Ex runner, current first year intern at a big bank, work 100 hours a week, getting fat, hate my life only the people here get it

njrunner13 wrote:

Ivy man wrote:

Please layout a typical 100 hour week. Also include commute time. I believe 80. I don't believe 100.

You walk into the office Monday morning and are told you need to work on a public fairness opinion for a 40billion merger. It's due Friday and the internal bank valuation committee needs a draft by Wednesday. These are like 40 page decks where every number needs to be scrubbed and any mistake opens the firm to litigation. No number can be incorrect.

Oh, and the live deal you are running just got about 600 diligence questions at once from 4 different buyers and the dickwad PE client wants you to scrub thousands of documents in the VDR to answer any questions up front.

At the same time, you have a bakeoff meeting end of the week(90 slides) for an important client where you are churning 6 different merger scenarios with different partners showing accretion dilution math, a relative valutation view, detailed comps and precedents, and bespoke pages on market positioning you are responsible for drafting up. The MD is chasing to see a draft by Tuesday and he will give about 5 different sets of conflicting comments/changes over a 48 hour period. It's an important enough client that banks head is involved so your junior MD you work with is stressed and lashing out.

How much sleep do you think you are getting this week?

43yearold wrote:

Brishen wrote:

My suggestion.

You're still young. There will be time to lose the gut for years. Bust your ass at the bank for 3-5 years and then you are setup to have a career with a much better work life balance and good pay and go back to being a healthier person then.

You sacrificed much to be a collegiate runner you can sacrifice much to kickstart your career.

sincerely,

your manager

Something along these lines. I actually quit a similar situation at your age to keep better work life balance and i kind of regret it now. If you see a light at the end of a 2-5 year tunnel, bust your ass. Work will ease up, and you’ll be financially free by the time you’re 30 or 35. Trust me, the women and family will come a lot easier at that point. I’m 43 and shooting for a retirement at 55, you could take a solid decade or two off that to do whatever you want. I would kill for that opportunity now.

I’m the meantime do some damage control. Do what an earlier poster said and stay off the donuts, eat well, maybe even skip a meal or two occasionally. Get out for a run whenever you can, but don’t beat yourself up about it. Take it easy on the booze too.

I know it feels like a loss of your identity now, but you were going to stop running competitively at some point soon anyway. You might as well be rich.

Elvin wrote:

njrunner13 wrote:

You walk into the office Monday morning and are told you need to work on a public fairness opinion for a 40billion merger. It's due Friday and the internal bank valuation committee needs a draft by Wednesday. These are like 40 page decks where every number needs to be scrubbed and any mistake opens the firm to litigation. No number can be incorrect.

Oh, and the live deal you are running just got about 600 diligence questions at once from 4 different buyers and the dickwad PE client wants you to scrub thousands of documents in the VDR to answer any questions up front.

At the same time, you have a bakeoff meeting end of the week(90 slides) for an important client where you are churning 6 different merger scenarios with different partners showing accretion dilution math, a relative valutation view, detailed comps and precedents, and bespoke pages on market positioning you are responsible for drafting up. The MD is chasing to see a draft by Tuesday and he will give about 5 different sets of conflicting comments/changes over a 48 hour period. It's an important enough client that banks head is involved so your junior MD you work with is stressed and lashing out.

How much sleep do you think you are getting this week?

So you're claiming that you're working all 100 hours all between Monday morning and Friday afternoon? You realize that there are only 108 hours of total time between, say, Monday at 7am and Friday at 7pm, right? Even if all you're doing is working and sleeping, you literally just aren't functioning on 8 hours of sleep all week.

Confessional of a Finance Bro wrote:

I was a college D1 runner good not great, 14:40’s 5k, 10k in 29’s was my strongest event.

I look at myself now and hate what I see in the mirror. I’m working in New York at a big bank, I’m a first year intern so basically my whole job is bringing entitled jerks coffee while I beg for scraps of how to manage the big deals and trades. Three of my cointerns have quit because of stress, the rest are miserable.

These days when I have a free moment, I pull up my old pics of me competing in college. I look at that guy, and look back down at my gut, and I’m disgusted at what they have made me become—what I let myself become, a fat, burned out, angry, balding, bitter person, barely keeping up, barely making the next day to get screamed at again.

I don’t or won’t run anymore, I have no time, so it’s two pumps of that sugary syrup to the “America runs on Dunkin’” drink I got chilling by my side.

my cointerns swear by adderall and ozempic to keep the weight off, on our few rare days off we get blacked out drunk and make horrible decisions. To a man not one is in a committed relationship.

I can’t help but look at my old running pics and hate who I see before me, wondering only “What if”?