Second Year Analyst is Paradise

Its 1pm on Friday in your 9 foot by 10 foot, $3,000/month Murray Hill apartment that you share with 3 of your frat bros from Indiana University. You're a second year analyst coming up to your final day in your group and can't wait for paradise on the buyside at your JAMMBO fund. You keep reading the "PE is Paradise" post over and over while reflecting back on your two years as an analyst and in NYC. Sure you didn't date anyone during your time in NYC and sure you also kissed maybe one girl who your friends still give you shit for but don't worry, you tell yourself, its because you were too busy creating pitchbooks for deals that will never happen and not because you're a 4/10, 5 foot 8 guy aiming for super models taller than you. Soon when you are getting paid the PE salary while working 50-60 hours a week it will all be worth it. You can finally go on the date with the model (and taller than you) in your building who gags every time she sees your disheveled silhouette step out of your UberX coming from your office. "Not even an UberBlack", she thinks every time before she turns in bed back towards her hedgefund billionaire GigaChad boyfriend named Chadwick.

"Only two weeks to go", you mutter to yourself as you see your VP ping "where are you"? With reference to the fact that your team is in 5 days a week (shoutout GS/JPM) but that you're lying in bed in your apartment on your phone reading WSO. "Wasn't feeling great so stayed home", you quickly reply to you VP, ensuring that he doesn't think you're slacking off or avoiding additional staffings. "Okay well we need to get these materials out" your VP replies quickly. You sigh and get yourself up out of bed and back to the computer, you quickly make the changes and align the logos (which never stops btw) as you get multiple pings from your VP saying to hurry up and that the MD needs to see it ASAP for a meeting in a month. You close your eyes and almost drift off to sleep, thinking about your night out at Red Lion with the boys and all the girls you totally didn't talk to but could have TOTALLY pulled if you wanted.

The Microsoft Teams notification from your VP snaps you back to reality as the MD has ALREADY sent comments (deal flow is slow so they can really focus on this pitchbook for a meeting a month out). Turns out you missed a few logos and so now the VP is tearing you a new one and now you need to completely reconfigure the entire model because they want some weird ass sensitivity table that will be really difficult to make but has to be done "so the client can see what kind of returns they can get" while also being told you need to add more logos because "we want to fill up the page and show the amount of connectivity and optionality we can provide, if they were to hire us" (HINT: they're just gonna hire GS or MS). 

Your phone is lighting up and now you VP is calling you but is much nicer on the phone (passive-aggressive guy who will never outright yell at you but will talk shit behind your back). "Hey Sheldon, can you quickly make those model changes? We need to get as many turns in as possible because we're going up against some heavy hitters like GS and MS" (your team was never in consideration anyway but you guys are trying to get into the bakeoff process for a potential buyside the client doesn't even want to really do, yuck). 

You call up one of your interns, a fellow Hoosier in the Investment Banking workshop, who is 10x more intense than needed and still probably won't get a return offer because he lied about being a diverse candidate. "Hey Arthur, can you make the following changes to our deck? Its super important so be really careful because I won't have time to check it as I'm jammed right now", as you pull up Clash Royale on your personal phone. "YES I CAN DO THAT, LET ME KNOW IF ANYTHING ELSE I CAN HELP WITH", Arthur replies super excited because he will finally get the modeling experience he wanted (and has already told every single girl he's ever met that he's gonna be a hotshot banking intern with modeling experience). You roll your eyes "Great man, thanks for being a trooper", you say as you get a notification that your city is under attack. "Fuck", you mutter, "I'm gonna need to buy gems to hold off this attack" but you're already worried about your bonus as M&A revenues are down 90% in your MM TMT group that "has as good exits as GS/MS TMT." 

You completely zone out and continue on with Clash Royale and suddenly get a call on your work phone from your VP. You pick up and you hear yelling, apparently the intern sent the updated model to the MD without sending it to the VP first and it was wrong. Great, now the VP is getting reamed and he'll be even more passive aggressive than before for your remaining two weeks. You sigh and put the phone on speaker as your MD continues to yell at your VP while you play your mobile game. You get bored of Clash Royale and pull up Hinge, finally got a match after having the app for a month. You excitedly open it and get ready to message the absolute 9/10 you just matched with until you realize all her pictures are a screenshot from Google with the search "hot generic girl." A tear rolls down your cheek and the loneliness hits, you lower the volume on your work phone as your MD continues to go off and go lay in bed again. As you reflect on your upcoming bonus of $30K you can't help but wonder, maybe you could have been in the NFL or maybe the NBA. 

Your work phone snaps you back to reality and the VP has 10x more comments than before to make up for the intern blunder and needs you to do it ASAP. You decide its not worth it and turn off your phone and roll over in bed and continue spamming likes to every girl on Hinge.

Being a second year is paradise. (For what its worth I've never played Clash Royale so please don't kill me for this).