They say I have a dream job. Ivy League degree, corner office view (okay, not mine yet), tailored suits, and seven figures dangling at the end of the year like a shiny golden carrot. But here’s the truth no one puts on LinkedIn: this job takes everything—and it doesn’t ask for permission.
I’m an investment banker in New York. That’s all you need to know. I work at a “top-tier” firm. I’ve worked on deals you’ve heard about, alongside people whose names you’ve seen in business magazines. I look sharp, talk fast, and haven’t had a real vacation in two years.
My day usually starts before sunrise. I check emails on my phone while brushing my teeth. There’s always something urgent. Always. Someone in Hong Kong needs a model update. Someone in London’s waiting for a reply. My coffee isn’t even warm before I’m neck-deep in Excel and PowerPoint, spinning narratives out of numbers.
People think we’re doing glamorous things—flying private, closing billion-dollar deals over steak dinners. Maybe that’s true for managing directors. For the rest of us? It’s 100-hour weeks, missed birthdays, cancelled dates, and apologizing to your mom for forgetting to call back—for the third time.
The office culture? Think military boot camp meets high school politics. You’re always being watched, judged, ranked. There’s no space for hesitation. Every mistake is magnified. Every success is just the new baseline. You’re only as good as your last deal—or your last 2 a.m. memo.
But you learn fast. You grow thick skin. You become fluent in jargon. You learn how to power through exhaustion and pretend everything’s fine when you haven’t slept more than four hours in a week. You become the person who “gets it done,” no matter what.
And weirdly, you start to crave the chaos. The high of pitching something that lands. The rush of a closing call. The quiet pride when a partner says, “Good job,” even if it’s the only compliment you get in six months. You live for those moments.
Still, sometimes I wonder: What’s the long game? I watch senior bankers whose kids don’t know them, whose marriages are thin threads, who’ve made millions but look empty. And I think, is this it?
Maybe I’ll leave. Maybe I won’t. For now, I keep going. Because there’s prestige here. Power. Money. And somewhere in the mess of it all, still, a little part of me believes that if I survive long enough, I’ll finally earn the freedom this job promises.
Until then, I’ll be here—building pitch decks at midnight, smiling through the grind, chasing numbers on someone else’s scoreboard.
Because in this world, quitting isn’t respected.
Winning is.