Hello everyone,
A big HELLO to those who can relate to this thread.
*Don't have to read.*
SHORT intro: I'm in my early 20's, went to a non-target school. Found my way to a storied and renowned IB and secured a job in the IBD division. Performed very well despite knowing virtually nothing upon my start date. Poached from 'lesser team' by most 'elite team' that is the most desired and best performing team in company due to my performance. Performed well and secured spot on said team and told I have a 'promising future'. Was ordered by SMD to help establish another team while still fulfilling all my duties on the elite team. Did so. Allegedly I have arrived. Sound spot on solid team and a stellar reputation with management.
Now what?
*Start reading*
When I was 17 I decided I wanted to be an investment banker. They got the money, the power, the girls, and were masters of their own universe. At least that's what I was told. Models in the day (Excel), bottles at night (committing to minimums at trendy nightclubs, which came with a different type of model). Investment bankers worked hard, learned the trade, moved up in the ranks, and provided a fairy-tale life for their beloved wife and family after making it big in their early 30's. Investment bankers lived the American Dream.
Here is a typical timeline of a Quarter Life Crisis ("QLC"), at least it's mine:
Week 1: 90 hours M-F, wondering if you'll be asked to leave because of your uselessness, on Friday the person in front of you gets fired.
Month 1: How did you survive? Must have been your charm/ability to kiss ass. You think you know what half of these words mean, you think you can do 20% of the basic tasks assigned to you. Is your VP on adderall? He has to be...
Month 2: Ok, you're in it. You can do this. You are smarter than these people, they've just been doing it longer. Bring it on. You're climbing this learning curve like a sherpa on their 1,000th trip.
Month 3: You have your basic duties down. Practice makes perfect but you get the idea.
Month 4: Alright, you got this, bring on a little more heat.
Month 5: Ok, more responsibilities. Not a problem. Check!
Month 6: Ok, pretty much just processing now. Oh wow, a company you used to looooovvvvee as a kid, would have been cool 3 months ago, just another set of numbers now.
Month 7: Your VP and Associate are 100% cracked out on adderall, but my god do those alignments look perfect. How old is your VP, 30? Even you're VP doesn't leave until 10pm. What does that mean for you?
Month 8: If you stay 4 more years you can be just like your Associate. They are in their late 20's have a non-existent dating life, and drive a car older and shittier than most sorority girls at your old college.
Month 9: The harder you work, the more work assigned to you. This isn't how it should work right?
Month 10: 10% of company gets laid off, must cut the weakest links. You can still be friends outside the office right?
Month 11: You swear to God, if you're get assigned a project that requires Google Maps, you're going to spend 45 minutes 'exploring' South America. You need a life outside of this office and under something other than these fluorescent lights.
Month 12: What are you doing? You hate this, what difference does $20,000 in the bank make? $20,000 is absolute chump change. What are you going to do, buy a used 3-series?
Month 13: You can be just like your Associate and VP one day! Out of shape, single, balding, greying, miserable, subordinate, defeated, depressed, anxious, and generally jealous of anyone doing better than them. Oh.... and they haven't taken a vacation in over 2 years.
Month 14: You have to go. You don't know where. You don't care. Africa, South America, Asia, next door. It doesn't matter, you need to be off the grid for at least a week. Paying $1,400 to work as a ranch hand in Montana as part of an interactive vacation? Sounds fun! Get me out of here!
Month 15: Your friend in tech that was 5th hire at a startup just announced their company got acquired. He had shares.
Month 16: Business is slow. You are wondering if the countless overtime you put in is worth it or if the company will shut/cut your division.
Month 17: You've totally disregarded IT's ability to see what you've searched on Google.
Month 18: burn out... Honestly, you just want to own a small business.
Month 19: You're over it, you don't care. Your resume is updated, so is your LinkedIn. You are getting out of here alive. Deuces.
Month 20: Biding time... A significant portion of your day is spent using company resources figuring out your next move. You're out, and you want that dedicated loser fuck on the rival team to know. What a loser. He'll be an analyst the rest of his life.
Month 21: Parents/friends/mentors, everyone says no. They don't know what it's like. You're confused.
Month 22: They love you, but there's no way they understand. You're situation in IB is unique. All they see is money and telling their friends what you do.
Month 23: You don't care what they say. You're gone. You only have 1 life to live. LIVE it. Go, be free, it doesn't matter anyway. You will never become rich or happy in banking, you've realized it's all a lie anyways.
Month 24: ???????
You finish the story.
Month 25: open a bar
Month 26: To negate the soul crushing stress and banality of IB life, start butchering prostitutes and coworkers while listening to Sussudio.
Month 27: Open a penny stock broker-dealership out in Nassau County. Get investigated by the SEC. Befriend Vin Diesel.
