Why is there so much fake stress in this industry?
I know this has been gone over millions of times here but the unfortunate part of IB is that it doesn’t need to be this way. The amount of people who are in a constant panic over nothing is mind blowing.
On deals I understand there is a lot of money on the table, fine (I guess)…but pitches?! The stress is derived from: fake deadlines, endless turns, etc.
Even when there is a chill MD, someone in the chain (usually a VP) HAS to make things difficult. I guess it’s just the way it was taught to them but this stuff is generally pretty simple and there is no reason to panic over everything.
Great commentary and I think something that can be said regarding Wall Street in general. As pay continues to stagnate relative to inflation more and more people will push back against this nonsense. When even senior people start realizing their pay isn't great on an hourly basis people will stop stressing as much. In fact, I think that's already started to happen.
It’s hard to tell. I mean the pay thing is correlated to capital markets / M&A activity so I think that has people stressed. I don’t know things have just become more annoying than ever and I am A2A sr. Associate.
it's anxiety
be it trauma, academic pressure, disappointment in reality, financial pressure, etc. etc. leads to anxiety, which then can be felt on others (such as fake deadlines that it's mostly an anxious-driven approach to have it everything fast and avoid a bad scenario happening in the last minute)
many in banking could be diagnosed with some light or moderate mental health issues, but we'll never know because we're too busy making the dough at the expense of our well-being and health
The sad thing is that pitches are 95% of the time not what wins a mandate.
You have to put in a good showing amd there maybe some strategic questions where the answers are genuinely value add (example - do you sell the company with vastly different business units to maximise valuation / increase transaction certainty)
The decision is usually because of favours owed or if one of the relationship banks has their turn to earn a fee.
Chill MDs usually tear into the VPs
Yes, the vast majority is totally fake stress. In CD, I viewed hundreds of CIMs. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single one of them had an error, some times a massive error (wrong generic entry date on key products). No one cared.
Also want to put this into the world for all reading: it is totally abnormal to “turn” a document over and over and over and over. It just means either the person requesting it is unsure of themselves or the team is incompetent.
I’ve always wondered at what age do you start giving comments to change words in a deck to synonyms of those words… that’s what’s gonna win us the pitch?
In a full team, there is always the guy who is in the transition year and is aiming for the promotion. Hence, he will stress over nothing and make you re-do things over and over again. Other times it's just because your superior is painful dot
Even more fascinating is coming off an internal meeting about the BoA associate and how that should NEVER happen here etc etc…things proceed to get worse than ever. I think it’s fairly easy to avoid constant 1am+ nights with just a liiiiiitle efficiency but that’s blasphemy.
Im not even sure I could make it to a senior level in this industry given I don’t see that kind of behavior as normal. Unferstand when it is “needed” but doing it for the sake of doing it is baffling.
I sympathize them. Most of the time, unless they are completely blind, they should be aware but also know that nothing will change anyway. So for them its just about pretending its gonna be okay and trying to cheer up junior team with non-sense / useless speech
- Banking self selects towards anxious/neurotic people because of the nature of the job. It’s a low risk job where you can make pretty good money
- MDs, especially the bad ones, are insecure about the “value” they provide so they grind their juniors and make them do useless analysis for a sense of control
- The capital markets are bad right now, which i) makes MDs anxious about fees (see point 1) and ii) causes the MDs to have too much time on their hands so they nitpick for a sense of control. During slow times they can’t just be sitting around doing nothing so they create a lot of busy work, and in my opinion they don’t realize how long the stuff they ask for actually takes.
Having been a part of the 2021 deal boom and these last few dead years, even though I worked 10% more during a hot market it actually felt like less work and was more fulfilling. I strongly disagree with people who think it’s a major W to be in banking during dead times. You work 90% of the hours for low pay, and it’s soul crushing the 100th time you pitch Apple to buy Tesla or something equally as ridiculous that will bring 0 revenue to the firm.
Yup, we have had the same experience
Need to break the following cycle. Early deadline ----> weak first draft ------> comments are awkward to implement (round peg, square hole) bc MD is forcing comments into a weak draft ------> next draft doesn't feel quite right ----> endless turns -----> final book still kinda shitty -----> early deadline the next time because MD doesn't trust team
Realistic solution is Associate/VP (whoever is in charge of the first draft ) needs to tell the MD that the draft will be in better shape if he can wait a little longer. Extend that first draft deadline. And then actually deliver a good draft so that goodwill builds.
I was able to get one MD to agree to this, and life got better. The first night was always tough because I'd have to take an old deck and really think about how the flow and content should change for this upcoming pitch. Heaven forbid, I might even have to think of a new page or two.
But such a breeze afterward. MD gets a halfway decent deck, and instead of doing open-heart surgery on the deck he actually thinks of something additive and we're not turning the book inside out.
That’s assuming the MD will actually look at / sign off on an outline in a timely manner. In my experience, they fail to do and the VPs/Directors push for a first draft with zero input from the MD. Hence the above cycle occurs.
100% agree with you when the MD actually cooperates though
Wow this hits home
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