How do you know when you’ve reached the place in your career where it’s time to move on? I interviewed one Wall Street executive and here is his story.
A Managing Director’s tale (think bulge-bracket institution like Deutsche Bank or Goldman Sachs):
“Got out of HBS and went directly to the Street. The first five years were pure unadulterated hell. I had been warned by alums that jobs on the Street were beyond tough, gritty and not pretty, but very financially rewarding – and I have to say that even those admonishments didn’t prepare me for the grittiness and depravity that chasing success meant. After a time, I got used to it – not to say that I liked it, but I became accustomed to it – and fell into a routine. Dropping my young child into day care at 6 a.m. on the UWS, black car service downtown to the office. Back-to-back meetings, endless lunches, interminable dinners and then after-hours “client entertainment events”.
Where were those client entertainment events all about, I asked?
“You don’t want to know. Makes the stuff you see on ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ look like a Kindergarten party. In any case, these events would start at dinner and go on and on and on until maybe one or even two in the morning.”
And then, you went home and took the black car again at six in the morning, I said.
“Well, not quite. After the client entertainment we all had to go back to the office and handle paperwork. Often times we wouldn’t actually be on our way home until around 3:00 a.m.
“So, this sort of routine went on and my team and I signed up a lot of clients. In my 6th year at the firm, they brought me into a private meeting and told me I’d made Managing Director. I thought that was pretty cool. But, honestly, nothing really changed. Well, I mean, I had a larger team and those people were now the ones out doing client entertainment events, but I had to stay back at the office and review everyone’s projects and handle high-level client matters, so if anything it was a lot more work – just different.
“So, one day I was at my desk at 2:00 and I looked outside my office and every desk was occupied and the line of people waiting outside my office for my signature stretched way down the hallway. And then I realized that it was 2:00 in the morning – and that the only difference between 2:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. was that one was dark outside and the other was light outside. Other than that, if there were no windows, you really couldn’t tell at all. That’s when I knew it was time, for me at least, to move on. I just felt there had to be a better quality of life out there than this.”
Whew – what a tale! As a post-script, the Wall Street exec did make a move to a larger role in another firm and I’m happy to say that they got a large part of their life back.
I asked Abbas Shah, a recognized Macro trading expert and an authority on client relationships for his comments, and he said “There is probably more to the story than that. Execs are usually fiercely loyal to the firm they’re working for, especially the one they joined right out of University, but people sometimes do take other opportunities. What is different about the Street is typically a person will be in the same firm for five to 10 years before making a move to another firm – unless they’re very vigorously recruited and they get an offer they can’t say no to.”
A Managing Director’s tale (think bulge-bracket institution like Deutsche Bank or Goldman Sachs):
“Got out of HBS and went directly to the Street. The first five years were pure unadulterated hell. I had been warned by alums that jobs on the Street were beyond tough, gritty and not pretty, but very financially rewarding – and I have to say that even those admonishments didn’t prepare me for the grittiness and depravity that chasing success meant. After a time, I got used to it – not to say that I liked it, but I became accustomed to it – and fell into a routine. Dropping my young child into day care at 6 a.m. on the UWS, black car service downtown to the office. Back-to-back meetings, endless lunches, interminable dinners and then after-hours “client entertainment events”.
Where were those client entertainment events all about, I asked?
“You don’t want to know. Makes the stuff you see on ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ look like a Kindergarten party. In any case, these events would start at dinner and go on and on and on until maybe one or even two in the morning.”
And then, you went home and took the black car again at six in the morning, I said.
“Well, not quite. After the client entertainment we all had to go back to the office and handle paperwork. Often times we wouldn’t actually be on our way home until around 3:00 a.m.
“So, this sort of routine went on and my team and I signed up a lot of clients. In my 6th year at the firm, they brought me into a private meeting and told me I’d made Managing Director. I thought that was pretty cool. But, honestly, nothing really changed. Well, I mean, I had a larger team and those people were now the ones out doing client entertainment events, but I had to stay back at the office and review everyone’s projects and handle high-level client matters, so if anything it was a lot more work – just different.
“So, one day I was at my desk at 2:00 and I looked outside my office and every desk was occupied and the line of people waiting outside my office for my signature stretched way down the hallway. And then I realized that it was 2:00 in the morning – and that the only difference between 2:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. was that one was dark outside and the other was light outside. Other than that, if there were no windows, you really couldn’t tell at all. That’s when I knew it was time, for me at least, to move on. I just felt there had to be a better quality of life out there than this.”
Whew – what a tale! As a post-script, the Wall Street exec did make a move to a larger role in another firm and I’m happy to say that they got a large part of their life back.
I asked Abbas Shah, a recognized Macro trading expert and an authority on client relationships for his comments, and he said “There is probably more to the story than that. Execs are usually fiercely loyal to the firm they’re working for, especially the one they joined right out of University, but people sometimes do take other opportunities. What is different about the Street is typically a person will be in the same firm for five to 10 years before making a move to another firm – unless they’re very vigorously recruited and they get an offer they can’t say no to.”