Banker Happy to No Longer Be a Banker

Banking is fucking brutal. I knew this after my internship, but I didn’t care. I wanted money. I wanted respect. I wanted to be a somebody in the eyes of myself and others. But most of all, I wanted money. Why? Because money is freedom. Money means I can wear what I want, live where I want, go where I want, eat what I want, be who I want. Money would make me happy. Right? Well… not exactly I’m afraid. In fact, money didn’t seem to make any of the bankers happy. Not one person in the roughly 200 I got to know in banking were happy. Yet all earned multiples of the national average salary.

— Stephen Ridley was a young i-banker in London, and he was miserable. He quit one day and became a musician, which I’m sure you can learn all about in the movie that will come out in two-to-four years, but for now, you should read this essay he wrote on the website Wall Street Oasis (lol) about why he quit. Turns out banking wasn’t that fun.

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