Need an Honest Review of the Hours
At a target deciding whether to recruit into IB. I've gone to a rigorous school and college my entire life, so having to study late into 1-2 a.m. and working partly through my weekends to finish up assignments isn't new to me. But when folks here discuss working 80hr weeks, it just doesn't tangibly communicate what I'm signing up for. I'm hoping I could get some insights from analysts to clear a few things up:
1) I've always been a nervous wreck about my GPA and have somehow managed to be the few at my school with a 4.0. School has thus been stressful as fuck for me. In IB, though you may be physically in the office for the entire day, is the actual substance of the work mentally taxing? I can't seem to think of a reason why the day-to-day in IB could be as stressful as school has been for me. Your employment doesn't seem to be strictly contingent on daily performance (i.e. you're not worried about "keeping" your job).
2) Throughout the day, are you still given hours off for lunch/dinner where you can leave the office? Can you also leave the office when waiting for an associate/senior to get back you - "downtime" (and how many hours does this amount to usually)? If you're not leaving the office, are these hours just free for me to fuck around on my computer?
3) What parts of your life have tangibly suffered since you joined IB? I think the 80-100hr work week moniker makes me assume that all you can muster is work+sleep, but I'm assuming you still manage to date, go watch a movie with friends over the weekend, go to dinner, talk to your parents, hit the gym etc.
4) At what point in your career do you see most of this ending? Sacrificing my 20s for career growth seems like a requisite for success, but it seems like the buy-side is much of the same thing. At what point in the pipeline could I do something like a 9am-8pm weekday with protected weekends lol? Am i delusional for even hoping for this in finance (otherwise the entire circlejerk in finance just seems so pointless - glorifying amassing wealth you'll never have time to spend)?
1. Your day to day in IB would be 100 times more stressful than your day to day in school. You're in a client facing role, making a lot of money for a fresh grad, and you have stress from your peers and boss. At school, was anyone hounding you to return deliverables? And yes, your performance is measured daily - no one will remember that you didn't mess it up, but they sure will remember it if you did. Will a minor error get you crucified? No. If you keep making those minor errors? Of course, you have to be improving.
2. Depends on the firm and the culture. Some places - yes, you are allowed to run some errands and get your life in order. Other places you are working through lunch. Depends on how busy you are.
3. It varies. Some people enjoy the lifestyle, some people don't. Of course you can talk to your parents and eat dinner - that's ridiculous. But, expect to make sacrifices. Are you going to thirsty Thursday? Probably not. Are you getting a 2 hour lift in every morning? Not if you enjoy sleep. Can you go out on the weekend? Probably one night. Most people are able to budget their time for things they enjoy. As for me, I didn't get as many workouts in as possible, and I didn't see as many friends as I wanted to. But I enjoy my job, I get to work on cool and amazing things, and I would be bored/disappointed in myself if I was working a simple 9-5.
4. Everyone in high finance gets their weekend blown up. But generally speaking, the better you are at the job, the less you get blown up. General rule is that the buy side has a better sense when their weekends gets blown up.
As for your point about amassing wealth that we won't spend - partially true and partially false. Will I be vacationing in the Maldives? Not for a while. But will have a nice apartment in NYC and not be penny pinching? Definitely. If my family member, God forbid, gets sick and can't work. I got it covered. Are my kids going to have to worry about getting a scholarship? No, I got it under control. So, yes, I'm amassing wealth but I'm also amassing security and some peace of mind. Sure, at some point, I'll feel like I had enough and switch to something else. But until then, I'm pretty content.
I think I could only convince myself that this is a worthy means to an end is if there are opportunities I could switch to where I could reap the rewards of sacrificing a decade and a half in high finance. Anything like that at the end of the road - which, beyond financial security, just offers relative day-to-day comfort? I've seen most people on WSO just gun for a long-term career in PE which seems similarly ludicrous.
And to your point on 3: does such a lifestyle amount to a constant state of anxiety for you? has it felt depressive at all despite you enjoying the nature of the work? And could you kinda explain how time budgeting might look like for you.
Sorry but this is just spam at this point, you asked the exact same question some hours ago
Accident - don't know how that happened
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