No time for dating
Associate here who have stayed in banking for a few years.
When I was an analyst, I had no time to date. I literally had a spared set of shirt, pillow and toiletries just in case I need to sleep in office (which I did, unfortunately).
After I made to associate, I lateraled and I work shorter hours with lighter workload.
However, my actual free hours did not change much. Almost everyone associate or above are married and they are just so f**king free everyday banging at home while working on weekends.
I will have requests coming in after 6pm daily which requires same day or next morning turnaround. And on weekends my seniors are sending emails from their own laptop asking for same day turnaround. Some of them have been like this since day 1 and some of them just gotten worse after they were married.
Basically I would receive phone calls or emails at a 8pm dinner date asking me to send out something before 10 or something similar on a weekend. It's just so mood destructive and I lost my mood with my dates feeling I got pissed at them / making an excuse to gtfo.
Guys, how did you all manage these? I don't want to be single at 35. It sucks when you are struggling to find a date with your bosses just assigning work to you at home when they are playing with their own kids. Ffs.
Can't speak firsthand on this but I know people who went to MBA for this exact reason so maybe something worth looking into
paying 200k to date
lmao
This was one of the main reasons why I left the sellside. I hated spending time at the office instead of being with loved ones.
Best decision I’ve ever made. I go home at a normal time, I have family dinners every night, and I get to play with my kids every day. Afterwards, wifey and I would watch Netflix on the couch while binging on snacks.
Haven’t spent time in the office past 6pm in years. Zero regrets.
What do you do now?
Still in finance, but buyside now. Moved to a trading team at a MF, so I work market hours now.
Big difference between the PE folks at my shop (who largely still work IB type hours) vs. the trading folks (who work market hours). Far more babies/famlies on the trading side, since our hours allow for it.
Same - was the only FT associate after MBA in my shop without a serious partner. Figured I'd have time to date at least one day a week - was not the case. Not having a support network at home (esp during 2 years of covid quarantine) made a hard job nigh impossible.
What type of group are you in? Usually I would experience this from Mon-Thur but Fri to Sun was more relaxed
You should consider switching jobs
You sound frustrated, get yourself an escort and go full Bateman on her
Sounds like you care more about your dates than the Client. Let me know your bank so we don't hire you on our next exit.
Sole priority needs to be the creation of shareholder value. Nothing Less.
Sounds like his boss is interfering with his life which he had before joining the company. Could literally make a lawsuit from this alone. But nevertheless there will always be people who enable others to mistreat and maybe even abuse themselves and their colleagues. Smh.
had the same thought, he cares way more about pussy than shareholders wtf is wrong with this generation
that was something my brother struggled with years ago. he was taken advantage of by seniors and we rarely see him for dinner. after almost 2 years of being in that situation, he finally gave up on the job and looked for a new company. Fortunately, the colleagues at his new workplace are cooperative and everyone is properly assigned with reasonable amount of work. It is mostly about where and whom we work with. And he just got married.
Stop being a pussy and leave. Put yourself first
Y’all are dating?!
Guys I have a response to this but some annoying AN1s MS my comment (literally helpful advice srsly) and can’t post anon. Help a partner out and SB this otherwise I can’t help. Ty. I need like 15 SBs to even use WSO now. Srsly.
+SB good advice.
Guys someone reported my advice (felt like I rlly put my 100% in it) that was useful. The mods took it down and w/o saying how to keep it posted. Close to giving up on using this site.
In short, I said the firm is responsible to train all employees to do their job and senior management knows how they’re supposed to behave. If they didn’t, clients wouldn’t hire them/the firm. So don’t feel sorry for the seniors because they are responsible for their own lives.
Everyone has responsibilities/family outside of work. Just because you don’t have kids doesn’t mean your family isn’t as important to you as theirs is to them. You can sub family here in for anything that’s important in your life.
Like you, I did what was asked me of immediately because my personality likes to get the work done so I can plan what I want to do in my free time. I noticed there are always slackers and overachievers everywhere. The problem is that the slackers tend to abuse the overachievers and the reverse isn’t true. The people who don’t care to do the work will find a way to get the people who will to do it for them and there are various ways they’ll use to achieve this.
When this happens repeatedly, it’s abuse. It may not sound nice to say but that’s the right word. Once you know you’re being abused the best solution is to make it known. How you do that is by choosing good people to confide in and bringing things up as they happen.
When I say confide, I mean find people at your workplace who’ll help you if you bring things up to them and won’t speak badly about you behind your back. The other way is know your client and “blame” them if things need to be moved around. You can send work to someone else at the firm and if they ask just say when I spoke to client he acted like he needed this in a day or two. That’ll buy you time and is a good strategy if you do this with different people in the firm.
People may say you should move but that’s not necessarily good advice because the next place you work at could be worse than this. Easier for you to get help from a company you’ve worked for or where people know you.
Really? No free time at all? And how did all your superiors get married then?
Lack of ability to meet a partner is literally the biggest downside of IB or PE. I've noticed that most senior bankers or PE partners met their partners very early on, like in college or right out of college.
It is extremely difficult to meet a "good" partner if you are few years out of school. If you are late 20s to early 30s and older (senior associate/VP +), majority of women you meet around that age are looking to settle. They also push for marriage real quick. This means you have less time to vet them and don't know if they are just looking to find a guy who makes high income.
