Transitioning Army Veteran Seeking New Reasons to Complain

Greetings from the Washington DC area! I have served for the last 15 years in the U.S. Army in Special Operations and Military Intelligence. I started out firing shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles and have somehow pivoted and promoted to the point where I manage analysts doing Excel and Powerpoint wrong - it must be wrong since we have to rework the slides 10 times.

I've enjoyed my military career, but I've reached the point of diminishing returns in terms of both cool points and personal growth. So, it is time to decide what I want to do when I grow up. I decided to target IB. I have a lot of good interview answers to why IB; however, I think in front of this audience the most authentic reason has to be that many of you seem to be sociopathic a-holes who work long hours and complain about everything... I think we'd get along well.

I'm drawn to the competitive culture in banking. That is something that is seriously lacking in the other option I seriously considered - going into government contractor or civil service doing basically the same work that I do now. Being a middle manager putzing away at the speed of government for the rest of my working years looks like volunteering to be Sisyphus to me. No thanks.

They say you can tell your soldiers are happy enough if they are complaining. Well, I want to have your problems @tiredandangry". Exchange some terms in "I'm Tired" for some military jargon and I feel like I've had nearly the same rant before. That being said, I'm tracking the grass is not all greener. My first exposure to banking was in the form of a few Ranger buddies who enlisted in the Army seeking purpose after having their "souls sucked out of them" as analysts. After 15 years of conflict, spookiness, and other shenanigans, I'm all purposed out and looking for a new challenge.

I transition from active duty next fall. I'm trying to do as much as I can to prepare in the meantime. I'm studying for the CFA Level 1 exam June 2019 (went with Schweser). I'm networking and getting mentoring through VETERATI, and starting on the modeling lessons. I already have a long history of hating Excel and do predictive analysis in R and python. I look forward to continuing to learn from the community and hope to be complaining about IB in the years to come.