How common is bullying in Investment Banking and Finance?

I have actually found bullying to be fairly common.

Yeah I have experienced bullying in finance namely if you aren't the typical "finance bro" persona. But it is all surface level and usually not too serious/done with malicious intent. You just have to dish it out when you receive it!

Bullying is a part of life pussy

My favorite aspect of bullying is when you call them out on it and they pass it off as “trying to help you learn”.

You walk into that culture and don't know what to do as a new person. It's definitely there. Hang in there OP

OP, there are bullies in every industry. I work for one currently who was extremely toxic for over a year to me until I was finally fed up and started fighting back. From my experience, the damage that working for a bully/toxic boss irreparably damages your relationship. Theres no coming back so plan on finding another position in that scenario (quite possibly externally because the bully boss will very possibly shit talk you to other leaders or otherwise block you from leaving the department).

I still remember my interview (post MBA FT associate) at a certain Swiss BB in London. Long day of interviews, before meeting the desk head, MD level. Walk into his office, and he asks me if I want a drink. I said yes, since i was parched after the interviews.

"Bottle's over there. Get it yourself" It was an Ikea-style glass bottle with the plastic cork held by the wire clasp. I pop it and got doused in sparkling water.

Hey had booby-trapped the drink.

Homeboy must have sat there shaking it for 10 minutes before I walked in.

Not bullying - but def a sign of things to come. The bullying ... that came later. He was a class A prick.

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Thanks for the responses. I really didn't mean to come off as being uneducated on the field, but truly I don't have much exposure to it, and was just considering a field change from Biological Sciences to finance. *Here's some background that may help: *

So, one day, an equity researcher came into our class and talked about what he did, and I found it quite interesing. So, I grabbed some coffee with him a few weeks later to discuss the career in further detail. Some things I picked up:

1. The guy was 31 years old, but was mostly bald (just a few tufts of hair)
2. Not surprisingly, he mentioned that the field was very stressful, etc.
3. This statement got me the most...he said "Enjoy school while you can, before you go out there and start cutting throats." I found this to be a very chilling statement, and it seemed to give me some insight into the nature of the industry. He mentioned several times that it was cutthroat field, etc. However, I wasn't sure if he was just exaggerating because of his own bad experiences or if that's actually how it was.

As a contradictory story, I had a friend who worked at GS, and he told me all of his colleagues were very supportive and all. Hence, I asked this question, to try to get a broad range of opinions.

I really did not mean any inconvienience as I am very new to this field and this forum as well.