5 ms·

Investment bankers will often claim this, while also lying about their salary. I was often surprised by my colleagues claiming extra long work weeks, all while

by osrec 8y ago

Investment bankers will often claim this, while also lying about their salary. I was often surprised by my colleagues claiming extra long work weeks, all while looking remarkable fresh. I couldn't work it out - I mean, if I worked a solid 14 hour day, you could see it clearly on my face, yet if they do it, they seem to develop a healthy glow. Turns out a lot of them were in the building, but not at their desk. Oftentimes they were in the gym/steam/sauna. That explained the healthy glow!

haolez 8y ago
On the other side, I know some investment bankers and they work more than 60 hours per week. They look unhealthy to me :)
- osrec 8y ago
  I too was one of those unhealthy looking, overworked bankers. I was promoted at a young age and had a lot to prove, so I overdid it for a year or two. Then I understood the secret the other MDs had known for years - you just have to look busy, not actually be busy!
  - Thlom 8y ago
    When I was working construction many years ago there was an urban legend about a guy that always looked busy running around with some tools, but no one ever saw him actually working. Turned out he used to find himself a hidden spot at the site and sleep there most of the day. Just making sure to walk across the site with tools once in a while.
    - KC8ZKF 8y ago
      I learned as a young sailor that if you always had a broom in your hand, nobody would find something for you to do.
- stjohnswarts 8y ago
  I've had lawyer friends like this. Doing law research can drain the soul after about 40 hours a week.
sergers 8y ago
I have a colleague who works 14 hour days. This includes an hour nap in his car, lunch for 2 hours, and running errands/personal things outside the office for a few more hours. If he sat down and worked straight, we figured he would only need to be in the office no more than 8 hours
- kelnos 8y ago
  Sounds like he is working an 8-hour day, just during non-traditional times of the day. If that works for him and his family, and management isn't pissed off, sounds like a win-win. (Now if he claims he works 14-hour days, that's a bit dishonest.)
  - sergers 8y ago
    Yep claims he has to work till 8pm and work on weekends, but it's all due to his work habits of not doing work in a concistent manner
    - EuroShill 8y ago
      Yeah but butt in seat time is important! Once had a job where I was working 10am to 4pm with an hour lunch. Was fine for a long time until the company management became more OCD about their bean-counting and I got a new toxic "yes man/ass kisser to management" boss. Suddenly my work hours were an issue. They started hard enforcing a department-wide policy where if you weren't seen at your desk, you're assumed to be not working. Under the threat of being fired, I was forced to sit at work from 9am to 7pm. I suspect managers also had "monitors" assigned to keep a watch over employees like me and hours we were at our desks. It was a massive waste of my time as I was now spending a additional 20 hours a week at the office to do the same amount of work as before.
dclusin 8y ago
Investment banking interns have turned up dead from exhaustion. So some of them probably do work a lot. I can see it more so than engineering because deals are so time sensitive, you really can't slack off if there's a deal on. But agreed, most are probably full of shit :)
- osrec 8y ago
  I agree with you. Interns and analysts run the banks. They really are made to slog it out. It's the VPs, Ds and MDs that claim to work a lot, but many don't actually (thanks to the interns).
buybackoff 8y ago
From my experience gym/steam/sauna is probably the only structured activity you have other than work, and probably "too weak vacation" if you are lucky. And those are just required to be physically functional. 5x12 in the office at PC/phone is absolute minimum, then one of the two weekends, usually Sunday, you catch up and prepare for the next week because during other days there is too much client work (in a general sense - both internal & external clients). So it gives you 72 hours minimum office/PC time, not average. And then you are expected to be always online, even on rare vacations, and respond to emails very quickly. Plus work from remote desktop before bedtime and right after wake up to handle overnight emails and read news. So even if you are not in office you are constantly "ON" and the brain is always working, even on a treadmill in the gym... And then during IPO/initiation/reporting season it's actual 100-120 hours of actual office hours, but that are spikes, after which there is usually some relax time of only light 5x12 schedule. This is for research. Investment bankers in a narrow sense (IPOs, etc) just work in those spike/calm mode. When I first saw the 996 story, my first reaction - given my background - was "whiner"... But in banking your monthly salary is just to cover your "costs of doing business" (but still high), only total annual compensation is a meaningful number, of which the fixed monthly part used to be less than half in good years. So in banking you kind of know why you are doing this. In programming bonuses are usually a much smaller fraction. Plus important thing - you could actually do 100 hours work if you do different work and are switching between tasks that load different parts of the brain. Financial modelling is comparable to programming (actually it is if we agree that Excel is the most used functional programming language) by cognitive load, but it takes a small share of total time. In the 996 case of constant coding it's very doubtful. I mostly do programming now and when I have 8 hours of uninterrupted clear mind spent on complex algos - that's a very productive lucky day. In the 6-8 hours range the focus and brain capacity usually drop so much that having good sleep & rest is much more important to have another good and deep 6-8 hours tomorrow. But then you could write docs, add tests, do simple refactoring, setup backend & cloud, fight with configs - it takes hours and does not load brain as much as some concurrent lock-free data structure. Someone still needs to do that job and it could easily turn 6-8 hours into 10-14.
- osrec 8y ago
  Was your experience as a junior? I concur that this can often be the routine for junior team members, who get sold a false sense of importance for the work they do. Rarely is this the routine for senior team members. Many of the most senior people I worked with only showed up if something bad had happened, or they knew their seniors were going to be around. One member of the board that I reported to only turned up for a day in the entire year, and that was for a meeting with FINMA! That also happened to be the only time I saw his boss in the office... It seems everyone's just taking the piss wherever possible.
booleandilemma 8y ago
This reminds me of the people I know who claim they haven’t slept in 2 days or some such nonsense.
321yawaworht 8y ago
Reminded me of this Amazon video about life as an SDE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1P-gGqNjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1P-gGqNjo All of them seem tired, with strong dark circle under their eyes.
- avinium 8y ago
  Hah! Interesting video, never seen it before. Maybe I'm being suggestible because you raised it, but they all seem to have that shell-shocked, thousand yard stare that only comes after months of crunch time and no rest.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    Both hilarious and sad. Their words are polished PR but their eyes say “I’m close to divorce and my kids don’t know me.”
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Wow, you can hear it in their voices as well.
bitxbit 8y ago
I worked 100 plus for five years on Wall Street. I am still recovering after quitting that job five years ago.

