What does the average 80 hour work week look like (day-by-day) at an EB?
Think PJT / EVR / CVP. What does the average 80-hour workweek look like and is it bearable and sustainable for 2 years?
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He's probably at a BB or MM with separate product groups. This is a legit question unless I'm missing a joke here?
Yes, this. In product at an MM working like 55-60 hours. Maybe got close to 80 a handful of times. Interns on this forum are as useless as they are in real life.
based on what EB / group you're talking about, 80 hours looks pretty damn good
okay so what's more realistic for coverage groups at EBs? what are you doing over the 80 hours? Is it like 9-12 am and you're working the whole time every day?
other people better qualified to give you an answer but I am responsive to emails until past midnight as a VP even when not on live deals and so you can extrapolate for an analyst. and no, no one who works 80 hours a week is consistently glued to their screen grinding the whole time.
Totally depends on what deals you’re on…
In general, you could probably expect (give or take a couple hours each night):
9am to 1am Monday through Wednesday
9am to 9pm Thursday and Friday
5-10 hours over the course of the weekend, typically weighted towards Sunday.
thanks
What percent of the day are you actually doing work vs just waiting around?
Again, unfortunately hard to quantify as it really does depend on your deals. Most days, especially early in the week, I’d expect to be pretty busy all day.
Typically email traffic is much higher during standard business hours, as this is when seniors, third parties and counter parties are most active. Usually the evenings are spent turning comments or working on preparing deliverables (such as staging VDR, creating buyer log, etc).
Best chance at a quiet period for a workout / personal time would be 7:30-8:30am, or during dinner hours, say ~6:30pm when the mid-level guys are eating with their families and stuff.
That sounds like a good plan, I just don't know if indeed it is sustainable for two years.
yeah literally man. any others have any insights on how its sustainable?
Made this post awhile ago and as much as it’s satire, it really is a pretty accurate portrayal of a shit day:
I wake up at 8:50am for my 9am call. I hurry to the bathroom because I have the runs from the stress. I call in from the can and switch to my computer 10 minutes into the call. Hope someone else has notes.
9:00-10:30am we discuss the recent model I made, as my VP walks through the architecture and takes the credit. An assumption comes up that the company throws a fit over even though it's just changing a toggle-able assumption. My MD says, "Sorry, that's our analysts fault, don't know what the fuck he was thinking. Hey Mike fix that after our call will you?" No ones on the call named mike, and it's fixed live, but we all know he means me.
10:31am: I go over to my roommates room and tell him I'm going to quit. He says, I'll believe that when you actually get laid and come out of your room more than 5 minutes at a time. I tell him I used to be a poon king, he tells me he's pretty sure I'm a virgin at this point. I get pinged and go back to my desk.
10:33am: VP on another transaction tells me he's going on vacation so he needs a deliverable pushed forward. I tell him it's going to be tough to complete with where my other transaction is. He says, "get it to me by tomorrow am."
10:33-11:00: I write emails confirming receipt and handling bs admin shit like booking a conference room or coordinating filling out a form for compliance. I ask an admin to help and they don't respond until 3 hours after I do it.
11:00-12:00pm I move logos around to prepare a deck for an internal meeting to be held at 6pm. My VP turns it, and tells me I need better attention to detail after he finds that some public financial information was pulled yesterday eve instead of this am and the number and footnote weren't updated. In my head I debate explaining that it's right, it's just as of yesterday, which is noted in the deck. We probably don't need day-of public financials for an internal call considering it was just background information anyway. I make the change to avoid him blowing up my sleep somehow later in the day because he is bitter.
12:00pm-2pm I finish building a model I have been working on and order food. I eat at my desk and debate doing dishes because my fork falls and spreads day old rice all over my carpet. I sent the model to my VP.
2pm-3pm VP calls me and complains the model doesn't make sense. We discuss it as I explain how the model works. He eventually agrees it makes sense and we change nothing.
3pm-3:05pm a post MBA associate pings me, telling me she needs me to immediately complete a task that I know isn't time sensitive. I tell her I'm tied up, and she complains that this is PRIORITY. I tell her she's free to email my teams and ask them if she can borrow me to help her. She says, "These are going to be the things that separate the top performers come end of year" she has been here 2 months.
4:00-6pm: A 2 hour diligence call, where I take notes because the MD demands they are circulated after each call. No one reads them.
6pm the MD that scheduled that internal call says we are pushing the meeting by 20.
6:25pm the MD says we are pushing the meeting by 15.
6:45pm the MD says let's just connect internally tomorrow at 7am before his run.
