Yesterday night, the WSJ published the below great piece about the use of drugs at the junior level working in finance.
I worked as a banking analyst in restructuring and I am now a private equity associate at a large-cap fund so I get it, but I think many clarifications are needed.
The goal of this post is to give more context on the situation and do not let this article scare people out of this industry.
A Post Covering
(1) You can succeed without drugs
(2) Your peers’ mediocrity is your opportunity - my tips to stay efficient
(3) You do not need to be top-bucket
(1) You can succeed without drugs
The real reason behind this post is to make sure young students interested in the industry understand that doing drugs is absolutely not required to succeed in the industry.
I am fully anonymous so I can flex as much as I want, and the truth is that I am doing pretty well in my career without ever doing any form of drugs (and I am far from being a genius, I work in finance after all).
Just because other people use drugs, you should not think you cannot be better than them without using drugs as well. I personally guarantee you can. Try shifting your thinking to something like “I am so much better than you then my work will be better than yours even if you cheat, and I will not be damaging my health in the meantime”.
Hint: if your work does not turn out better than theirs, at least your health will thank you so it is a win as far as I am concerned.
(2) Your peers’ mediocrity is your opportunity - my tips to stay efficient
The reality is the average banking analyst is not efficient. Here are some tips I use to be very efficient and save as much time as possible:
(i) Always take a few minutes to think before diving into a new task. Whenever I am given something to do, it is very likely there is a precedent I can go off. Spending 5 minutes thinking about how to save 30 minutes is a really good upfront investment. This brings us to point (ii)
(ii) Recycle work / keep a master. When I was in banking, I had a huge master of slides I divided into sections based on the topic.
I also had a huge Excel with many outputs which we always ended up working towards. Even if the final output was going to be different, I could have something functional to start with right away.
(iii) Anticipate work. This requires a bit more time but after a year or so you should be able to see things coming (in PE more than in banking). If you have 30 minute of free time and something has a 80% of coming up, I think just starting to work on it is a great idea (and you will look like a star once you can send it back saying something like “I figured we would need it, please find attached”).
(iv) Work throughout the day, and always keep your to-do list to zero. Be focused. I saw many colleagues taking a 45 min break at 3pm because they just had a 2 hour task to complete by 6pm. Then they get another 6 hour task and they panic and end up going to keep an hour later than they could have. Be better than this.
(3) You do not need to be top-bucket
The article correctly shares how unrealistic expectations are the norm in banking. What it does not acknowledge is that it is really up to the analysts / associates to push back.
I can guarantee you that if you are a strong analyst (meaning you do your work well), you can actually push back a lot more than you think. Think about it, what are they going to do? Reduce your bonus by $10k because you are not willing to regularly do work after 2am every day. I will take that trade every day of the week.
Of course, this concept does not hold if you are at a point in your career when you are not really able to do the job (like during the first months of a new role), but once you are confident that you know what you are doing, you have a lot more leeway than you think.
Hope this helps, your job is not worth your health!
If you do drugs for a job, you are not cut for the job
Spot on
Same thing with dudes who need drinks or coke to get the confidence to get laid
Totally man, sex doesn't count if you've had a couple beers before.
This. Walk up to a girl and start a conversation, younger generation. She’s a human being. Ever met one before?
Banging 200 (ish) dudes because I could generally out drink them begs to differ. I picked up one ex outside the Copa Cabana, and another in the smoking area outside Rush. I think I've been to five continents with my conquests. (Antarctica doesn't count, and I don't do Asia. South Africa was tough, but I think I managed it) The Aussie gymnast flew back the next year for seconds, and I took him skiing. (no euphemisms in that one, we actually went to Hunter, where he wasn't as good as he thought) this is beyond the locals. I got an invite to a really nice place on the water on the north fork, because his husband felt bad for setting me up with his ex best friend (who cheated on me with his now husband) He was 17 and his friend who cheated on me was 19 at the time.
Not sure if you're referring to insights generally, or productivity advice for my role or an AN / AS role. But a couple of reflections on the original post tips.
