Reflections on WLB in Pre-MBA Associate Roles

My ~65 year old dad recently suffered a spinal cord injury. The weather was perfect, but a squirrel ran in front of him. His bike is on the nicer side, with great brakes; so great that he sent himself over the handlebars. First (and most importantly) he survived. Now, we are supporting his journey to recovery and (hopefully) a full return to the life and activities he loves.

One of my primary coping mechanisms is to evaluate my prior life choices in the light of some new stimulus or trauma. In this case, I am both proud and grateful that I optimized for WLB in my early career and wanted to share these reflections/ramblings in the unlikely event that someone finds them useful.

I worked in a ridiculously sweaty group at a BB in NYC. Historical placement skewed heavily to the usual MF suspects, but I was so burnt out and neurotic that when on-cycle came around most of the way through my first year, I bombed all of my interviews. At the time, I felt like a failure. I decided "what the hell" and optimized for WLB. Joined a first-time LMM fund with a super small, tight-knit team in the midwest. Hours were great and the team didn't seem to care that I wanted to spend my weekends flying out west to ski. When I started, I felt like a clown compared to my analyst classmates.

I was able to have regular dinners and unstructured time with my folks and to spend quality time doing outdoor activities with my psycho-fit dad. Over time, I proved myself and was able to spend almost as much time with my parents when they retired to ski country (as an aside, I do recommend against cities without major airports), ultimately hitting 30+ days a season in Colorado despite living in the midwest. I was able to ski with my dad for 163 days over the 5 years I spent as a pre-MBA and in business school. At the time, I thought that I had found my personal optimum; today, as I wait for my dad to be moved out of the ICU, I know that I received something so very much more precious than the comp I left on the table.

Periodically, when mentees (further aside, definitely seek out opportunities to mentor folks) got some obnoxiously lucrative MF offer (including this past September!), I used to feel a pang of regret-- if only I had better prepared, if only I had been more confident, if only I had gotten staffed on that soul-killing (but sexy) live deal. No longer. If I had followed the path I thought I wanted, I would be regretting moments that I had not spent with my father instead of incremental zeroes in my bank account.

So, what the fuck do I even mean or want to say? Life is precious. I am so incredibly lucky that I can still enjoy time with my dad, even if we may need to find different activities. This all is not to denigrate the MF path; far from it-- my friends who pursued that track have had incredibly interesting and profoundly well compensated careers. I guess, with this backdrop of bitter disappointment and burning hope for my dad, I am finally happy with the way things worked out for me.

TL;DR: If you struck out in on-cycle, you are not a clown.