The said essay is based on the essay of a 42-year-old vice president at a Wall Street bank in New York City. His name and work history are known to Business Insider but are being withheld to protect his privacy. The following information has been edited for length and clarity.
I work in technology at a Wall Street bank, and I rest quietly. I don’t do it very often – maybe once every few months.
My day job is to review vendor information. My salary is $250,000, and my average bonus is $75,000, so I make over $300,000 a year.
I travel to different cities and countries with my laptop and cell phone, and work more on my side than my day job. I usually go to Virginia, Atlantic City, Ocean City, or places where I visit family and friends.
My company has an office plan of four days a week in person
The policy doesn’t work hard. Since the outbreak, I have been working remotely most days.
My direct supervisor comes in twice a week, and at first, he said that the management asked us to come back four days a week, but I canceled it and continued to come into the office once a week.
There seemed to be no pushing back. My boss’s seat is next to mine on the trading floor, so he knows I only come in once a week. He doesn’t seem to care because the work is getting done.
I spend about zero to four hours a day working on my day job when I’m quiet
Some days can be different, but most are calm, so I get about two to four hours to work on my side, which is a men’s revue show called The XOTIQ Company. I don’t work on my side hustle when I work in an office.
My bosses don’t know that I’m quiet on vacation, and they don’t know that I’m confused. I have never missed a meeting or anything important, and that is the key. To successfully navigate the holidays, understand your role and deliver what your superiors want.
I complete all my tasks
I’m still getting a bank job while I’m on vacation. Most of my work is done in code, and I’ve been working on the same financial models for the past 10 years. I can quickly copy and paste code, make a few tweaks, and have reports ready for management in no time.
A project that would take a novice two days to master, I can often do in just an hour.
If managers are still looking for me, they can contact me on Microsoft Teams or by phone
I’m almost in a place where I can receive calls on silent if needed. I try to have the office communicate with me via email as much as possible to avoid sitting on conference calls.
I don’t need something like a mouse jiggler to make it look like I’m working because I work a lot with data and sometimes run programs that take hours to run. If someone asks me what I do, I can say that I deal with data.
It’s better to get a job that requires you to spend more time working with data than with people if you want to relax on vacation
I don’t need to keep in touch with my boss or coworkers unless something goes wrong, like technical issues or data delays. To make my boss think that I will focus on my work all day, I will have a quick phone call with him in the morning to discuss what we want to achieve.
I write everything down so that my boss and I are clear about expectations. I rarely get asked where I am.
I do less Wall Street work because the pay and bonuses aren’t as good as they used to be.
I wanted to work on Wall Street because of the money. I used to work as an engineer and was not happy in my first job. I decided that if I wasn’t happy working 9-to-5, I might as well get paid well.
All of my compensation sounds like a lot, but the comfort that people used to get raises and paychecks are not as much as they were 10 to 15 years ago.
The job isn’t fulfilling, and while my paycheck gives me a nice safety net, I know my heart isn’t there.
The ideas that most managers have are outdated
Many managers come from the baby boomer generation and believe that the key to success is hard work. My boss believes in the typical 9-to-5 schedule and that being busy is important.
At first I was enthusiastic, but as my income remained stable over the years and we had periods of self-employment for the sake of employment, my enthusiasm waned. .
I have decided to seek financial compensation. I believe it is more important than ever for workers to start their own businesses.
I started my side hustle because I’m a moonlit male stripper in business school
While I was in my MBA program, I heard everyone was thinking the same thing. Even on Wall Street, it seems that once people fall into a way of thinking, they stick to it for life.
Stripping has taught me to see life with a more open mind. I started playing with my business idea in 2017 and booked my first party in 2018.
I didn’t have to invest a lot of money in the beginning – just the cost of the website and hosting – and the business started to grow slowly. Viewers find me through my website and submit their photos and phone numbers.
It’s the middle man who says, “I have this party. Let me know if you want to do it.” If they say yes, I send them the party details, and the rest is between them and the customer. I receive a booking fee when a customer places an order online.
I still haven’t gotten to the point where I can quit my day job and rely on a side income.
Hopefully, within the next year or two, I can retire from my job on Wall Street
Now, my side hustle brings in about $50,000 a year. I will feel confident once my sales increase and the numbers tell me I can quit.
On Wall Street, it is more important not to make mistakes than to see how many hours a person can stay in the office. In my part, submitting the request of a businessman or manager as quickly and accurately as possible is more important than showing “face time” in the office.
If there are meetings where they need me physically, then I can plan my schedule accordingly. But no matter what, I always give time.
Want to share your story? Email Lauryn Haas at lhaas@businessinsider.com.