What's your worst experience in IBD?
We've all heard of the frequent all-nighters, quarrels with print room guys, but what's your worst experience ever??
Trending Content - Investment Banking Forum
| +311 | UBS Tech MD hires Son (from no-name college) as an Intern | 53 | 18h |
| +89 | [Official] 2026 IB Analyst Bonus Megathread (with 2025 Consolidated Pay and Perks/Benefits) | 12 | 22h |
| +52 | Is DCM actually underrated ? | 18 | 5h |
| +46 | Are all Tech / TMT groups sweaty? | 31 | 5h |
| +41 | UBS Groups Ranked by Future Outlook | 20 | 4d |
| +40 | JPM M&A is Gone??? Purely Coverage Banking??? | 20 | 5h |
| +37 | Am I behind? 31 Year Old Analyst | 10 | 8h |
| +32 | UVA McIntire vs Cornell Dyson for IB | 19 | 3d |
| +32 | Losing my personality in Banking | 5 | 20h |
| +31 | Incoming IB Analyst: Best Ways to Prepare? | 8 | 20h |
Career Resources
Lol what kind of fool quarrels with the print shop? Be polite to them, even if they're delayed, and they'll be nice and actually listen to your requests.
I actually didn't need to be rude, I meant for instance if you had to have a document ready for in like an hour, and it couldn't be done, so you had to explain it to your MD (happened with a friend of mine)
Agree strongly with this.
If you're in a situation where:
you're dealing with guys who are paid less than you, are keenly aware of it and likely overestimate how much you're paid
they are in a position where they are the chokepoint on your work and they have the discretion to fuck you over without it being apparent to higher ups that they fucked you over
you're getting angry with them - signalling clearly that they have power over you and you're approach to resolving this is through threats and anger
your anger and frustration gives them opportunity and motivation to score back at a system that largely treats them poorly
... then you really haven't thought this through, have you?
Same goes for secretaries, mail room guys and all the other "little people" in an organisation. Always be nice to them. Know their names. Respect them as human beings.
If not just because you're a good soul, at least do it out of self interest.
completely agree with you, you have my respect :)
I had a print guy tell me how he constantly catches intern's formatting/grammatical mistakes. You don't have to be best pals with everyone but it definitely helps to get to know people around the office.
I remember once I went down to the printing room to get some pitch books for my so-called "MD".
The dude looks at me and goes, "You come here all the time, I printed your books for free."
I was like, "Man! What do I look like? A charity case?"
I took it... and THREW IT ON THE GROUND. I threw the rest of his books too.
You can't buy me print room man! I'm not a part of this system. I'm AN ADULT. Phonies.
SBed. Nice.
working 84 hours non-stop ... I wanted to kill myself after that.. then my boss asking "are you tired??" like umm.. no im not.. ive just had 1.2 hours of sleep in the past week.
How the hell did you stay awake for 3.5 days straight?
Meth.
I am exaggerating a TAD bit, I did manage to get about ~4 hours of total sleep (but those were on the first 2 days, the next 2 days or 48 hour span window I got 0 hours of sleep).
On day 4, my brain just went away. How did I survive? I actually am not too sure. I had a good support group of buddies from University, who was supporting me with funny texts (since the MD was a girl, and I was sending them pics they were like man you should totally bone her.. I was in constant state of LOL and I want to kill myself)
The following month, I went nuts on drugs, hookers and more hookers. Someone needed to feel my pain,. My brain though has never been the same.
I dont think working 84 hours without ANY sleep is possible dude. Aren't you exaggerating a little?
There's an old saying: where there's a pill, there's a way
I once went 2 days without drinking any liquids. Of course, by liquids, I mean Bombay Sapphire. And by once, I mean the time 27 years ago a friend bought me a crate full of Tanqueray that I drank nonstop for a week, interspersed with some Bombay, which sustains my lifeblood.