1) The four tips are excellent, and probably the four I'd point to. I'd maybe add to ask questions (technically and of clarification) when you have the opportunity to, ideally in person. Believe me, seniors / VPs are not perfect (if anyone was under that impression), and I sometimes (particularly when I'm stressed / rushed myself) re-read my own emails and realise how what made perfect sense in my mind lost quite a bit in my fingertips and keyboard. So clarifying a request can save a lot of time (and VPs / Directors, the same is true of the PE Investment Director, etc., who sent a request to the IB working team). Also, your senior might know a tool that in their mind makes a task 20 minutes, but if you don't know what that shortcut was (maybe they assume you know it which is not unreasonable) it might take you hours.
2) As you get more senior the role changes and (hopefully) the sources of stress and anxiety changes. In general (and obviously the standard deviation around this is huge) you're going to be thinking about marriage / kids which adds a whole pile of additional things to do and manage (and lives, in the case of kids, which literally depend on you). You're travelling more (cannot emphasise enough how unexciting this is after about the 3rd time). You may own a home and need to manage mortgages, etc. Your parents / family's health will likely deteriorate, and you need to take care of them. Your own health (this one for me has been the biggest shock, and I have no medical issues at all, but you will realise that you aren't 21 in terms of stamina, strength, etc.) will deteriorate. Try to pre-empt things and be organised. Hopefully you'll have a supportive partner - communicate with him / her always and remind them that you love and miss them, and you are equally upset about coming home late again because of a closing dinner for Project such-and-such. Most of these (not the health thing) are desirable by the way, but they create sources of stress you need to manage
3) You don't need to be top bucket indeed. That's true - I've been in these review committees and believe me the ratings discussions can drag on, and the debate between juniors on the borderline between two groups can come down to whether the group head in general has already had too many of his / her juniors ranked highly. Don't take any of it personally. It also gets harder as you get more senior. Life is too short and we're paid well-enough.
Indeed, turns out I am more cut out for drugs than jobs
cut out
Alright but what we can all agree on is if you aren’t able to fight, you aren’t fit for the job.
Absolutely true. Yes, there are some juniors that use these drugs, but Idt the average one does. Maybe at some of these EB's with even worse hours, but am at a BB coverage group and I think maybe like 1/5th use adderal or take insane amounts of Zyns and energy drinks (I don't think like one or two a week counts for energy drinks though, only counting people who do like 4-5 a week+).any other alternatives.
This again reads like some hit piece that totally distorts reality. Same shelf as the cocaine/parties/hookers articles.
I've never worked in banking but MBB with the friend circle a mix between finance / consulting / other professionals.
The vast, vast majority of people in those places are straight A, kinda boring, kinda risk-averse, rather nerdy perfectionists. But not the drugger type, much more the type that is on a vegan diet, doesn't drink any alcohol and trains for a marathon on the side.
This, right here. Thank you. Sanity!
At the elite boutiques or top groups (aka MS Menlo Park), no one is doing drugs. However, when I head over to r/consulting the other day, there were posts talking about smoking weed and using adderall. Maybe consulting is easier? I don't know
Agree. I work at a MF and don't even drink coffee (or consume any other form of caffeine/stimulants) and people look at me like I'm some sort of madman. I have done all nighters when needed and many later nights/early morning and churned out the best work on the floor. Stay healthy (or as much as you can with the intense hours) - focus on sleeping, getting in any exercise possible ideally early in the morning, and really making use of your free time / weekends (i.e. going for a hike/doing sports instead of drinking all night with your mates). Turning into a full cokehead hardo finance bro is not the only way to deal with long hours - you can still be yourself, and maybe even better.
This is the way!
there is no way for any sane person to focus on spreadsheets while being high on stimulants. Stimulates give you the false sense of being on top of the world, when in reality it destroys your cognitive abilities over an extended period of time. It takes years to reverse the cognitive damage as a result of abuse of stimulants.
