GUEST COMMENT: It's worth hanging in there as a spreadsheet monkey

This site has recently run some articles by junior bankers who decided the industry was too much hassle to stick with and got out to do something a little less demanding instead.

While IBD clearly isn't for everyone, I take exception to the notion that it's diabolical toad which squats on the best years of your life.

I got a call from a friend the other day, who I'll call Jean-Philippe. JP is one of the remaining survivors from my investment banking training programme. He's part of a rare breed: immune to all-nighters, glued to his blackberry at all times (even when standing on a chair in Whisky Mist at 2AM knocking back champagne).

JP is also a testament to why, with a lot of resilience, life does get better if you can stay in banking for the long-term.

Why I envy JP

I used to share flat with JP and I've always liked him. Unlike his peers, he attended a decent enough university but one which never makes the big banks' target lists. I still don't know how he overcame this often insurmountable obstacle and caught their eye.

Initially, JP's Gallic charm ensured that he cleaned up in bars and nightclubs, but he never managed to translate that into success with the great-and-good at the bank. He started out in capital markets, which is not where the future hedge fund masters and private equity masters of the universe cut their teeth.

In capital markets, JP would have had plenty of opportunities to meet finance directors of corporates. He could, therefore, have made the trade out of banking and into a comfortable 9 to 7 role in treasury or internal corporate finance.

Instead, he stuck it out, cranking out spreadsheets whilst one-by-one the rest of us took our leave for greener pastures beyond banking.

We pitied him for not having followed us, but since he was universally liked, we never said this in front of him. We also wondered how he did it - our buy-side lifestyles were so much better than what we were used to as associates in banking. We worried that after the banks wrote off huge chunks of their balance sheets to subprime liabilities he would get the sack in the inevitable downsizing bloodbaths which followed.

That never happened.

Instead, it's starting to look like JP made a smart trade by staying on in banking. Base salaries for juniors have gone up in anticipation of tighter bonus regulation, and buy-side jobs no longer look safe as funds struggle to raise new funds and invest existing ones.

Meanwhile, JP is finally reaping the rewards of being a lifer in investment banking.

He gets most of his weekends off and is doing far less number-crunching. He looks less tired at reunion dinners and brunch, and has learnt how to wear those bags under his eyes rather well. And for the first time, we are jealous. Investment banking pays off, in the long run.

The author is a former M&A associate who now works in private equity.