Hi Everyone! Haven’t been active on these forums since my business school days. Thought I’d drop in and say hello to the folks that I haven’t kept in touch with. So glad WSO is going strong and has such phenomenal content! Hope everyone is making the most out of this crazy situation the world is facing.
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Hi CompBanker, it's amazing to see you back. I haven't posted in almost a year. This website lost a lot of its allure to me. One major factor was the absence of some of the OGs like you who I looked up to for your knowledge and contributions when I first joined.
My sentiments are captured really well in what CRE https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/what-are-you-doing-here#comment-…</a">shared yesterday in a thread asking why later-career users are active on the site:
I hope you're back for more than just the pandemic work-from-home stint, it would be great to see you stick around.
I never interacted with you myself (was a long-time browser before posting), but want to say thank you for popping back in and that I hope your journey has continued to be as successful as it looked like it was back when you were posting. As someone who is now 4-5 years into my IB/PE career, the number of posters with years of experience beyond my own, and whose advice I can draw on, has continued to shrink. I still find myself going back fairly often to posts I've tagged that you, APAE and several others made, in addition to private messages, that have been tremendously influential in real-life decisions I've made in my career. I'm certain I'm not the only one on this site progressing in the industry from a non-traditional background, without alumni whose experiences / advice I can lean on, who sees the content you've provided as some of the best mentorship I can find for my career. There's a ton of noise on the site these days, but still some incredibly helpful nuggets buried in the archives.
Would love to hear how life is progressing for you and have you pop in here once and a while, but also understand priorities shift and so that may not be the case. In any event, welcome back and thanks again!!
I wouldn't have achieved what success I have without the direct advice of seasoned veterans here, APAE in particular. Thanks to all who enrich this community with your hard earned wisdom.
So it is hard to say that I’m “back” as life circumstances have certainly changed. I have so many ways that I want to spend my time and certainly not enough time to do it. In my 20s, my focus was almost exclusively on my career, and my career dictated almost all of my major and minor life decisions. Now that I’m 13 years into my career and pretty well established, I’m simply not fighting for that “edge” over the competition like I used to be.
Not to pile on too heavily on the reasons why seasoned veterans elect to leave this website, but I certainly felt them back when I stopped posting 6-7 years ago. As one of the original members of this site (ibankingoasis.com!), I’ve typically been more of a content contributor than a consumer. That said, I still learned a lot from peers and made some friends. However, over time the challenges I have faced have become very specific as well as very confidential and therefore don’t lend themselves to online collaboration.
I’ve always been a bit of an “old soul” relative to my peers. I don’t think it is my age so much as my personality. The memes / insults / related postings have always been an extreme turnoff to me. I understand a lot of folks value this type of interaction, but it definitely pushed me away. The political stuff doesn’t bother me as long as it is contained in the Off-Topic forum.
Anyways, it is rather nice to see folks respond so quickly to this thread.
Now we just need Eddie B to post something
Always nice to hear that the contributions have been impactful for others! I can’t tell you how many hours I spent typing up posts and it is great that the content lives on. This site is truly required material for anyone who wants to work in the industry.
Sup y'all? Good to see everyone is still swinging the bat.
wow, what an awesome thread that brings back a TON of memories... how is everyone?!
Update from me: 3 kids now (4, 2 and 1) so lockdown here in California has been a challenge, but luckily everyone seems healthy (although I think Terry may have had Covid back in late Feb when there weren't enough tests - not joking)
Just want to say thank you to all of the all-star members in here that really made WSO what it is today. I feel bad that with all of the investments we've made into the platform, we weren't able to make the right changes fast enough (or navigate the moderation balance well enough) or give you guys enough value to keep you active.
If you take a look around, you'll still see plenty of political discussions and the occassional thread that veers off into an ugly debate, but we do have ways to mitigate the impact of that (no bumping certain hot threads, collapsed comments = you don't have to see an annoying back and forth). Given we are in an election year, how polarized everything has become and everything that is going on, I don't think that it's possible to avoid...but we do try our best to mitigate it and feature the more professional content (tons of AMAs now :-)
Anyways, I hope at least some of you will stick around and let me know if there is anything you would do if you were in my shoes to make the platform better. I'm always open to hearing how we can get better.
Thanks, Patrick
Woah Woah Woah better watch it throwing around "AMA" so casually. I'll have to report you to the Reddit power users, lawsuit #2 incoming.
I'm not dead yet.