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October 31, 2026
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Study? Review your previous work? Research the markets online?
I do do all of that with my day. I'm just talking about not having assignments related to deals or routine admin work ,etc. Was curious how often people have days like those
Often enough, especially in the summer with everyone on vacation. I like to research my personal holdings (depends on your firm’s policy) and read about any given industry. Lots of industry primers out there that take a while to read through
Yep. But I still have to just sit there all day like some mindless robot. Sad.
All the time.
Currently interning in LatAm DCM.
debt markets in latam are frozen, analysts and associates stare at their phones all day, the VPs desperately try to seem like they're trying to be productive with clients on the phone while the MD is around or making analysts work on pitchbooks that won't go anywhere, MD is ostensibly talking to clients on the phone all day meanwhile the pipeline is still nonexistent
shit sucks
Is this at a BB? That sounds depressing.
Similar situation going on for me, but REPE in LatAm. I'm trying to keep busy studying GMAT and doing personal financial planning. The downtime sucks but I guess it's better to enjoy it and make the most of it before the heavy workload comes...Facetime is what is really getting to me, its almost torturous having to show up and look productive for 10+ hours...
I'm with you on the facetime thing (even though I only work a 40 hour workweek); hate having the feeling of "what's the point of showing up to work if I'm not going to be doing anything/am not utilized?"
Right now is party time in my city = zero deliverables for 10 days and everybody in the office just showing up hungover. So right now I´m just using this "free time" to catch up with some of my connections in the industry.
Calgary stampede?
The solution for that is pornhub.com
Highly penetrated industry already. Wouldn't waste too much time learning about it.
I see what you did there.
Username checks out
Can you expense the membership?
I’m a firm believer that every company should provide their employees with a brazzers subscription
In consulting, this happens a lot. - sudden delays at airports or travel hubs (easily 5-8 hours of downtime) - clients who cancel meetings even though we traveled to them already (can be up to 1 day of downtime, we do work a bit in that break - but it feels very slow) - all holidays are very slow for consultants. no client wants to hire/pay externals over any relevant holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, ..)
On those days I typically just make sure I'm current on news and global events, brush up on technical skills or try to learn new ones. While that's important to do, those are still frustrating days IMO.
Does anyone work on their resume while its slow at work? :P
A career is long. While it's good to be busy-ish over the longer-term, a lull every now and then is something to be relished. Don't be "that guy" who gets jittery every 5 minutes when there's a temporary slow down. Sometimes it's also not the quantity of pitches / work your group cranks out, but the quality and thoughtfulness as well. It's probably wishful thinking, but the things would be a lot better in general if MDs strategically targeted assignments where there is at least a reasonable probability of success. I find the worst seniors to be the ones that take every meeting under the sun - they're shockingly disorganized, not very thoughtful, and burn out their junior staff.
Sounds like very poor business skills / acumen. Establishing expectations (especially with a client) is a critically important skill. Otherwise, you simply are a yo yo. Who controls the situation? If it's not you / your team, that's a problem. Pitching on a Friday and needing a deliverable on Monday is complete BS. Client doesn't need it on Monday. They won't even look at it on Monday (may never look at it). It's the most important thing to you (or your MD), but nowhere near the top of client's list. There has to be value to the deliverable. If they want something valuable, they have to understand it takes time to do the necessary research, get the right people involved, etc. If it's get it to me by Monday or they're going with Bank X, run, don't walk away. Your MD will disagree, but if he came up through this ridiculous system, he doesn't really know how to manage a client relationship (which is why he operates the way he does).
I used to do like 3 hours of actual work a day when I had a job. That would be a good day too.
That's pretty much half my job.
Now you know why WSO is so popular. Takes up half my day
That's the nature of finance. One day you're working on several potential deals and the whole staff is overwhelmed, the next day they all fall through and you're back to reading the news section of your Bloomberg terminal for 4 hours straight. Unfortunately deals don't present themselves in an evenly, orderly paced manner.
It's maddening. I sit on my f*cking ass all day and then my boss, on his way out the door around 5:30, asks me to help him on a project and I end up staying to 7 pm when I had nothing to do all effing day. Drives me nuts.
As you get situated you'll figure out the ebb and flow. Had an MD that would leave at 5:00 to go home and have dinner with the fam, then at 9:30 he comes back on line and starts sending comments, so if you have dead time between 5:00 and 9:30, you go to the gym, get your dry cleaning, eat dinner etc, so you can work till midnight.
Once you get confident, you can start leaving the office to get shit done. I used to go the gym at the same time as my staffer (coincidence, not intentional). First time he asked why I didn't have anything else to do, told him what deliverables I had, said that this is the best time of day to go since I was going to be there till midnight anyway, and asked for a spot.
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