So I quit IB after a month on the desk. Call me a bitch or whatever but I couldn’t handle it. I was pushing 110hr a week and my group kept putting work on me. Lost it and emailed the staffer at 3am and told him I quit and to restaff everything. What now? Had a few Corp dev interviews but I was going to get beat to shit if I stayed.
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man up
- "Intern in IB-M&A"
he said something like, " can you tell me what bank it was so I can apply"
No it doesn’t , don’t enable this type of short term behavior. Quitting without any plans in the spur of the movement has 0 upsides (versus alternative of waiting even a little). Itsdifferent if he woke up the next day or a week after that and made the decision. This was driven my short term emotional satisfaction and was just impulsive. Anyone can quit their job when something comes up or ‘pushes them over’. It’d be respectable if he made the post without quitting actually but with strong consideration, then quit with deliberation and a plan
Not to mention how much harder he just made recruiting for himself. And honestly he didn't mention even having a conversation with his staffer. Quite frankly I feel like the mature thing to do would be to actually talk to someone at the firm.
Holy fuck 110 hour work week? Are you being serious? Jesus.
I respect this. Guy was getting abused by his employer and decided he wasn't going to bend over and take it.
Be a trailblazer and lead your life the way you want. Do you think someone like Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg would have let someone make them work 110 hr weeks formatting logos? They would have quit and put 110 weeks into something that benefitted them and their dreams.
IB is very subservient and you just realized you arent part of that mindset. I respect that. Go off and do better things where you have more ownership. Don't listen to all these IB guys telling you that you are weak. There's not a ton of honor in working 110 hrs a week for an asshole deal team....this isn't combat in war where sacrifices are rewarded.
IB is full of cucks willing to take it from their superiors while dudes at FAANG make more for less hours worked.
I did this exact same thing back in October 2019 because I was being bullied in a non-IB job. Don’t worry, you’re young and will get a second chance, even in this job market. Just keep networking and interviewing and you’ll look back on this 4 years from now and laugh, promise!
Lol at some of these responses.
"Op is weak" no he decided that he's not taking it up the ass from his deal teams
"Apologize to the staffers" lol they should be apologizing to OP for making him work 110 hr weeks and not thinking that might cause him to have a mental breakdown
"This won't look rational to future employers" no, what doesn't look rational is working 110 hr weeks in the prime of your 20s while many peers have much better work life balances with similar pay. Most of corporate America (and high finance outside IB) thinks people are borderline insane to work in IB when their are so many better fields to be in. He won't be judged too harshly...in fact he may find some ex ib people that sympathize and respect his move assuming he's willing to come in work hard(not 110 hr hard)
"offer to start again tomorrow and to take some of the next few crappy staffings (profiles, on Friday, etc)."
"say you’ll be happy to start again tomorrow if they will have you" Astounding someone would think like this. How much of pathetic beta cuck do you think OP is?
"You’ve probably done irreparable political damage to yourself at your current firm" that was the whole point
What the actual fuck are you talking about? You're speaking as though OP isn't a fresh out of college grad entering the work force in the middle of an economic contraction. A bunch of peopel just got axed yesterday at KPMG (my friend worked there and got the axe) as they are in a bunch of field. McKinsey was thinking about not taking FT analysts for a year.
There are a billion ways OP could have handled this. He could have gotten a doctor's note, or made a medical excuse stating he needed a few days for personal reasons. Would the company ahve axed him? Hell to the fucking no, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. it could have bought him time to sit down rethink the impulsive decision he was about to make and if he STILL decides he wants to quit at least he will have literally thought it through for a few days without VP's ramming comments down his throat.
The way you're phrasing his situation makes it seem like he's a season veteran with a shit ton to offer the working community. No one out of fucking college is. Don't kid yourself. You're a liability until you have expereince and have gotten reps in. Don't act like this kid or any other kid is the second coming of bill gates because that's just a false hope. God replies like yours are idiotic lol
I support you and don't give a shit to what others think.
Everyone is shitting on how irrational this decision was but at the end of the day you did what your mind/body told you to and I don't think you should be ashamed of that. Try to go back if you can and maybe try switching division to corp. banking etc if that is an option. You're a month out of school. Recruit hard for some corp. finance job at a F500 (as well as big 4 etc etc) if you still want to be in the industry. I see tons of students with good grades and ECs who just didn't know anything about recruiting and end up having to scramble for a job postgrad. You can masquerade as one of them or even try to explain how IB just was a fundamentally bad fit for you. I know first hand of people in fin. analyst roles at F500s making 70-75k right out of college working less than 40 hrs a week. A lot of jobs are nothing like IB in terms of the hours. Also, worst comes to worst, why can't you just go back to school for a year and get some dumb 1 yr masters from your alma mater to reset? If something I said is misleading, please correct me as I'm trying to be helpful with what I know but I'm definitely not some sort of experienced source of wisdom.
All the people posting negative comments are very one-dimensional thinkers. Who is to say that his doing this won’t end up being a great decision for him? Maybe OP will discover a new path of life that is a much better fit for them.
Moral of the story: We often times can’t tell whether something will be good or bad for us— best thing to do is to move on with positivity. Negativity will only compound any existing problems.
I’m sure things will work out fine. Best wishes to you!
