leaving IB, next steps...

I'm confused.

I used to post on here a couple of years ago, most of what I posted was bullsh*t. The truth is I was in my final year at university, I'd just done an internship, wasn't sure how I felt about it as a prospective life, and I wanted to play banker on the internet to test the water a bit.

To cut a long story short, I ended up going into banking, and I'm now about to become a second year analyst in IBD at a BB in London. This has been a very very tough year. If I could give some genuine pros and cons of my experiences in banking;

Pros

1. The people I work with really are nice. At least 90% of the people I've worked with are down to earth, nice people. A lot of people who post on this website are borderline sociopaths, and I don't know whether it's an American thing, or if (perhaps more likely) only 10% of the people who post actually work for a bank, but people like this just don't exist in London at any major bank (I've worked with most of them on various joint mandates). They wouldn't get through the front door, because to be frank, nobody wants to work with a douche for 16+ hours a day.
2. The money is 'good' but your not going to live like a movie star, it won't go back to where it was anytime soon. ***[see the bottom for more deet] The point is that the money is 'good' but nothing more than that. I earn (post income tax) c.£3k a month - about 1k goes on rent, I spend 1k, and I save c.1k. Reality check - £1k in London doesn't go super far. I'm comfortable, no doubt, but I'm not driving around in my lambo to my South Kensington Apartment, I don't live like Brad Pitt, and it would take at least 15-20 years in IBD to get close to that dream. 15-20 years is a longggg time especially if you don't really like what you do, and your doing it every single day all day long.
3. Exit ops - I'm yet to confirm this, but undoubtedly so. Though do bear this in mind. The exit ops you get are there because your analyst skills are in demand at other companies. What this means is that you get your head down and do all this shit for 2/3 years, only to go do this exact same shit for a different company (perhaps more money, perhaps less hours, the point being that the shit never ends! Of course, if you genuinely enjoy the work of banking, then this isn't an issue at all)

Cons

1. The one and only really. The lifestyle is harder than you can imagine. I mean that. It's easy to just say you will go through weeks where you get less than 4 hours sleep a night, 6 nights running, but it is hard to describe the emotional, physical and pschologocial impact of that. And then before you know it, you do it all over again. I cannot describe how demotivating it is to make plans on a Friday night and end up still at work at 4am, tired and angry at life. This career gives no rest. It's constant. And when you get a day off, you've got your BB on you and so you don't get real distance from the banker life. I'm on vacation now (yes, you can take vacation in IB, to dispel another myth) and not a day has gone by where I haven't had some work to do.

2. I personally don't find what we do interesting at all - playing around in presentations, doing markups, arranging meetings, taking minutes, even doing modelling.

I want to go do something else.

I have no idea what yet. I have completely lost my attatchment to prestige - the people I care about respecting me don't really give a toss about what I do, truth is it's only people who are obsessed with prestige who judge people on what they do (i.e. you and a former me). Banking won't get you the girl and it won't make you cool. You'll still be the nerd, and you'll only get a girl when you become comfortable with yourself. I have not lost my attatchment to money - it's necessary to live happily. I like being able to book holidays and wear nice clothes and have a mac. But I'm not going to give up EVERYTHING for these things.

So I have considered everthing from sales&trading, to working as a quant for a casino, to consulting, to opening a jazz bar, to working in fashion or as a writer, to just going travelling and saying fuck it to the conventional life until I can figure it out (make money as I travel kind of thing). By the end of this year, bonus permitting, I'll have saved c.£20k-30k - I can live in London for over a year on that doing unpaid work exp in other fields, and I could travel for easily 2. I have absolutely no idea what to do. I just know that IBD will never make me happy; it's slow paced, boring, and takes your life in exchange for a hollow egoism, loneliness and money.

I need to get the balls to go out and live. That will either mean I end up with a few less spare bedrooms in my house, and a Ford instead of a Porsche, or I end up with a ferarri, a lambo, and 6 houses across the world. In both though I'd be happy, because I'd be living according to my own decision and choice and enjoyment, rather than sustaining my addiction to prestige and risk aversion.

Watch this space.

I realise that this post is probably pitching to the wrong audience - I just wanted to share.

***{This is the era of the political economy and that isn't going to go away in a couple of years. Credit masked inequality before. Both you and your neighbor have a flash TV, maybe one of you got it on credit, but the point is you both have the TV and all is good. Now there is a bust, and all of a sudden your up to your eyeballs in debt, less credit is available, perhaps you lose your job even, but your neighbor can still get a new TV. That doesn't feel so good does it? All of a sudden, the inequality is becoming apparent and people are (rightly or wrongly) angry at affluence - it's becoming politically popular to punish those who make money. There are countless examples of this now being done, and this is as bad for global growth as it is for the 'wealth generators' themselves, but I'm not going to debate that here.}