<p>Some firms have a dry cleaning service which caters to their office in order to solve this problem. I think my son’s dry cleaning is picked up and delivered to his apt. building, with the assistance of the doorman. As for exercising, S could seldom fit that in his first year. He got pretty pasty and flabby-looking. Now he sometimes gets a run in at 11 PM on the treadmill in his apt. building’s gym and outside in the park on the weekends. Meals are delivered to the bank and eaten at one’s desk.</p>
<p>We have Dry Cleaning service at my office so I guess they could have it there too. We also have flowers and other services.</p>
<p>It seems like it would be an interesting lifestyle for a while but perhaps not great for your health long-term. I like to prepare a lot of my own meals (my wife prepares them too) and that takes fifteen to twenty minutes here and there for preparation, cooking, cleaning and additional time to buy groceries.</p>
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<p>There are dry cleaning services that pick up and return your laundry at offices. I imagine that they do better in suit and tie type of workplaces – I have seen one set up at a casual dress workplace and then discontinue service, probably due to lack of interest.</p>
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<p>[Warning:</a> Banking May Be Hazardous to Your Health - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204062704577223623824944472.html]Warning:”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204062704577223623824944472.html)</p>
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<p>There is a lot of truth in the author’s position. Many M&A’s, for example, only serve to enrich the lawyers and bankers. The merged company still struggles.</p>
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<p>I agree. Blame goes to us, grownups. Not forseeing where it is going and making sure young people have broad opportunities and need not pigeon-hole themselves into financial industry.</p>
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<p>Two of my companies were bought out this year. I took the money on one of them and haven’t checked up on how it’s doing. On the other one, I had a look at the synergies of the merged companies and liked the potential result. One was a major customer of the other so the merger made sense and I feel that their combined operations are greater than the sum of the pieces operating separately so I own the merged company and am happy with the results.</p>
<p>So yes, I have seen mergers that didn’t work out but I have seen many that did work out. I think that the acquiring company, the management of the company being acquired and the eventual fit have a lot more to do with the eventual success or failure of a merger than the bank does. A bank can loan you money to buy a house or car - that may or may not work out - but whether it works out or not usually isn’t the bank’s fault unless they truly loaned you more money than they reasonably should have.</p>
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<p>We shouldn’t “tell” them to do either. They should pick what they want to do based on what appeals to them, of course.</p>
<p>I know an extremely bright young man out of an elite college who works a very good job at Target corporate headquarters in MPLS, as an example. He might work 50-60 hours there, be able to afford a decent apartment and have a nice standard of living for a twentysomething. He interned with an i-bank; he could have just as easily chosen to make more, work 80-100 hours a week on Wall St, have a crappy apartment and not get to enjoy what NY has to offer vs Mpls. So why is the Wall St job seen as the “better” choice? I don’t get it. At all. It’s not like the jobs aren’t both intellectually satisfying for someone with an analytical bent.</p>
<p>Yes, but it’s popular now to blame the ills of society on investment bankers. So if kids do chose that path, all sorts of negative attributes like greed and materialism will be attributed to them. They are accused of selling out, of selling their souls. I don’t think that’s fair, especially to a middle class kid who just wants to pay his bills and not burden (or become just like) his over-extended parents who are still reeling from paying for college and are worried about insufficient savings for retirement.</p>
<p>Finance is a rough career, and it never gets “easier,” not even at the “upper levels.” Whether or not it adds to the country’s well-being is really besides the point. The burn out rate on wall street, or any of the other finance centers overseas or in the U.S., is high, and while the young woman writing the article sees herself as someone more benevolent? Isn’t she actually still capitalizing on this sector by writing this article? Doesn’t she still want people to know she “could have” but “chose not to?”</p>
<p>But, I will say, as someone who has lived with someone who has taken the high level finance route from day one, from NYC to London to Singapore to Chicago to Tokyo, most people can’t do this job. So, when people start this career, they envision a path, most can’t take. it takes endless physical and intellectual focus under long term conditions. It takes the same kind of energy and time investment, life-long, to be great in finance as it does to be a medical student and become a surgeon.</p>
<p>The life is fun and exciting, and while the hours are long, part of the hours are social. If you have a particular type of personality and are energized by the work, you can do it endlessly and if you are talented at it, you will be well-compensated, but it is no different than those entering the top law firms, not everyone makes partner. Not everybody can.</p>
<p>Intelligent athletes do very well in this field, for good reason. Whether or not this young woman would have actually been successful in the field, nobody knows. Given her disdain for the type who does well in it? I highly doubt it. Better she stick to blogging.</p>
<p>You are better off finding something you are passionate about and pursuing that with the same level of energy those who are passionate about game theory pursue finance.</p>
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<p>No doubt it is the acquiring company’s management that blows the implementation, but aren’t the bankers supposed to be offering advice for all of those millions? Or, are you suggesting that they are just order-takers, doing a deal because they can. </p>
<p>Regardless, a failed deal, of which there are many every year, do not benefit society.</p>
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<p>Then WS broker earnings should be similar to a car salesman? :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>It is probably a rough career since it is well paid. It comes with stiff competition. If it does not add to the country’s well being, it is being self-destructive by putting the energy at a wrong place.</p>
