I work at a BB and I have gotten way more staffings than the other analysts in my group. I am tired as fuck and keep getting hammered with more files. The other guys are competent and I feel like I am getting screwed over. They are literally doing nothing while I keep getting more work. Is there any possibility that they are trying to work me so hard that I quit? Any suggestions?
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You'll soon learn that the reward for good work is more work. Isn't it funny how life works?
Is there a chance your staffer is simply unaware of how swamped you are?
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Your bonus come in the winter? If so grind through bonus then hit the brakes, curse of competence suck dick, only way to fight it is to stop trying.
The golden rule in finance: if you are competent you will be staffed more and getting more complex and high profile deals. If you are useless then they will only give you internal useless work + you have a lot of free time.
If they are giving you critical work that means you are doing a good job. You just need to push back to the staffer more saying that your work quality will suffer if you are staffed more. You can shape it as "Hey happy to help, but would prefer to get staffed on the project once my other project is done / my deliverable is finalized / etc"
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That's not the case. They wouldn't give you more work if they want you to leave. Makes no sense. If you are the one running the model, diligence tracker, CIM, etc. for a deal and you suddenly leave, the team is fucked. Bad performers get put on nothing and have all the time in the world. They just won't get the Associate promotion nor a good bonus.
You're a good worker, that's why.
Learning how to communicate with your superiors is half of the battle in making your life in IB not suck. It's not easy at all, because IB has such a rigid hierarchy full of "I had to do it when I was your age" mother fuckers. You're also an A1, at which point you're sort of just expected to eat shit. Over the next 2 - 3 years though you'll start getting more internal respect & trust and should have significantly more leeway to push back on certain things and persuade your staffer to take your needs into account. When I say take your needs into account, I mean not burn you the fuck out by making you work 90 hours weeks consistently.
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Push back against it. Was the same for me in my first year, got every damn staffing that was out there while others left easily 4-5 hours before me (~midnight) while I kept seeing the sun rise for months. Was doing good work but eventually broke down a bit, made a quite significant mistake which I just couldn’t find in a model due to lack of sleep and subsequently also my mind being numb after a while (not to the client/anything that had a real impact, but man did I get shit from the seniors) and even had some sort of physical breakdown from it. Still trying to recover from the physical part, but given the mistake thing happened shortly before bonus committees and I got screwed over heavily I am not really giving a shit anymore about a lot of things. Stinks as I kind of lost motivation which sucks (and which I still am trying to change), but I am now significantly more relaxed towards work and emotionally detached to have an actual good life currently I’d say. Definitely helped to get some perspective and to not keep killing myself for seniors/a bank who will happily screw me over
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This is such an important read - thank you for sharing
OP- you need to keep perspective. I’ve read separate accounts of the analyst life, and one poignant piece of advise is to make survival to the next day a priority. My interpretation of this is to keep perspective— no, not of your long term goals or the aim to be known as top performer. It means to keep perspective of life generally, and what exactly you’re willing to sacrifice for a job.
I am nearing the end of my first year and at first, welcomed and even found enjoyment with increased responsibility and staffings. I felt an incredible sense of pride knowing that I was a go-to analyst and gained trust of the seniors / mid level bankers. I was also totally cognizant of the depreciating value of my social relationships and personal life— that still did not stop me. I was depressed and suffered from immense stress, my appearance was severely downgraded, and I honestly developed OCD; however I kept momentum.
what DID stop me was similar to what happened in the above comment. I had made a pretty sensitive mistake and received no mercy. Honestly was a bit traumatizing, but it snapped me out of whatever haze I was in. I realized exactly what I sacrificing / killing for this job, and realized that it simply made no fuckin sense and was not worth it; particularly as it was made clear in that moment what my actual worth was despite all I had given
So I began dialing way down: I pushed back against associates with unrealistic expectations / overlapping deadlines, I started pushing back against VPs, and set boundaries on timing of deliverables. I upheld respect for myself and (at times) responded to snarky / passive aggressiveness, or more commonly, blunt rudeness with equal intensity (always professional though).
In result, I am so MUCH happier: my social life is great, I found a significant other, my mental health is good. I’m genuinely a happy person. That said, come yearend reviews, I’m definitely expecting mid to lower mid bucket- and that’s so fine by me. I’ll be leaving next year anyway, for an industry and job I’m truly excited for- if anything, this past year has truly informed me of how I will always rank life’s priorities- a job will never again in my life be #1.
its important to gain experience and IB is a great way to truly set yourself up for great things— I don’t regret my time in IB. I regret the initial approach taken. To me, it’s unnecessary and certainly not worth it. Life is grander than that.
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This is the way to go. I was in a very similar situation, but decided to leave early because I saw no other way out. I think overall it would have been better to finish my 2 years and move on afterwards. OP, you should definitely speak up and say something along the lines of “being on this many projects severely affects the quality of my work and ability to perform the job up to the high standards I have set during the past few months”. They’ll listen because if they lose you they are screwed.
Similar thing happened to me recently. This one really toxic analyst in my class told me that he heard this is the kind of thing that happens when they are trying to push someone out. Constantly being overworked and a shitty bonus is the perfect recipe for getting rid of those unwanted. At first, I believed it. This only made me more stressed because now on top of working past 2am every night I was double checking every cell, logo, text alignment etc.
I finally grew a pair and said something to my staffer. I was given the advice to say something like "hey I'm going way over max capacity right now and I'm worried that my work product might be taking a hit someway". He immediately said lets go speak in the conference room for 5 and I that moment I thought it was literally all over. To my surprise, he told me I was getting staffed so much because some of the seniors were requesting me.
Basically a long-winded way to say that getting staffed more than other juniors is a good sign, but don't be afraid to speak up about it.
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In theory the banks can do the recipe of overworking + shitty bonus, but the problem with this logic is that as you know work in banking is not that transferrable.
If someone is holding the pen on the model or different workstreams, it is really hard for another person to pick that up in a few days, let alone few weeks. So why would a senior banker would want a person who is holding the pen leave in the future? That sounds a disaster in terms of execution wise.
So to all analysts who are getting staffed on really heavy projects be assured that you are staffed because you are a good performer not because they want to force you out. If they did not like you as an analyst 1. they would not give you work because why would they 2. your bonus will be nonexsistent
Curse of being a top bucket analyst - optimal WLB / bonus / performance review is to be above average but not top bucket
Echoing above, it's almost always because you're good and people want you as opposed to your other analyst colleagues. As a result, feel empowered to say you're at capacity when it feels that way.. They don't want to lose someone good and will accommodate you if you make it known you're at the brim. Doing good work as opposed to the most work is of the utmost importance so articulating that your work product could suffer under more staffings is crucial.
I'm sure it's what everyone else said, but one other thought: folks also fall victim to "sampling bias" when it comes to staffings.. You notice when you leave after your colleagues, but you don't notice how late they stay when you leave early. I bet 90% of the team thinks they are staffed "above average"..
Agreed. Senior people are probably requesting your or on the off chance your staffer is just doing a poor job delegating out deals.
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