Motivational Post

What do you mean Rhyme?

Meaning that the people I worked with were horrible individuals, intentionally cruel and beyond A-type, most were at least morally reprehensible if nothing else, but some downright went out of their way to make life difficult for others. It's dissapointing to know those same people are sitting on huge bonuses right now.

Patrick Bateman type?

No, cause he was nice to people in public. GS people ain't.

He was only nice to people who were stronger than him. The rest he treated like ****

To be honest, I have no intention of going into finance. But 8 billion pounds (a tad less than $16B) in bonuses is absurd. Few companies even have that as their annual revenue.

Please elaborate...

Yea, and I think thats what makes it irritating. It's so excessive, it's insane. Granted, you go work for GS, you loose your life. Completely. Sleeping underneath your desk because it takes too long to get home and come back - showering in the gym because you don't have time to go home and do it. You throw away your life for several years in return for lots of money. In other words, if anyone out there deserves to get big bonuses, its the people at GS.

I'm broke and plenty hungry... count me in!

I could go on for hours about this... what specifically do you want to know? Keep in mind, my experiences, are just that - my experiences.

I am willing to trade parts of my life for large sums of cash.
Where do I sign up?

They should just make a machine that can suck away 5 - 10 years of your life and dump out money on the other end. I'd be up for that also...

An MBA can work like that

Sucks 2 years of your life and dump out money afterwards

I would suggest avoiding New York if at all possible. I totally agree with Rhyme about not being able to go home for showers and about how terrible the people can be. But if I have found that part of it is the banking (and law) culture of New York. The problem, of course, is that a great majority of Investment Banking jobs are found in New York; but some are available in Los Angeles, San Francisco and a few other places and the people and environment tend to be nicer.

I agree with you pelihu, having lived in manhattan for the past 9 years its easy to see that personal lives are expected to take a back seat to work priorities, no matter what sector. its a bit cliched but the line between the 2 is more than blurred, it doesn't exist.

There is a line. On one side is work, on the other is life. You stay on one side.

I had a pillow underneath my desk at Goldman. I showered at a local gym. I didn't even work out. I bought cheap underwear, wore it, and threw it out because I didn't have time to do laundry. I knew a guy who paid the maintenance staff to put a tiny bed in a utility closet. He basically lived there. On days where I showed up after 7am, I usually got a tongue lashing. Sometimes it was good natured "What are you working banking hours now?" other days it was not so polite. Dinners out were usually excruitiating, as your "rank" in the firm was largely determined by how profitable your division had been the last quarter. If your division had not done well (and to give you an idea of how much they look at this - they actually list divisions on pamphlets - not alphabetically, but by profit. I don't know if they still do, but hey, you have to be a bit insane to reprint stuff just because some group had an extra $10MM over another) it wasn't uncommon for people to publicly trash you. I remember one dinner in particular, where a VP went around the table asking for people's opinions, and when he got to me he stopped and said "You don't matter, we'll skip you." That's goldman for you. Step on everyone you can, smash your coworkers into submission and claw your way to the top.



Over the last few years, I've come to realize a few things:

1) I want to make enough money to enjoy life and travel and life comfortably, but I don't need to be rich to have a good time.

2) I'd rather make less and be happy and have time to do things, especially while I'm still in my 20s, than work long hours and make more money. Whats the point of making money if you dont have time to spend it?

3) I like working for myself the most. It's scary and exciting, and it's also, usually, the most lucrative choice.

Rhyme I DEFINATELY agree.... i am a auditor and i've worked those 1am nights VERY rarely but i thought to myself if i did this all the time i would absolutely HATE my life because I'd never enjoy it... i am in the smae boat i want to make money but i dont need a lot jst enough to travel, be happy, and hopefully support a family one day... for now i just help my own parents and that makes me happy... and now its off to do my MBA which also makes me happy