What is the real life in IB

Might be dumb/naive but I have always wondered how much the 9am-4am cliché is real in IB.

From my experience as an intern in LMM M&A boutique, 9am-2am feels like the max the body can support on the long run so what is the life in BB/EB and how do you manage to stay alive. What are the tricks

9 Comments
 

9am - 11pm was about the norm when I was in BB M&A, with usually 2ish nights a week going to 1am - 2am where needed. When closing a live deal all bets are off. There were periods where I worked 8am - 4am for over a week straight, which is absolutely nightmarish. 

Every Sunday I worked at least a few hours, and that would usually spill into Saturday for a few hours as well.

Take away is that IB is incredibly unpredictable, so there's no real good answer to your question.

 
gufmo

Every Sunday I worked at least a few hours, and that would usually spill into Saturday for a few hours as well.

Sunday spills into Saturday?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Dumb phrasing. I was an Analyst during the first year that "protected Saturdays" were a thing, and they were totally ignored / disrespected. Should've said something like:

Most Sundays there was a few hours of work to do. Default for Saturday was that we were "off", but for the most part if any meaningful work needed to be done on Sunday, it became a whole-weekend grind and an exception to the Saturday rule would be granted. 

 

Sunday into the following Saturday, duh

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

Depends entirely on what sort of deals you're on and how much of an asshole your seniors are. That was for a $20bn deal where I was the only junior beneath Director. Those sorts of hours are very rare though.

I was also on a $70bn deal that dragged on for the better part of half a year, and that was like 2-3 nights a week to 3am - 4am for weeks on end. I would usually get in later, around 10am while I was working on that one, though.

 

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