The Onset of Winter means Spring isn't far

Monkeys,

A couple of weeks ago, when I was deep in the live-deal trenches, If I saw a somewhat positive or uplifting post on WSO, I would almost always gag. I know many of you will feel the same way. I just want to share my experience as I reflect on my journey in IB which is drawing to a close (I'm leaving for one of the many "Xyz is Paradise roles...").

I came from a Tier 4 country. Bottom of the fucking barrel. So far below that it feels like you're in the Mariana Trench and a small glimmer of silver is certainly a fishing line that will pierce through your mouth but you'd cling onto it anyway because that's your one chance to get out. I got my one chance. It was to study at a ShitUni because I couldn't afford to go to a good school or go through like an education placement agent to get me into one at an affordable price. Yeah, yeah loans and scholarships and aid is all good but man when you can't even pay for a fucking round trip from your city to the US, it really narrows your choices down. Anyways, I won't bore you with some I-got-bit-by-a-radioactive-spider and became Spiderman after my cruel-life story.

I got in, I worked my ass off. Did not go to a target obviously so had to grind on networking and chasing people down to get calls set up. It's funny looking back, there were so many instances of coffee chats where senior bankers commented on my hair or my accent or something needless, and I'm forever glad that those are not the teams I somehow ended up with. I got a superday at a MM in junior year. This was a team heavily building out their culture at that time. I had researched the group and had spoken to a bunch of people on it. I felt so invested but my behaviorals just didn't stick. The VP interviewing me was a huge college football, frat guy and I knew nothing about it. I could talk NFL or the NBA, but it was clear that we just lived in different worlds. It didn't work out and I was deflated. The following week I got an offer from another much smaller no-name investment bank and just took it because of desperation.

I felt, at many moments in my life I just didn't have the threshold to take risk and kept looking for safety. Maybe in junior year if I held off that offer and tried interviewing for another bank I could have gotten it? Who knows. But senior year was all about lacing my boots up and giving up the excuses. I was where I was and that wasn't changing. It didn't matter if these people didn't like me or didn't think I was good enough, I did and I had to show it to them. I downloaded every conceivable email scraping plug-in and ran it on any and every linkedin page I could find. I had an excel spreadsheet with Name - LinkedIn - Potential email - Reached out? and then conditional formatting to track if I should send a follow up or track the conversations I'd had. 

I got the coveted BB superday. Prepped prepped prepped. Super confident and energized I went into the first two interviews. Pretty good, nothing exceptional, tame conversation generic questions. Final interview was technicals with this Excel geek. Man, we started hitting it off like crazy. That was the best interview because it was with someone who was genuinely talented in what he did and could see I had spent time working on this craft and was willing to learn more. I got the offer.

My first 2 years have also been a series of ups and downs. I've gotten my fair share of wanting to walk out and never walk back in. I might make a post on that someday too. One thing that always keeps me going is how insane life is. I've never felt sorry for myself. I've never been dejected by my circumstances. Every struggle that has come my way has been a learning experience and I feel like there are very few things in life that can seriously hamper my mental wellbeing. I may just be a 2nd-year analyst, but I clawed my way out of the fucking barrel. Not just me, there are people with even crazier stories and crazier backgrounds. There's a long road ahead but however it turns out to be, it is something I eagerly await.