Considering an intern DIED a few years ago from doing just that, I think so!
impressive, i'd have become a 'zombie' if I were you
Being caught flirting and making out with my MDs wifes sister in a club. Well, I was an intern, that probably is the best experience for the internship. But not getting the return offer, probably because of this is pretty bad experience tho.
where's the guy who got thrown a printer at? )
I'm cracking up over some of the comments here. I'll bust a nut with the SB's.
The spill over into personal life.
My ex-girlfriend who I used to lived together with (to save on rent) was the type of woman who couldn't understand or refused to understand the unbalanced nature of work/life for junior guys in investment banking.
One time, I had to cancel something with her at the last minute due to a work commitment and she completely lost it. I can't go into too much detail but she ended up doing some things which had some very severe consequences.
Worst story ever without the details/pics/videos/snaps/etc.
That is how your post reads without the details.
I've heard better stories during the "interview the contestant" portion on Jeopardy where they talk about the "humorous happenings" of missing the bus in 2nd grade or a funny spelling error in their doctoral thesis.
It was pretty bad. Embarrassingly, my parents ended up getting involved and they would end up helping me get a restraining order against this person. I don't think it is necessary to elaborate any further.
this thread delivers. Haha
One time a managing director threw a clump of monkey poop at me
oh man, that gets me hot
had a fling with a girl in hr, management found out it was with someone in the division but luckily she wouldnt say who it was with (she was preparing to leave the firm anyways).... long story short don't shit where you eat
Having the flu during a live M&A process is probably my least fond memory.
One time in a state of minimal sleep I left a very important sentence in a sellside research report on company A, in a modified research note on company B (replacing paragraphs to maintain formatting) and then sent it out to 1000+ people. Emails basically asking wtf poured in for hours, almost got fired. No fun.
In the midst of an accelerated sell-side M&A deal the VP called both me and another analyst into a conference room at around 10pm one evening saying that we'd basically have to write an entire CIM from scratch that night (there was an outline in place but it was very light). The poor analyst had a full panic attack on the scene, passed out unconscious, and was carted out to the hospital on a stretcher. The HR lady had to come in around midnight to look up his parents' contact info to get in touch with them. The VP then went to the hospital and told me to stay and do the CIM. I was there until 6am or so with a summer analyst working on the book, and then we had a call at 8am with the company.
At around 730am just before the call I went down to the street in a haze to grab breakfast and a friend from high school spotted me with unkempt stuble and an untucked shirt, stuffing a buttered roll into my mouth while mumbling to myself and foaming at the mouth. The analyst wound up being okay but I'm not sure I ever recovered
Haha, good stuff. The VP was prob hitting on ER nurses all night while you were in a roman wilderness of pain.
That is an awesome story. I have no doubt the VP went home to sleep though.
Solid. How hard was it to focus after that and did you have any laughs about it with the summer analyst?
hands down best story i've read on here haha
It was definitely hard to focus after that. Although I’m grateful it happened because it was a wake-up call that lit a fire for me to recruit and network for buyside jobs. That summer analyst was a machine, I loved working with him and did everything I could to help him get a full time offer (which he did). I just hope he winds up in another group since that group's culture was rough
Ok i have one. Gotta be careful about protecting anonymity, but considering i don't work in this industry...
I did an internship in IB where i had interviewed with this guy who was an alum of my school and landed the internship. This alum was a group head and ended up being my senior mentor during the internship. I think most people can agree, having a group head as a senior mentor is not common so i thought that was pretty awesome. Halfway through the internship i got to have lunch with this guy - just me, one other intern from my school and the group head.
Now, by total coincidence, my roommate during that summer was an intern from a different school who was working in my mentors group. Now THIS GUY, my roommate, was a fun guy. Highlight of the summer was when i heard he went out with some friends for a birthday party and ending the night racking up a total $1,000 bill or something renting a McClarian luxury car for a day (which they never ended up picking up).
This is besides the point though. I was pretty intense about doing well during this internship. During the lunch, my mentor brings up my roommate (who is working for him) and the other girl blurts out that he's my roommate. So we spent most of the rest of the lunch just talking about him haha. I guess my mentor had already challenged him to an athletic competition outside of work.
