Restructuring is paradise (a completely unbiased account)

I'm a first-year RX analyst at a boutique nobody outside of 1WTC has heard of, currently on my fourth consecutive all-nighter, powered entirely by lukewarm Seamless pad thai and the profound spiritual clarity that only comes from formatting a liquidation waterfall for the ninth time. I would like it on the record that this is, in fact, paradise.

I wake up, or rather, regains consciousness at his desk; around 6am, and immediately feels grateful. Not because the model finally balances, but because in RX, nothing ever really balances, and there's something zen about that. I often think to myself, M&A analysts chase an elusive "sources equal uses." RX analysts have made peace with the void. I have transcended the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is now a feeling. The spreadsheet is now life.

By 9am I'm on his third call of the day with a client's general counsel, three different sets of unsecured creditors, and a financial advisor who communicates exclusively in italicized threats. I find this soothing. In M&A, everyone pretends to like each other for eighteen months and then never speaks again. In RX, everyone hates each other from minute one, which I consider refreshingly honest. No wasted small talk. No fake "hope you had a great weekend." Just straight into the second lien.

I often do the math on my hours and comes out ahead every time. Sure, it's 100 a week, every week, but consider: technically that's less than a full 168-hour week, meaning I am, mathematically, part-time. My MD agrees, in the sense that he has not disputed this claim, mostly because it is 3am and he has stopped responding to Bloomberg messages that aren't urgent forbearance breaches.

The exit opportunities, people tell you, are unparalleled. Distressed debt funds want me. Special situations shops want me. My own nervous system, frankly, no longer wants me, but that's a personal matter and not really relevant to the recruiting pitch. I have become the kind of person who hears "the company has approximately fourteen weeks of liquidity remaining" and feels a small, warm sense of purpose, like a golden retriever finally being given a job.

I am particularly fond of client interactions. When the RX team walks into a room, nobody smiles, but nobody needs to; there is a mutual, unspoken respect, the kind reserved for undertakers and dentists. The M&A guys get golf invites. I get thanked, quietly, in a hallway, by a CFO who looks like he hasn't slept since the Obama administration. I consider this more meaningful than any steak dinner. It is true respect.

I have also, somewhere along the way, developed a genuine appreciation for the vocabulary of decline. "Going concern" rolls off the tongue. "Priming lien" sounds almost romantic if you say it fast enough. I use the phrase "cash flow negative" the way other people use terms of endearment. My situationship of six months ended over text and she described it, unprompted, as "an orderly wind-down of the relationship, executed under Section 363, free and clear of any prior romantic liens." My friends worry about me. My family worries about me. I always assure them this is called professional growth. in 10 years', time, I will be the boss.

Comp, which I've always noted, is the same as every other group at the bank, but somehow it feels more earned, because unlike the TMT guys who get the silver banana for closing a hot IPO, I gets nothing but the quiet, private knowledge that I personally kept a company's lights on for one more quarter through sheer force of DIP financing and unresolved trauma. That is what I call the real bonus.

Would I recommend restructuring to a rising sophomore looking to break in? Absolutely. Unreservedly. As I say this, I am visibly twitching. I have not seen sunlight in nine days and refers to my Bloomberg terminal as "Felecia." But the smile is real. Or it's a symptom. Either way — paradise.