PE Associate day-to-day experience

Curious about the buyout PE associate experience and what one can expect on the job. I understand that there are different levels of sourcing, deal work, and portco work that vary from firm to firm. However, what does that look like in reality? 

For example, the IB analyst life can be summed up as basically turning comments (that don't feel material most of the time) up a chain for senior bankers, even though most of us joined to "understand management-level thinking, develop valuation/modeling skills, gain sector expertise, etc" 

Just looking for the truth to see if the grass is actually greener on the other side.