How is working 50/60 hours a week considered relaxed?
Honest question here, but how is working 50/60 hours a week considered relaxed on this forum? Pretty sure if you’re not working weekends that’s working 9am - 8pm or 9am - 9pm. This basically leaves no time to do anything except go to the gym watch a show, sleep and that’s about it. I’ve visited a few european countries where leaving at 2:00 on Friday’s is the norm and some people even leave earlier than 5 almost everyday (ofcourse they don’t work in finance). Yes relative to other high finance jobs 50/60 hours is ok but outside of the WSO bubble it’s shit.
Honestly a role with real WLB would be working a 9-5 and 35 days of paid leave (at least this is what my opinion is) but working 60 hours a week is definitely far from having a good balance in the grand scheme of things.
It's all relative. Most of the people on this forum started their career working weekdays until 1am+ and having 0-1 days off on the weekends, so that daily gym sesh, show, and 8 hours of sleep become a godsent luxury when they look at where they started.
To your point.... yes, it is ludicrous, but there are lines and lines of people trying to get into this field still and so the demand supports the shitty WLB. People in the industry either adjust their perspective on what is acceptable WLB, or they work towards an exit to a better life
lol yeah when you take a step back and look at it it's pretty ridiculous, but getting to hit the gym, throw a show on and sleep 8 hours on a consistent basis would be paradise for me.
OP here Do you still think it’s worth it? I joined the buyside directly and clock in around 50 hours a week but tbh don’t feel like I have an amazing WLB (or maybe I’m just lazy lol). Outside of work I don’t have any real friends who work in high finance so most people think my hours are pretty bad. Even paywise I don’t think it’s really justified, have a few friends who work as product managers or even work in the finance team at FAANG and they work standard hours and make decent comp. After 10/15 years they’ll probably be on 200k+ anyways but with half the stress and effort.
It's part of adjusting after graduating, imo. When I graduated, even my friends in the chillest 9-5 thought their WLB was awful and they didn't have time to do anything. It's SO relative. Especially coming from college when your time is really your own, I'd give it a year or two and you will settle in.
Also - just a hard reality that few if any firms are going to give you 35 days of PTO, maybe in Europe but that is not a perfect place either (much lower salaries, for one)... again, just part of transitioning from having a million free days in college to having work be a big part of your life. Try and plan 1 or 2 fun trips a year and weekend trips to maximize the time.
Also your FAANG friends will max out at a much lower number and your comp will scale significantly more, especially with carry. Hard to compare year 1 comp or even year 5 comp when the career comp is so different
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