Excellent post, SB'd
I fucking cannot stand these dumbass headlines for all finance jobs. “Working until death, a commanality in finance”. Literally just complete bullshit about maybe 2 people. If finance was so bad then people wouldn’t be stepping on glass to get these jobs. These woke journalism losers probably have a sibling in finance or tech or some other high paying field who makes more than them doing a job with some at least some function outside of wasting my time and write this shit to cope.
WSJ set out to turn the tragic passing of Leo Lukenas into a multi-story series about the working conditions of bankers, because it's the Hunger Games in traditional print media right now. They desperately need to keep readers and the angle is to sell drama. That's going to cause them to overstate the matter.
The reality is, use of Adderall or other prescription stimulants may be common but not as widespread as WSJ wants you to think. I highly doubt that more than 50% of junior bankers are using them, and I'm certain the top performers are using them less than the mediocre and lower performers. Because I've seen that correlation firsthand, many times.
It's well known that regular use of stimulants, including even caffeine, quickly gets to a point where the stimulant is just bringing you back to baseline . . i.e. ingesting the compound gets you to a a level of focus that is is the same focus you had before you were ever using it, and at all other times your focus is worse than before.
So when people tell you "it's not worth it" to use these drugs . . I think they're being too kind. They're implying that there's a trade-off, that you'll get some benefit now in your career and pay a price later. I think it's worse than that. Stimulants will hurt your performance even in the short run. It's more of a marathon job than a sprint job, so what you want is all-day focus not a quick surge that hurts your average focus level throughout the day.
Your absolutely spot on here. Caffine is sadly socially accepted across the board in basically every job but it is still ultimately a stimulant. I am obviously not saying it's as bad as smoking, but still good to moderate on it.
"You're" "Caffeine" ... I honestly don't know how some people make it to IB with such little attention to detail.
What do you mean "sadly"? Why do you hate things that made the human experience better. Caffeine is a net positive and the discovery of coffee indirectly led to the invention of algebra. If you don't have any predisposition to heart risk there is nothing bad about caffeine and similarly nicotine. They are enhancers. I can tell you are caffeine sensitive because in a prior comment above you said 1-2 energy drinks a week was ok but 4-5 was somehow excessive (lol 1 a day? really?)
"those who have never achieved anything beyond mid-tier shops . ."
OK, developer
At my bank in Houston most of the guys used zyns or vaped and drank coffee. A fraction used adderall but did not abuse it. Caffeine is really all you need, anything more and it gets risky.
there was also no correlation between the amount of stimulants used (caffeine, nicotine, adderal rarely) and performance. Do not start taking adderall to do this job that is very foolish and shortsighted.
You should only really take that medicine if you have adhd. Otherwise, you don’t need it. Simple as that….
If you got the job without Adderall, you won’t need it to succeed at the job. But it is hard to compete with someone who is coked up or dialed in on some type of intense stimulant when it comes to aligning logos or pulling financials from FactSet. Kind of sad that people who work hard to create self-discipline get screwed over by bag heads (Don’t get me wrong I’ll play in the snow in the right setting).
Trust me, the adderall kids don't outperform. Speaking as someone who not long ago was a VP and saw the over-stimulated kids messing up left and right while the top-bucket people slowly & calmly get through their day. The work gets very easy when you get your sleep. And you can get your sleep if you make it the #2 priority . . behind work but ahead of going out, gym, and other less important things.
I am middle bucket and have good relationships with my seniors. I enjoy a relatively sustainable lifestyle versus my top bucket analysts who do often rely on 'help' to keep pushing late nights most days of the weeks for months on end. Not worth it.
The ones doing drugs burn out in the medium-to-long term.
Of course, people are having heart attacks, it's literally meth. Stick to the office coffee.
I second this.
Best energy drink is water. Keeps you hydrated which helps performance.
and green tea
Energy drinks are largely carbonated water, they aren't particularly less hydrating than water itself.
Never even had a Red Bull to get the job done. Just a steady stream of regular coffee.
I would take drugs too if I knew a 23 year old sales rep at Databricks made more than me and worked .25 of the time.
Drugs are for pleasure, not work. If you need them to work then you're not good enough to do the work. Only exceptions I would make are professional sports because I want my athletes to look like video game characters.
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