The following excerpt is from a special series I’m running on “Ahead of The Curve,” which documents tales and experiences from a two-year journey at the Harvard Business School. Learn more here.
Another visitor of the class was a graduate of the HBS class of 2005 who had gone to work at Morgan Stanley. He had been in the military before HBS and had decided that investment banking, at worst, would facilitate a transition from soldier to businessman. At best, it would be interesting, financially rewarding work. He told us that during his first year, he had once spent 127 hours in the office in a single week. Weeks had gone by when all he saw of his two children were their outlines under their blankets when he left in the morning and when he returned late at night. “I’ve been watching my children grow longer,” he said. His life was the reality for most MBA graduates. The degree enabled them to get jobs that robbed them of their private lives. The consolation was that the experiences and money they accumulated would eventually allow them to live the lives they wanted. But there was no fixed timetable for delaying satisfaction and living the life you wanted. Would there always be one more promotion, one more pay raise, one more bonus? When would be the right time?
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I think this is one of the passages that he caught some flak for. There were some negative reviews at Amazon that painted the writer as harsh and negative. Having worked in Hollywood (big business), I thought passages like this made everything that much more believable. Investment banker…movie/TV producer…not much difference, ultimately, in terms of time commitment, I don’t think.