Message to Banks: Bonuses BETTER be good this year end

STFU to anyone telling us we should just be happy to have a job. I can be happy to have a job and equally frustrated about how the economy has ruined it.  

Im sweating my balls off from 6am to 1am every fucking day. Weekends? What weekend!???? Every weekend is taken up by another new deal or another unreasonable ask from my MD. Sponsors can fu** off with their unreasonable timelines and our group heads/senior bankers can also find the nearest cliff, bending over backwards every time a new deal comes in. 

Now we are hearing that bonuses aren't going to be good??? Are YOU FUC*ING KIDDING?????? HR is obviously telling banking group heads to set low expectations. FUUUU*K EVERY last one of them.

I've been doing this for 7 years. This year in the span of 6 months has been tougher than some full years I've experienced...Banks need to pay their analysts, associates and VPs well this year for all the extra shit we've dealt with that Directors and MDs haven't seen. 

I don't care what anybody says - IB in an unprepped work-from-home environment is hell. 

27 Comments
 

bro you need some help, theres kid who literally dont have clean water or food to drink throughout that day yes it sucks but be happy you atleasthave a nice living space constant water and good food not to metnioned good money in your bank account. it sucks but stop it think about the bigger picture, there people dorpping dead due to covid be happy you didnt get cvoid and die or you didnt lose your job due to covid . its all about perspective man

 

i forgot to change my title idiot, have some perpective into life there humans slaving away to earn couple of dollars, theres mom out there wokring 2-3 jobs a day to survive while you are out here complaning you didnt get a bonus.

 
Most Helpful

^agreed.  Would banks be that callous in under-paying bonuses in an environment WFH hours have been worse than pre-COVID?  Provided that the IBD group hasn't completely underperformed with dry well dealflow, why would the bonus decision makers (group head?) alienate important grunt workers knowing that high turnover hurts the group more by diminishing quality and quantity of work product for clients?  If there is mass exodus of junior bankers, I imagine the talent pool to poach replacements from other banks is limited, no?  

 

Sounds like you're drunk, lol. If you've truly been doing this for 6 years you know that you'll be disappointed this year no matter what and def feel underpaid relative to all the shit you went through during COVID.

As James Gorman once said, if you're not happy then just quit.

 

I have heard from a staffer that the bonus pool set at the bank for associates is pretty decent.  Also our analyst bonuses in July were only down a bit and the situation has improved since July.  But yeah, I hear there's actually a backlog of people who are going to walk out if bonuses don't reflect the grind they've been through this year.

 

Leadership at my bank has communicated that its a record year for us. Makes sense from a revenue perspective given robust deal flow in restructuring, ECM (SPACs, healthcare, etc.) and some plain vanilla M&A. When combined with how much I imagine all firms must be saving in not having to pay for bankers traveling to meetings and other cost savings, I don't see why it wouldn't be a record year for bottom line as well.

That being said, It better be a record year for bonuses. 

 

I mean, if your group did well this year sure, but look at it from a shareholders perspective. 'We worked really hard' just isn't a compelling reason for them unfortunately. Obviously, you can make the argument that it affects retention, which is compelling, but management is still going to be fighting off questions on the earnings call about why comp is still up if revenue is down (obviously not applicable if you're in one of the groups that had a stand out year). Even if mgmt succeeds in not pissing off shareholders, it still draws into question the ability of management to cut costs in a downturn which impacts valuation.

I'm not saying its wrong for folks to hope for the best, but what would you do in managements shoes?

 

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