Interview Experience: Is it me, or?

Background:

From a target, graduated 1:1, but didn't start out wanting to do IB / PE and so was late to the game.

Wasn't in a great shop initially, so I had to teach myself basic accounting concepts, modelling, etc, as there were occasions where I had to correct the associate / VP's work (that was how bad it was), before it got caught by the MD and we all got yelled at. Shit shop so shit deals & shit deal flow yet shit hours.

I've never had the benefit of anyone teaching me or learning with friends at school, only learning on the job and off hours. Yet I've seen and heard of people who are literally spoon-fed this, some still f-up / are slow and yet still retain their job at tier 1 firms for whatever reason.

Currently in a decent-ish buyside firm (which I picked over lateraling as an assoc to BBs), same story running solo here without much guidance. Seniors here actually know their stuff and are smart, but sort of lazy and only want to do very specific deals (hence why I'm looking to move again).

Experience from 2 recent interviews

Firm #1 is a top MF, London-based, core team

• They grilled me on a pretty wide range of topics and apparently I passed that with flying colours
• It was pretty clear that knowing how the 3 Financial Statements worked was a basic pre-requisite for them. They expected candidates to understand all parts of the capital structure, drivers of returns, and calculate IRRs in their heads. 
• Being on the buyside firm for almost a year helped quite a bit in understanding how they think
• Firm #1 was considering me for a lateral position.

Firm #2 is the smaller, local office of a top MF

• Anyone would pick Firm #1 over Firm #2, btw
• Also wanted me to take a big discount in position
• Their technicals interview wasn't... difficult at all, the interview for my current job was more challenging. They didn't even test any concepts crucial in PE. 
• Interviewer was pretty condescending and mentioned that I lacked top tier banking experience since I started at a bad shop (I was honest about the depth of my banking experience... okay, so I've not had a banking deal close... shoot me, the analyst).
• They then snipped that although my answers were correct, they expected me to be like, 15 seconds faster in answering. Apparently I'm competing with top banking talent from BBs who have this at their fingertips

For the record, my current firm has interviewed some of this "top banking talent from BBs" and passed on many because they don't understand anything beyond the 3 financial statements and don't understand how returns are driven in PE.

And now for the weirdest thing... interviewer #2 was actually from firm #1. Different locations so they couldn't have known that I interviewed at #1 as they left before, but the culture is supposed to be pretty consistent throughout.

My take is that interviewer #2 just decided that I was worth the value of my previous firm, which sucked. I wasn't hung up on joining them (especially given that they wanted to discount me significantly), but am wondering if it would have been better if I had just lateraled to a BB first to get rid of that stigma.

So I don't even know why Firm #2 bothered interviewing me... for kicks? They don't have a great reputation locally as an employer and this is not helping lol. I'm sorry I'm not a walking computer.