It’s getting harder and harder for me to stay at my job. I am so bored out of my skull. I find the work yawningly-boring, repetitive, in endless cycles of meaningless urgency and panic. I am getting fed-up of what work, my seniors and colleagues expect of me, which is part and parcel of the job: to drop everything in my own personal life and to be at the beck and call of every client request, every pitch, every presentation that comes along. Each cancelled weekend, each missed birthday, each compromised plan is justified by my seniors as necessary: “this is the most important Board presentation of the year”, “this is the most important meeting of the process”, “this is the biggest RFP of the year and the biggest IPO of next year (in our sector)”. I’m bored of it. I’m bored of having my own life de-prioritised, of making sacrifices because of one imaginary “most important” so and so work deadline after another, which almost invariably turn out to be wasted or necessary.

Cases in point:
1) I was hyper stressed out during my birthday weekend because my VP expected me to work all weekend for “the most important Board presentation of the year” (for that specific client). The specific transaction never happened. Was killed. And instead, a TopCo deal was in the works by other banks which would have cut us out completely, and killed our deal. As it happens, the TopCo deal didn’t happen either. So some other poor f*cks in some other banks have probably busted their balls for nothing too.

2) The Boy and I were supposed to leave on Saturday afternoon to collect Byron from out of town. But because I had to help finalise “the most important presentation of the process”, we had to leave town late, drive at 110 mph or more to rush to town. Stop in the emergency lane of the highway to take a call from my boss. Gobble down an 8-course 1-Michelin star meal (that we’d already paid for) at a rate of one-course-every-five-minutes. And rush back the next day. The result: the client did not want to fund the transaction at the necessary price – they choked at the equity cheque. A bid was never made.

3) “The biggest IPO of next year” pitch – having to work weekends, take multi-hour calls on weekends which, among other things, consist of my MD reiterating everything on his markup, and changing his mind, vacillating over every other point, since at least 4 weekends before the deadline. Firstly, this is not my project. Another girl, who is from the company’s country of origin, is working on a side project and has been swamped, so I am stepping in. This is ultimately her project and will revert to her if we win. Secondly, there are multiple decision-makers in the awarding of this mandate. And my colleague who knows some of the decision-making parties has been told that this segment of decision-makers will back another set of banks to win. Given I have been and will continue working exclusively on this until the deadline, why is it imperative that we spend time on this every weekend?

My frustration has been growing. I’m tired of not being able to properly plan a simple weekend, always living with the constant stress and worry that my plans will have to be cancelled, or that I have to rush back to work at any point. This frustration has reached such a boiling point that I just don’t want to work. I get depressed whenever I am given *any* work. I feel like knocking my head against the wall at yet another piece of analysis, yet another model to build, yet another presentation to prepare. The same shit, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. I know this is clearly not a healthy work attitude to have, and that’s why I know that really, this is time to say “enough is enough”. It is time to quit, and move on. I am gritting my teeth and barely holding on for dear life: until my bonus (whatever it may be), until my naturalisation.

5 years in one place, one team, is surely an age. Especially in banking. By the time I leave next year, I will have done almost 6 years. I have nothing to prove anymore – to myself, to anyone. If I want, I know I can go on to make VP, D, possibly/probably MD. But do I want to spend the next 7 years being stressed and depressed, living a living hell, carving up my ever-diminishing soul into little pieces and selling them, piece by piece? I have done my time. I need out. I also need the strength to carry on, for just another 9 months or so, if all goes well.

Maybe after having been unemployed for a while, I will be happy to return to the hellish, but fairly lucrative hell-hole that banking is. I know I have been very fortunate to have been in constant employment since my bank-breaking graduation. And maybe, to an extent, I have taken it for granted. But almost everyone I know has had either gardening leave from changing jobs, or being unemployed, or a sabbatical from a firm-sanctioned working-hour-reduction programme, or has taken a break to do an MBA, finish a thesis, further their studies. I am just plain and simple burnt out. My sanity is slowly fraying.

9 more months. 9 more months… I am, I am, I am.