About a week after this lunch, my roommate walked into work with a black eye. I guess he had gone out drinking and like just passed out onto the floor or something, i don't actually know the whole story just cause i was working pretty hard hours and not sleepling a lot during that week. My mentor called the roommate into his office and asked him how he got the black eye. I wasn't there obviously but i guess he was pissed. He kept saying "i don't believe you, i don't believe you." My roommate told me the story. Scared the shit out of me - i thought he thought i did it or something.
I left the mentor a whole bunch of emails after that that he didn't respond to. To this day i still wonder what impression i ended up making on him during that internship.
Wait...why would the mentor assume you gave your buddy a black eye? This story makes no sense.
I did karate
By the way you spelled McLaren, something tells me there maybe be some holes in this story.
LOL - this shits hilarious.. I'm def telling Hite . .. somethin tells me this is Drew Dimon
LOL - this shits hilarious.. I'm def telling Hite . .. somethin tells me this is Drew Dimon
Another analyst and a summer associate got into a fistfight at 3 am over a last minute pitchbook edit
I had to break it up, take one guy to NY Presbyterian, and make sure no one snitched to HR... as a summer analyst
Guess who didn't come back for full time
Fucking a
What's the worst part about banking (Originally Posted: 10/09/2009)
To all you junior bankers out there: What's the worst part about banking?
(List in order from starting with the worst) -Long Hours -Difficulty of the work/learning new concepts -Pressure from senior bankers
Did you not get an offer? haha
Would you go willingly go back to a place run by clowns?
Not so much the hours, but the unpredictability. Don't get me wrong the hours still blow...
It's almost impossible for me to make plans (concerts, dates, dinners), because there is a high likelihood that I will have to cancel.
The inefficiency also pisses me off. When senior bankers know damn well they want the junior bankers to do something but wait until 6:00 pm or beyond to let us know after we have been twiddling our thumbs all day, I want to slap the shit out of someone.
Not so much the hours, but the unpredictability. Don't get me wrong the hours still blow...
It's almost impossible for me to make plans (concerts, dates, dinners), because there is a high likelihood that I will have to cancel.
The inefficiency also pisses me off. When senior bankers know damn well they want the junior bankers to do something but wait until 6:00 pm or beyond to let us know after we have been twiddling our thumbs all day, I want to slap the shit out of someone.
I'm making it up as I go along.
what about the actual work itself? are there a lot of difficult tasks that really tests your finance/accounting?
Sorry to break it to you but never once in my time as an analyst was I really challenged intellectually. Yes sometimes I came across things I couldn't do and somebody had to show me but they were specific mechanical things, not something I could have figured out for myself if I sat there for 30mins.
As for what sucks - definitely the unpredictability and inefficiency of the job. As somebody else said there really is nothing more infuriating than having barely anything to do half the day and then all of a sudden you get a pile of crap at 7pm or on a Friday after a quiet week.
I remember somebody on this forum saying that if everything was efficient and you were working to your own schedule more or less, then most weeks you could probably get your work done in a total of 60hrs.
It's a very dumb job.
the lack of an intellectual challenge really surprises me. i would have thought that banking requires a lot of on-the-spot thinking.
it's common to hear that one of the benefits of working in banking is that you get to develop a wide skill set. but if banking isn't a much of an intellectual challenge, how are these skills obtained? are these skills mostly technical?
its nota very dumb job ... learn more from your boss
first of all there is time and space for you to add value whenevr
the good / bad separate when they figure out how / when to add value
its not just thr mindless work.
just challnenge yourself
pokersliar--- what do you mean "adding value." that just seems like a very loose term. are you just referring to doing quality work?
I think just generally during discussions, you are able to contribute something that other people haven't thought of, you're adding value. It's probably tough to contribute higher-level stuff so usually, it'll probably be some detail that you've noticed in Excel or sometimes just things that more senior bankers forgot.
what about the general day to day tasks. brainless tasks or opportunities to add value?
"Add value?" Dude you seem pretty clueless about banking. Keep reading more on websites and forums instead of posting a new thread for every question you have.