7pm-8pm The MD from the call this am says he thinks we need to rebuild the model because after thinking about it he doesn't like the way it is currently done because it's too confusing even if it is more accurate and the way the company thinks about the business. I know I will be up till 3am.
8pm-8:15pm: I go outside and call my mom she asks how work is and I tell her "it's going great, kinda like summer camp" she tells me I should get a girlfriend.
8:15pm-8:45 I realize I've been pinged 5 times while gone. I respond to each request/ message.
8:45-3am I work on the model
3am: I consider wanking, but realize I actually value sleep more than sex. I think about how that's probably a great way to know if you work in a sweatshop or not.
3:15am I fall asleep
3:30am I get pinged by a VP asking for a status update on the internal meeting deck because he thinks we need to update for daily market changes/ EoD price for an internal deck despite the fact that they will immediately be wrong at market open and the deck won't even be looked at for the internal meeting. I tell him I will do it first thing tomorrow. He tells me he'd appreciate if I was more proactive. I tell him, I appreciate his feedback.
3:45 I set my alarm for 6:30 am because the MD wanted to get a call in before his run.
Adding this, in terms of sustainable for 2 years, I mean like 90% of analysts bounce—that should tell you something. I always explain that to prospects. You can think you are different and tougher, but most the prior classes were also filled with the hardest of hardos and despite that everyone always ends up leaving. When I worked I had analysts/associates going to the hospital and bugging out all around me. While I never had an issue with my mental health/ anxiety / stress, I did very genuinely hate my life at the end of my stint. There are some A to A’s, but I think the analyst role is intentionally structured in an unsustainable way. The truth is, if you wanted it to be sustainable, they could do things like late starts or just assign people to less transactions, but the truth is analysts want the role to be unsustainable, so they can then leave and leverage that massive experience elsewhere. I heard an MD once say in IB you learn in dog years, 7 for every 1. In theory you could work less and have a more sustainable role, but most analysts don’t want that—they want to see transactions and leave for PE or another exit. All that said, it’s a great experience, it just is unsustainable for a happy life in my honest opinion.
What are your hours like now & how much are you willing to work per week in a sustainable basis long term?
All of this is pretty accurate of my recent old banking days...I'd add the most frustrating thing imo wasn't necessarily the hours during the weekday, but the unpredictability of banking. I don't mind working till post midnight Monday-Thurs but nothing gets me tilted other than my weekend being blown up.
Imagine its 6pm Friday, and you're getting ready for your night out with the lads and looking forward to your weekend plans, and then your MD emails you asking for some dumb merger math for a pitch deck for Monday...thinking about this just gives me PTSD
Thanks for the reminder of why I’m choosing s&t next summer
It was sustainable (with tons of caffeine) I did 10am - 12am I guess every night except Friday which was shorter (usually out by 7-8pm), then a bit of work during the days in the weekend (Sunday was usually quiet at night). It would be more though because some nights definitely went past 12am.
I started getting annoyed when I was unable to have a life though when I became an associate and my friends were talking about getting married…. left not long after entering that period of my life lol, very glad I left, but also glad I did it.
I didn’t realize how horrible my life was and how much I disliked it until I left - IB is very good at brainwashing you when you get home exhausted every night and don’t have time to think about your life or even recruit. You’re just thinking about getting a big bonus and your current deal.
So would you say finding a partner while in IB is essential to have a sustainable life?
I think it is near impossible to find a partner while in IB/ working 80+ hours a week. If someone is meeting you for the first time, you don’t have the ability to build rapport and get to know them if your hours are IB hours. Also, dating is a numbers game. So unless you knew someone prior to the role, working a 90 hour a week stressful job is severely limiting to finding a significant other. Finally, even if you have a significant other, it takes a very unique person to be ok with you being virtually absent, since you are always working.
I think it’s fine when you’re in your early 20s to go ham and work 100 hours a week etc but it starts getting annoying as you get older because you are trying to have a life - I still work hard but not 80 hours a week I think it’s all abt the balance.
For reference when I was an analyst first two years I guess me and the 5-7 other guys I worked with were all single the whole time lol. Relationships are tough when you’re working 80-100 hours a week. Can be done though. I think doing something fun on the weekend was probably the biggest thing to not burn out - whether going to a party, bar, playing golf, etc. whatever. That’s probably what kept my sanity.
You're an associate though, aren't you working basically analyst hours (maybe minus like 5hrs)?
I left recently to corp dev it’s way better but a pay cut - I live in a fun place though and like it
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