A Day In the Life

I've said alot of generalities about my life in Switzerland. Today I'm going to recreate a typical day.

A Day In the Life - The Beatles

Woke up at 7AM, chugged 2 cups of coffee. Tried to make the 730AM train, but missed it. Went back to my apartment to drink another coffee. Caught the 745AM train.

754AM. First one in the office. Put some headphones on and concentrated on building a model. I don't think I ever learned how to create a model in Investment Banking, one of those ridiculously complex ones that drown you in a sea of numbers. Was trying to do that now.

9AM. Meeting with a Vice President to go over some securities laws & legal issues. One of my projects is to get in touch with lawyers to devise a compliance system to make sure my company handles different countries' securities laws in a correct, timely matter. I always loved law, and this was a pretty neat project. Though, I felt overwhelmed at first with all the new legal jargon and rules. Will have to spend a weekend sorting this out.

10AM. Met with the bosses for my mid-internship review. Praised for my work ethic and commitment self-development in the industry. Haven't thought about if I'd get an offer at the end of the summer, because I don't like to wish for something I don't yet have and get disappointed. I haven't really shown anyone my true self yet, I've just been professional and quiet. No matter what, all I do know is that I like what I do here, I like the types of transactions we do and our philosophy behind them. In the end, I asked if I could do more modeling work, because I always wanted to be one those excel whizzes who can calculate anything anytime and bundle it up in neat spreadsheets (ahem, like SOMEONE I know in team A8!).

1PM. Info lunch. One of the associates taught excel skills that I already knew.

130PM. Couldn't dock my laptop back on the station. The big screen was blank. Called our "computer nerd." He said he couldn't be up for another 20 minutes. My heart went faint. A full 20 minutes without working!!! It would have been a nightmare in an investment bank. I would have had to use a spare computer, or someone else's. I guess old habits die hard. This is Europe. You won't get in trouble for not working 20 minutes. I felt... strange at this idea.

Used the 20 mins to get a birthday present for a friend.

3PM. Conference call on a private equity deal. Was too scared to speak any Spanish, and no one else was fluent (not that I'm fluent). We spoke in English.

6PM. Finalized a presentation for a very neat company I will present to the Managing Directors. I love doing presentations. I have a subtle minimalist quality to my work. I don't like pictures. I like charts and graphs to be very professional and outlined in hard lines, none of these bubble formats. My writing uses a bit of an indirect style which is hard for most executives to pick up on. I have to work on that. My one-liner catch phrases that sum up the slide sometimes push the envelope on slang and sound a bit like trader talk.

7PM. Headphones on. Back to work on that model.

9PM. Leave the office with a Wall Street Journal Europe to read on the train.

*****