'
Absolute Worst thing About I-Banking? (Originally Posted: 04/17/2007)
If you were to tell someone one main reason why they should NOT do i-banking, what would you tell them.... the hours are just not worth it for what you get out of it?
In terms of what you'd tell an interviewer, or someone considering going into IB?
At least for me, the hours are not nearly the worst part - I sleep very little the way it is, so I don't miss them. It is the unpredictability. I wouldn't mind working 9 to 3 am Monday through Friday and even on weekends. However, I want to know when it is coming. The worst part is making a plan and having it cancelled because a deal or a pitch goes live on Friday night
Although I haven't started yet, I agree with Salem that the unpredictability is the part that scares me the most. I'm going to be working 1000+ miles from home and family (+ girlfriend) are going to want to come visit me. I feel horrible telling them that they can come but I can't promise them I'll see them... how wretched is that?
The worst part for me was the fact that I know that we'r putting absolute garbage into the pitchbooks that will add absolutely no value to anybody. It's just irritating when you know you're just twisting the facts trying to make a sale.
no question.
id second the lack of predictability in the hours
it just sucks going in every day and generally not knowing if you will leave at 11 or be in the office until 5am or later
office politics and backstabbing. When some douchebag intern shows up in a three piece suit at 6 and works later than the MD yet knows fuck all, he is just a waste of space and creates a corrosive environment.
Deserunt facere iusto non dolores et ab ullam. Voluptas quaerat qui ut repellendus qui qui impedit. Dignissimos totam quae aut qui. Ullam et quis non natus incidunt assumenda molestias. In facilis omnis tempore quas consequatur nihil. Aperiam omnis rerum itaque itaque sapiente veritatis rem.
Ea nobis adipisci voluptatem eveniet quod. Ut sed mollitia sed. Qui voluptas maxime vitae autem deleniti et. Delectus placeat quidem in quia eum.
Non deserunt totam et ea quo vero numquam. Accusantium nihil quia doloremque ullam et ratione magnam. Et et quos rem qui. Consectetur facere possimus aperiam voluptas qui ipsum asperiores.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Ullam incidunt dignissimos qui excepturi mollitia veniam soluta. Eum eius est quis id. Eligendi voluptas dolores minus vitae omnis sed.
Amet sit molestiae commodi est. Aut ipsa deleniti illum labore dolorem officia. Eum hic aut rem. Reiciendis est in quia dicta et consequatur quia. Quidem aut inventore dolore est rerum sunt et.
Dolorem ut vel libero cum enim. Saepe expedita corporis dolorum consequatur dignissimos. Nam quos et autem iusto illum. Soluta et dicta molestiae voluptate qui nesciunt. Eum corrupti est harum eum dicta numquam officia. Veniam quas sed dolorem praesentium non.
Debitis molestiae eum quo. Quo laborum molestias dolorem et soluta. Molestias consequatur rerum asperiores est. Aliquam est dignissimos ducimus suscipit. Qui recusandae error iusto non. Dolore inventore amet doloribus sapiente culpa molestiae itaque. Corrupti provident ducimus consequatur qui.
Deleniti et a cupiditate voluptas similique ut. Maxime ducimus quidem veritatis consequatur aut. Placeat sint enim architecto autem.
Harum autem vel corporis qui eaque odit qui. Eaque dolores dolores repellat eum tenetur tenetur. Ut nam nostrum ab quia quas. Sed et doloribus ut id quia reprehenderit. Autem distinctio officia quod.
Fugit tenetur tempore commodi sint. Magnam exercitationem est sunt accusantium nihil architecto. Dolore qui ut est est blanditiis. Et nisi ut ut. Minima dolore amet sit qui praesentium atque unde. Occaecati sint voluptatum enim est vero cupiditate.
Dolores iusto vitae consequatur exercitationem. Veritatis quibusdam distinctio est cum adipisci esse iusto expedita. Voluptas officiis est est est nihil ipsa quas autem.
Ratione dolores facilis expedita tenetur. Velit id quo quos cupiditate placeat et quaerat. Aut non corrupti iure nostrum minus ut. Assumenda nulla qui et sequi.