We'll call it "Puzzles"
Month 25: start job at private equity firm. Repeat months 1 - 24. Apply to business school.
Month 30: grad school starts.
Month 38: start summer internship at management consulting firm, PE firm, hedge fund, F500, etc.
Month 50: You are now working 60 hours a week and have a healthier relationship with work.
I have a FT IB offer and this makes me so depressed...
I love finance, but I never worked in IB. And I have had a truly wonderful career so far-- and I would have gotten my butt kicked by most people who can land in IBD in both an IBD interview and where I first landed- as a programmer in credit analytics. And all the while, I got to spend my weekends going hang gliding, SCUBA diving, and driving my rusty honda.
Look, either your heart is in IBD, or it's in something else. Life is too short- and there is too much stuff to do in your 20s- than spending 90 hours a week doing something your heart isn't in.
This concept inspired me a bit. Here's a sequential listing of my college recruiting/post-college career, which has been roughly 165 months so I won't do a month by month as I drink too much and could never recall all of that detail.
P.S. I love underwear gnomes. Also, this is a 100% true story, despite my love of South Park gnomes.
Month 199: Keep coming in to your back office Operations job and going home at an hour so reasonable that there might still be light in the sky as you get on the train.
Look back on the postgrad degree you got studying in the evenings while brushing off the gasps of amazement that you could balance a course load with your 40-hour "full time" job. See a book you wrote -- which has nothing to do with finance -- on the shelves at a retail store. See it gone the next week, because someone paid to buy your writing.
Remember to, at least once a day, be thankful for the fact that you can sleep 8 hours a day every single night, that you have very few gray hairs despite approaching 40, and have no major work-related stress problems. You lost more hair from age 23-26 than in all the succeeding years combined.
Occasionally look back wistfully at the six-figure earners on a track you didn't get to ride, but that your wife (who truly loves you) and your kid (only one, but you get to spend time with him every evening) are glad you never attempted to ride.
Gentlemen, don't work yourself to death while still in your 20s. Not everyone who puts in those miserable early years even gets to the Promised Land and I've seen people who really burned out. The back office takes a lot of guff here and among anyone in the FO, but in the "real world" it's relatively prestigious, as is the "ordinary" $50-60k you will be paid. There's no shame in getting on the slow train and taking the scenic route through life. Do I wish I were a super-rich FO veteran? Sometimes. But I'm not complaining.
I worked in both buyside and sellside for years. Now , I start my own business, nothing related to finance. I know how and why you feel like that, just like me. But, if you leave that field and work with the people outside, I am sure you will know the usefulness of your experience. It is not about financial modeling, not about your fancy pitchbook, but the problem solving skills, numerical mind and the ability to move fast, think quick. This is something valuable to your career and daily life.
I appreciate the humor here but a few quick serious points:
1) 99% of 23 year olds hate their job. It's never as interesting as they thought it would be. It's never as much fun. They never have enough responsibility. And they are never paid enough for how much they work. Go into MC? All you do is the same deck over and over. Banking? The same numbers in the same spreadsheet over and over. Tech start up? The same script for the same cold call over and over (assuming you are in a business role, it will be sales at first). F500? The same BS that seems "too East" over and over. This is just reality that no one has a big picture enough view to understand.
2) "20k ain't shit"... Literally no one ever says outside of bankers/PE/HF. That's the one rule of bankers, they never quite understand how much they make in the grand scheme of life. 20k is a lot of money to 99% of PEOPLE, let alone young people. That start up isn't paying you shit because that equity is more likely to become worthless than not. And the 55k you made is all you will have to show for it. MC? 2/3rds of banker money at junior levels with schedules that aren't that much better. F500? Have fun taking 10 years to make 150k.
3) The reason people do banking is so they have that optionality later in life that you are dreaming of at 24. Most people won't. Don't lose site on the fact that your career is a marathon, not a sprint.
Banking at junior levels takes an unusual tole on people. But the grass is always greener mentality is usually just people not understanding that there are trade offs in life and they will likely be unhappy one way or another unless they can come to grips with that fact.
If you think getting an IB job was tough try getting a law associate job even from Harvard. Also the pay is worse, the hours are worse, and the work is even more mind-numbing. Do you want to pay 200k in tuition and not earn any money for 3 years (besides summers) so that if everything goes well you'll be making $160k to get bossed around by 23 year old investment banking analysts 3 years from now?
Not to mention if you're not in the top 10-20% of your class you'll be cold calling non-profits begging for an unpaid internship at the end of your first year given the current legal job market, even at Harvard.
You've come to the right place. I'm from WSO and I'm here to help.
So how long have you known you were gay?