by osrec 8y ago

haolez 8y ago

On the other side, I know some investment bankers and they work more than 60 hours per week. They look unhealthy to me :)

osrec 8y ago
I too was one of those unhealthy looking, overworked bankers. I was promoted at a young age and had a lot to prove, so I overdid it for a year or two. Then I understood the secret the other MDs had known for years - you just have to look busy, not actually be busy!
- Thlom 8y ago
  When I was working construction many years ago there was an urban legend about a guy that always looked busy running around with some tools, but no one ever saw him actually working. Turned out he used to find himself a hidden spot at the site and sleep there most of the day. Just making sure to walk across the site with tools once in a while.
  - KC8ZKF 8y ago
    I learned as a young sailor that if you always had a broom in your hand, nobody would find something for you to do.
stjohnswarts 8y ago
I've had lawyer friends like this. Doing law research can drain the soul after about 40 hours a week.

sergers 8y ago

I have a colleague who works 14 hour days. This includes an hour nap in his car, lunch for 2 hours, and running errands/personal things outside the office for a few more hours. If he sat down and worked straight, we figured he would only need to be in the office no more than 8 hours

kelnos 8y ago
Sounds like he is working an 8-hour day, just during non-traditional times of the day. If that works for him and his family, and management isn't pissed off, sounds like a win-win. (Now if he claims he works 14-hour days, that's a bit dishonest.)
- sergers 8y ago
  Yep claims he has to work till 8pm and work on weekends, but it's all due to his work habits of not doing work in a concistent manner
  - EuroShill 8y ago
    Yeah but butt in seat time is important! Once had a job where I was working 10am to 4pm with an hour lunch. Was fine for a long time until the company management became more OCD about their bean-counting and I got a new toxic "yes man/ass kisser to management" boss. Suddenly my work hours were an issue. They started hard enforcing a department-wide policy where if you weren't seen at your desk, you're assumed to be not working. Under the threat of being fired, I was forced to sit at work from 9am to 7pm. I suspect managers also had "monitors" assigned to keep a watch over employees like me and hours we were at our desks. It was a massive waste of my time as I was now spending a additional 20 hours a week at the office to do the same amount of work as before.