<p>Excuse me, but as the parent of a young adult with a severe and permanent disability, I do not view employment by an agency managing group homes as a waste of brainpower or resources, unless no training or evaluation is taking place. And, at least in my state, while these folks are not paid well they do make more than minimum wage.</p>
<p>And, it is not a job that anyone takes just to “get a paycheck” even if the barriers to entry seem low. (Burn-out is just too high.) Most do seem to have a relative with a disability or a relative who has worked in the field, and others - whether or not they have attended an elite school - have sought the experience during summers, or in high school.</p>
<p>Ditto for young people who learn how to become behaviorists who serve this population, or physicians or psychologists or SLP’s who treat this type of client, or who go to law school and seek to specialize in the legal issues surrounding disability. (And many or most of these are well-served by having spent time in the trenches, typically during their school years or in the years following graduation.)</p>
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<p>I know this is a popular position right now, which is fine. I’m not really going to try to argue about it.</p>
<p>Try to operate a world without those in finance. The government itself would shut down in like five minutes, for one thing, not to mention diplomacy, which, trust me, other countries are not interested in our “good intentions.” It’s complicated, and yes, like law, there are bad things and good things, to it. And, like law, I imagine it is over-subscribed, to some extent.</p>
<p>But, finance is the grease on the wheels of the world, including, frankly, college endowments, college finances, and even the way most public education systems and non-profit hospitals are run. It just is.</p>
<p>I am not saying we get rid of all of them. I am just saying the industry has gotten too big, bigger than the society’s need. That may also be why it is a rough career. If it is invisibly downsizing, it will be hard on workers. If that’s true, it could get worse but it will be the right direction for the coutry and the broader economy.</p>
<p>Finance is an international, not a national, career, which is why it is rough. You have to keep all hours of the world available. It is not a rough career because of downsizing or whatnot. It’s cyclical… sometimes it is big banks and big firms, at other times it is boutiques. Right now, it is simply very international. It’s just not a job for someone who doesn’t want to work hard and smart and all the time. You have to be able to think under pressure and it is both analytical and creative. It’s a good career, but it is a life, not a job, that’s all.</p>
<p>But careers in finance are not bound by borders, and if there is downsizing here, there is growth elsewhere, and in finance, nobody cares what your nationality is, just your record, and anyone can move between any country or another. But, that is another reason it is not a job, but a life. It’s very fluid.</p>
<p>But, it’s also different than what people think. If you find some parents on here with new hires in finance, you will probably find out their kids are working 7 am til midnight and then on weekends from home. Only some people can do it, which is why when I read the article, I just think, it’s fine you don’t want to do it, but it doesn’t make you “better” than those who do do it, it only makes you different.</p>
<p>I don’t agree. If it didn’t make so much money and attract brain and power, people would have found a way to take it easy global or not. Downsizing is just an idle speculation or more like a wishful thinking on my part. When I get the financial review, I am struk by how big BMI is in the financial sector. It is bigger than IT. How’s that possible? I am no expert but it seems to me that we have a lot grease for a puny stock of wheels.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the part in the article where kids were being drafted against their will or forced to suit up and head to Wall Street.</p>
<p>Why the ire? An acquaintance of mine just took a job working for a company which produces wrestling events- many of which objectify and glorify violence against women. I wouldn’t want my kid earning a living that way, but as long as he’s not breaking the law, I don’t get to weigh in on the social utility of his company’s products and services. I have friends who work in the Gaming industry- I think it exploits low income people who can least afford to lose $100 at the tables when they should be saving their money for an emergency fund. But again- it’s legal (at least in my state)- and nobody is forcing me to buy a lottery ticket or spend my weekends at a casino.</p>
<p>Why do you all get so high and mighty on the subject of elite colleges and finance? </p>
<p>And Frazzled- I was in no way demeaning the choice of working at a group home. I was pointing out to the poster who said that kids have to take jobs in banking to pay their loans that there are many other ways to pay off a loan- and I admire this kid for being a responsible, bill-paying member of society even while working a job which people don’t find terribly glamorous (but very much needed.)</p>
<p>I disagree that it’s finance that makes the world go round. What do all these companies finance? Other companies who actually make / produce / sell goods and services that are desired by people. Providing the money for the idea is important, but HAVING / developing / implementing the idea is the ground zero. Money just sitting around does nothing. It’s the person who figures out how to build the better widget (broadly speaking - using widgets to encompass service industries too) who adds the primary value, IMO. </p>
<p>I don’t have a “problem” with i-banking or i-bankers; they are necessary for society to function. I just don’t see why it gets so glorified at the expense of the real core thing that they are funding - which are goods and services that people use / consume.</p>
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<p>What career, pursued at high levels of intensity, isn’t? This is precisely the kind of self-aggrandizement that gets so very old. It’s “harder” to be a managing director at Goldman Sachs than to be any other type of very senior position in the workforce? Really? That’s harder than being, say, a major university president? Or a partner at a white-shoe law firm? Or the CEO of a consumer products company? This is the give-me-a-break piece of the equation.</p>
<p>Pizza, I don’t think it’s glorified. But you’ve got two kids at elite schools and at some point, some bank will have an event on campus with free food and one of your kids may attend because, hey it’s free food. One of your kids may think the work sounds boring and won’t explore further. Your other kid may think, “hey, I can send in my resume, get an on-campus interview, maybe land a job right out of college without having to do all that horrible networking I hear about. And it pays OK given that I’ll be 22 and will have no real skills. Why not”.</p>
<p>How is that glorifying?</p>