1. Money

1. Money

Why else would we want to work 100 hour weeks? The pay per hour may be comparable with other salary jobs, but those jobs assume a measly 40 hour work week. Amateur hour. Investment bankers ("I-bankers") talk money all day long. Whether it's how much to acquire a company for, how low bonuses will be this year, or how expensive Banker A's new genuine alligator shoes were, i-bankers can never get enough money talk. As Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street, "Greed is good."

You may ask, "But don't all people want to earn more money? What separates investment bankers from others?" Besides their abnormally large brain size, investment bankers differ from others because they believe that money CAN buy happiness. Their money also buys hours of therapy and divorce lawyers since there's no way they can sustain a marriage. While it is true that money can allows investment bankers to fund their addictions to red bull and blue, striped shirts, it is difficult to spend money when you work an inhumane number of hours.

Investment bankers don’t just get joy out of making boatloads of money, what really gets them going is talking about it. Oh yea, that hits the spot. When bonus time comes it’s basically another version of the classic machisimo game, “Whose is bigger?” While doing great work may give most people joy, i-bankers define their success by that bonus number. This means a lot of ass kissing by usesless associates to make up for their lack of other qualities, but I’ll save that for another entry.

During these tough times in the market, many investment bankers are getting laid off, and bonuses are lower, which means all the more reason for i-bankers to complain. “Ugh, I’m only going to make $140,000 my first year out of college? Are you kidding me?” I admit, I too have been sucked into this thought process of “money, money, money” but I’m going to be on cloud 9 come bonus time….as long as I don’t get kicked in the nuts with a sub-$50k number. Most Americans would be happy to make $50,000 in a year, but my fellow i-bankers will jump ship if they make less than $100,000 this year. Absurd? Yes. Elitist? Possibly. Are you jealous? Obviously.

In the words of Nobel Prize winner Notorious B.I.G., “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” But also mo’ money, more useless vineyard vines ties and mocha frappacinos.