dclusin 8y ago

Investment banking interns have turned up dead from exhaustion. So some of them probably do work a lot. I can see it more so than engineering because deals are so time sensitive, you really can't slack off if there's a deal on. But agreed, most are probably full of shit :)

osrec 8y ago
I agree with you. Interns and analysts run the banks. They really are made to slog it out. It's the VPs, Ds and MDs that claim to work a lot, but many don't actually (thanks to the interns).

buybackoff 8y ago

From my experience gym/steam/sauna is probably the only structured activity you have other than work, and probably "too weak vacation" if you are lucky. And those are just required to be physically functional. 5x12 in the office at PC/phone is absolute minimum, then one of the two weekends, usually Sunday, you catch up and prepare for the next week because during other days there is too much client work (in a general sense - both internal & external clients). So it gives you 72 hours minimum office/PC time, not average. And then you are expected to be always online, even on rare vacations, and respond to emails very quickly. Plus work from remote desktop before bedtime and right after wake up to handle overnight emails and read news. So even if you are not in office you are constantly "ON" and the brain is always working, even on a treadmill in the gym... And then during IPO/initiation/reporting season it's actual 100-120 hours of actual office hours, but that are spikes, after which there is usually some relax time of only light 5x12 schedule. This is for research. Investment bankers in a narrow sense (IPOs, etc) just work in those spike/calm mode. When I first saw the 996 story, my first reaction - given my background - was "whiner"... But in banking your monthly salary is just to cover your "costs of doing business" (but still high), only total annual compensation is a meaningful number, of which the fixed monthly part used to be less than half in good years. So in banking you kind of know why you are doing this. In programming bonuses are usually a much smaller fraction. Plus important thing - you could actually do 100 hours work if you do different work and are switching between tasks that load different parts of the brain. Financial modelling is comparable to programming (actually it is if we agree that Excel is the most used functional programming language) by cognitive load, but it takes a small share of total time. In the 996 case of constant coding it's very doubtful. I mostly do programming now and when I have 8 hours of uninterrupted clear mind spent on complex algos - that's a very productive lucky day. In the 6-8 hours range the focus and brain capacity usually drop so much that having good sleep & rest is much more important to have another good and deep 6-8 hours tomorrow. But then you could write docs, add tests, do simple refactoring, setup backend & cloud, fight with configs - it takes hours and does not load brain as much as some concurrent lock-free data structure. Someone still needs to do that job and it could easily turn 6-8 hours into 10-14.

osrec 8y ago
Was your experience as a junior? I concur that this can often be the routine for junior team members, who get sold a false sense of importance for the work they do. Rarely is this the routine for senior team members. Many of the most senior people I worked with only showed up if something bad had happened, or they knew their seniors were going to be around. One member of the board that I reported to only turned up for a day in the entire year, and that was for a meeting with FINMA! That also happened to be the only time I saw his boss in the office... It seems everyone's just taking the piss wherever possible.

booleandilemma 8y ago

This reminds me of the people I know who claim they haven’t slept in 2 days or some such nonsense.

321yawaworht 8y ago

Reminded me of this Amazon video about life as an SDE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1P-gGqNjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1P-gGqNjo All of them seem tired, with strong dark circle under their eyes.

avinium 8y ago
Hah! Interesting video, never seen it before. Maybe I'm being suggestible because you raised it, but they all seem to have that shell-shocked, thousand yard stare that only comes after months of crunch time and no rest.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Both hilarious and sad. Their words are polished PR but their eyes say “I’m close to divorce and my kids don’t know me.”
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Wow, you can hear it in their voices as well.

bitxbit 8y ago

I worked 100 plus for five years on Wall Street. I am still recovering after quitting that job five years ago.