I was at a BB and there was 3 VP and Director level guys that got married before and around COVID. They are all divorced now, and it was exactly cause they got pushed into a wedding quick and didn't know their partners well enough, but felt it was the "right" time to get married cause every had spouses at that age.
Imagine working 60 hours+ every week for 5+ years only to pay alimony.
best part of my SA stint was meeting my gf
MDs or partners aren't really good examples to look to for lifestyle balance, career progression, etc. They all entered the IB or PE industry at such a different time. As another poster said, most of these senior bankers or PE guys got married very early on, like in their mid- or late-20s. People are getting married later in life these days, which means that you will more and more bankers, PE people, doctors, lawyers, etc. dating well into their 30s.
It was very difficult to date when I was an IB analyst. I scheduled all of my dates for Monday evenings or Sundays when I knew my senior bankers were busy. I also never got top bucket as dating was more important to me (doesn't mean I just coasted...I just never volunteered for every single staffing). Dating got much easier when I left for corp dev. I found that dating in my later 20s much more refreshing, but I also wanted to eventually marry. Just depends on what you're after.
You’ve done your time, find a better balance at another shop. Maybe long only, asset management or private credit would be better if you prefer investing and want more time and less FaceTime and immediate response BS. You shouldn’t be deprived of something like dating and sex bc of work, esp in your mid to late 20s, simply not worth it. You need time to meet and date a quality chick and not rush etc. make sure major items are agreed upon before marriage (religion, money, sex, etc).
Echoing what others have said, you gotta leave man.
Life is a marathon not a sprint, if you make MD two years later because you took 2 years of a lighter job to find a wife it’s very obviously worth it. For many this is the value of an MBA. I think a solid other option is just finding a lighter role tbh. Especially if the role is related, it actually can improve your credibility in the long run even if you stay in banking. For example, if you are a company would you rather talk to a banker who has only done banking or a banker who did banking, corp dev, then banking?
Look, a job and how much money you make is important, but a significant other is probably the most important decision you make and best determiner of your long term happiness. You are misallocating your time right now for being happy in the long run. The extra dollars aren’t worth the free time you give up in a limited window to find an sig other in an ideal time frame.
I would argue there’s not a whole lot of productive dating that happens right out of college because people are finding themselves etc, so the banking trade off really makes sense. But 25-29 is the prime time “find an sig other that you can date for several years and marry” window. Working yourself to the bone until you are 30 then beginning to date will have you watching other friends have kids in supportive relationships as you are going on hinge dates with girls who can’t think themselves out of a cardboard box. Dating is just a brutal inefficient experience and ultimately a numbers game, so you need to get reps to have decent odds of finding someone and the later you start, the more painful it is, and the longer it takes and the more you and the other person feel like you are against a clock.
It’s like raising money for a company, if you go out to raise money and you run out of cash in 4 months, you are going to make bad decisions. It’s a lot easier if you raise while also having time and no fear you are against the clock.
Another point on the precessional side, a good significant other gives you stability and allows you to actually be a better employee and achieve more professional success because as mentioned you don’t need to date if you find one, so your free time becomes way more efficient at recharging. There’s nothing like having a relaxing night in watching a movie with some girl that is thrilled you are spending time with her after a long week of hard work. Bankers love to bitch about their sig others, but a good relationship is the best and there’s nothing like having someone that is genuinely inspiring and supportive of your goals. I’ve had weeks where I’m working crazy hours and my sig other makes me my favorite meal out of the blue. There just no way you can compete against me when I have that sort of support. Genuinely, my sig other gives me professional confidence that I have an edge on the competition.
More cynically, if your goal is making money, divorce is about the quickest way I know to having your wealth be half of what you thought it would be. It’s probably worth doing some diligence and really scoping out who you end up with.
Sometimes you gotta walk to run. I was in the exact same situation you were, left, found an sig other, and now I’m sprinting again working crazy hours and happier and better at my job. Make the jump, realize free-time is necessary for finding a sig other, realize dating is inefficient, but worth it, then once you catch a good one invest in the relationship and make sure she is aligned with your professional goals.
Need more posts about the support from significant others, for real! Really appreciated this post
That life sounds awful. Couldn’t be me.
I think you need to draw better boundaries at work. Even in a bank
A few things:
- one of the challenges of growing up within one team is that it’s hard for people you’ve seen you as an analyst to stop treating you as an analyst. New job helps setting new boundaries, some people just struggle with that.
- you are allowed to have a life, push back or push down the work. After 7 or 8pm, if someone needs me urgently they need to use my phone number. Unless we’re in the middle of negotiations, etc. I’ll check my emails but I don’t have to sync my personal life with my colleagues’. Try to protect reliably 1 evening per week where you will be slow to answer on purpose.
- dates: don’t pick up your phone if you’re having dinner or drinks with someone. It’s a bit of a buzzkill, impolite, and unless you’re the one signing the deal, likely unnecessary. Keep the phone away, if someone needs you urgently they have to call. You need to have a little bit of self discipline.
- early in the week (someone mentioned Sunday / Monday) can be better for personal things. I used to put my dates on Tuesdays - lower expectations, what else do you do on a Tuesday anyway, strategically avoids the conflicts with friends events, etc. Try to be smart about planning
Would coming up in a group not help? Even as an analyst as I've shown my group that I can put the work in, I'm getting a ton of flexibility from seniors who don't care what I do with my life as long as I get my work in on time and with high quality. That would make me think that the dynamic only gets better as you progress. But could also be a group dependant thing.
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