your time.

The follwing is my response:

banking is a rough job. but, yes - it will teach you how to communicate. you have to be able to address your peers, your many levels of bosses, and your incompetent presentations operators at all hrs of the day. this includes when its 6am and you are bitter and tired, and all you want to do is go to sleep, but you can't because an md is london or israel is up and yelling at you via email bc a number is not correct in a book, or the formatting is all messed up. Or, it could be bc some incompetent presentations operator (fyi - a presentations operator is a retarded waste of life who can't follow simple directions) forgot to save your pitch book's latest version, so now he has to redo 2 hrs of edits, and you have to recheck his work for 30 more minutes - thus ensuring that you definately won't be going to sleep that night.

besides pitch books, you write investment memos. again, verbal skills (email/ voice communications) are key. you have to manage expectations and let everyone know whenever any kind of issue arises. otherwise they will make you feel stupid and dumb.

mistakes include not letting your bosses know that you will miss a deadline, and then missing that deadline. they help you avoid these mistakes by making you think your bonus depends on you not screwing up - which is basically true. but at the end of the day, you are a warm body, and as long as you don't repeatedly screw the same thing up, you will ensure you will not get bottom bonus

question - how many bankers did you email?

hopefully you appreciate this truthful answer