OP, much respect for your honesty. Here are my thoughts:
There's so much wrong in this that I just can't be fucked to address it all but you're a tool that's obviously insecure about their own career progression and projecting all of that onto OP. Your post history summarizes your "banker persona" pretty well - second year analyst at a "pretty elite" debt shop that kids on this website "drool" over, yet cannot figure out how to turn all of that glorious "prestige" into an exit. None of that coincides with the fact that you said you make $70K all-in, but hey, maybe the bill collectors take prestige coupons wherever you live.
Long hours is not a phase if you want to succeed at anything, especially in banking or investing. While most if not all of us are aware of how bad the hours can get before joining the industry, none of us really know the toll it can take on us until we're in the thick of it. That's even more true today, for analysts beginning their careers working from home where the expectations for them are the same but the resources very different. Nearly every banker I know that joined out of school (undergrad or graduate) has said the same thing that they knew what the job expectations were and what they would be doing and for how many hours they'd be doing it but were surprised how much they hated it once they were in it, despite all of the excitement leading up to it. Finally, it doesn't surprise me that you'd make a comparison between finance and the military, but in case someone already hasn't told you, saying shit like that or calling banking a "full contact sport" makes you look like a nerdy douchebag.
Work ethic is a function of your goals and what you're seeking out of life. If it's purely money at a young age or you truly enjoy finance, work ethic will follow. But to call someone out on their work ethic based on their performance in a job they very possibly couldn't see themselves in long-term or that didn't align with their long-term goals the best is so stupid that it makes sense someone like you would say it. You tell OP to be a "middle-of-the-pack" analyst as being liked by everyone and doing quality work. Newsflash, dude: that still isn't an easy coast. To be liked by everyone, you have to be reliable, and that means being able to quickly and correctly do work they toss to you. That does not equate to getting away with 50 or even 60 hour work weeks in IB, especially if you're in a demanding group where 110 hours seems to be the norm, like in OP's situation. I'm also not sure how you become well liked by everyone if you're not socializing (guessing this is what you mean by talking less with "substance") other than being the team work mule that pleases everyone not by how good and well-rounded of a coworker they are but only through being the stooge that does work no one else wants. If you think you can become well-liked by your coworkers and that your VPs will "feel like there's rapport" by having fucking Yankee watercooler talk while waiting for the entire team to join the Zoom call, you're socially inept. Meaningful relationships are formed through mutual trust and that means being vulnerable to some degree to actually appear human. Finally, no one fucking "envies" the top analysts. I know that you'd like that to be the case because there's no way anyone could envy your social DNA and so you assume that by reaching the top of your narrow bucket, you'll finally win all of the friends, women and glory you've been jerking it to since you first dressed up as Gordon Gekko for Halloween, but that isn't how it works, bro.
I say all of this not to beat you up for fun but because it's sickening seeing people lack empathy with anyone that just doesn't see themselves working in finance long-term, especially those that clearly are not in the same situation themselves. OP shouldn't ever read a post like yours and walk away feeling bad about their decision. Could they have been a little more prudent? Absolutely but to hit them with a post like yours is insane, especially when nearly none of it has any real answers to the problems he was facing that led to his decision to quit.
OP - best of luck with everything. I think the decision was bold and a bit rash but ultimately will likely put you on a path to happiness. You did what 90% of us dream doing but don't have the balls to.
Congratulations! Wanted to chime in amidst all the negative comments on here calling you stupid. Honestly life is too short to be miserable and to wreck your health over this stupid job. So many of my peers have done it and regretted it, and I was in the same boat.
So buckle up and happy for your decision! P.S. I’m quitting from my megafund PE job after two months for the same reason
I did exactly this about 10 years ago - PM me - most of the comments here won't be very useful. You're mostly conversing with sheep.
Six years ago I quit 8 weeks into an internship at a top BB firm for a variety of reasons. I loved finance - still do - but didn't want to be a part of the lifestyle or culture. With that lack of motivation - I couldn't cut it - you have to really want it to put yourself through those hours and meet the demands.
If you are like me you will go back and forth in your head wondering if it was the right decision, but that will pass in time. The best path now is forward. Figure out what you learned from the experience and use that to form a story about how you're clearly a bright, ambitious person but have limits - anyone outside of IB will understand that.
If it helps - I'm now in a different industry with a much better work life balance and expect to W2 about as much as a second or third year associate while working 1/2 the hours. On top of that, I have enjoyed my early 20's and have had a lot more experiences than my friends that stayed the IB/PE/HF path.
Ping me if you want to chat - WSO is full of people who pushed through the pain and a lot of people on here lack perspective beyond finance.
The same thing happened to me. I was a hotshot VP in equity research at morgan stanley, covered some of my own names etc, etc. Was given an opputunity to switch over to IB at my firm and was tempted by the tremendous increase in pay. I was blown away with how different it was. The value that these people assertain to meaningless tasks is comical. I just could not wrap my head around how dumb people were and how almost no thought went into the work. I was used to working crazy hours in EQ but not that crazy, and at the end of the day your ppt presentation means nothing because all those deals are made at the MD level, so no one cares about all the meaningless effort you put it. Long story short I told the team to go to hell and transfered back to EQ after the worst 40 days of my carrear. Time will make this life event seem small, keep your head up and remember all the value these nuckleheads assign to being able to work a billion hours a day in the end means nothing. Today im an ED in EQ and i still tell bankers to go fuck themselves. Keep your head up! Let me know if you have any questions