I finally officially tendered my resignation to HR on 6 October (Wednesday). I unofficially told the senior and junior I’ve worked most with on Monday 4 October, then told my line manager and team head on Tuesday 5 October. Had my leaving drinks on Thursday 7 October, at the pub just below my office building, so it would be easy for the team to pop down for drinks.

After so many years of being variously miserable, depressed, suicidal, and apathetic in interminable cycles, it’s good to finally make a break.

Nonetheless, it was difficult and strange to leave the first and only real job I’ve ever had, the first real company I’ve worked for. After all, I had even interned there! Excluding my summer internship, I had worked for the firm for more than six years, 74 months, 2,247 days (~72 months, ~2,191 days in my team. the other days were on the ATP – Analyst Training Programme). Being a sop, I ended up crying when telling the various people that I was leaving. The tears helped to reduce the recriminations and soften the aggressiveness of the “you’re making a big mistake” negative selling from the seniors too. There are upsides to being a girl.

But in any case, this has been a long time coming. The people in my team had been expecting me to leave for quite a while. Especially since the Boy left to start the Company. They keep asking me how it’s going, if I’m going to join him. It annoyed me, this assumption of theirs. Because it was founded on poor logic and reasoning (start-ups are usually not revenue-generating, much less profit-generating in the first couple of years of operations, and there can’t be two of us both working on the Company, being unemployed and penniless and living on a dream and fresh air and sunshine), and it may have (negatively) affected or may (negatively) affect my bonus in the past and in the would-have-been future (since the bonus pot is limited and she’s likely to leave anyway, let’s redistribute her bonus to the other people who are likely to stay).

I had a reasonably good life though. I was working on pretty big and important deals and projects. I was the staffer and hence a sort of “boss of the juniors”. I was generally working good hours (7-9pm departures) although with the odd last-minute weekend rush, that’s part of the package of investment banking. But I was just too depressed. I was bored to tears with the sector (ARPU, termination rate cuts, interconnect fees glide-paths, asymmetric interconnect, roaming rates, EU regulation). I was fed-up with the all-over-the-place ME clients who didn’t know what they want and had no clue, but wanted all the analysis yesterday (or now, or over the weekend). I couldn’t bear another pitch, another piece of analysis, another sector update book, another complaint about staffing. I was struggling not to throw up at the meaninglessness of it all – both the banking part of it, and the lack of relevance to my own life, my potential career path, my own future. My depression was sapping my energy. Worse, it would slowly infect the rest of the team, which certainly didn’t need my help to further drag down junior morale.

This is not a job that a person can do without motivation and enthusiasm. It demands too much to be done as a part time job, or with luke-warm spirit. The definition of the job is the willingness to uphold a high standard of client service. And clients invariably want everything asap. So you throw your life out of the window, throw all your best-laid plans, commitments, birthdays, simple pleasures. I was willing to go the distance when I was younger because I wanted to try out the workaholic thing, the challenge of it. I had a student loan to pay. I wanted to accumulate capital and cash. The job promised me “transferable skills” and a good range of “exit opportunities”. Besides, all jobs are menial and crap at the beginning of a career. Here, I was getting paid heaps to do crap and menial work for longer hours than most. But still, when I was young, my body could take the punishment – it made sense to pay all my dues up front and reap the rewards later.

But six years on, and the housing crises and global financial meltdown later, the money is not as good and potentially at further risk. The PR is terrible. And I’ve realised that the rewards take longer to reap. The exit opportunities aren’t particularly compelling either

And I couldn’t bear it. It was soul-destroying, despite the relatively easy life, the high base salary (yes, thanks regulators for increasing my base and reducing the variable component of my comp). I think if I found the sector more interesting, or found a way to relate it to my own life, and future, it would have been better. Although, in any case, six years is an age in banking. In the same team no less. I needed a change of environment.

Being a practical, level-headed Asian girl, I only quit my job after having found a new job. Makes it easier to go through with the quitting, and guarantees the gardening leave will be spent gardening instead of working!

Unfortunately, the economic and employment environment being what it is, I didn’t manage to get very far from my bread and butter of M&A. But I’ve manged to downsize from a BBB (bulge-bracket bank) to a boutique. Crossed over into adjacent sectors that interest me more (digitaI media and tech), with much smaller deal sizes. The hours will be longer, boo. But hopefully the sector will keep me interested and make the work more interesting for me. And hopefully this will open more doors if / when the time comes to exit in future (when sub-prime, Lehman, and toxic assets will be a distant memory): VC, the Company.

For now, at least I have six weeks of gardening, a new office location in a posher part of town, and the ability to walk to work in half an hour (bye bye rush hour tube rides). And so I count my little blessings in life.