Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey • Hacker News Board

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#41

Post by hellogoodbye » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

read Matt Levine's take on this https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-18/goldma...

most interesting bit:

> What I said then is that what is bad for junior-employee lifestyle is generally good for the firm; the fact that everyone is working too hard means that there’s a lot of lucrative work to do:

> “We recognize that our people are very busy, because business is strong and volumes are at historic levels,” said Nicole Sharp, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs. “A year into Covid, people are understandably quite stretched, and that’s why we are listening to their concerns and taking multiple steps to address them.”

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#42

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #17

tgv wrote: post #10

I don't think these are the people that deserve our sympathy. What did they think? That they would get rich by defrauding the world only 40 hours a week? > mentally I’m in a really dark place Indeed. First find some morals, then try again.

What do they do that’s immoral?

[deleted]

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#43

Post by spaetzleesser » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

I guess so far the money they are making is worth the pain. You can only hope that they will make working conditions even worse so less people go into investment banking. The financial sector is way too big as a part of the economy and you can only hope that people will go into sectors of the economy where they actually provide value for society.

There were less people in that sector they would have less time to cook up derivatives on top of derivatives on top of derivatives that will probably blow up the economy soon again. Of course we will bail them out again too.

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#44

Post by adenozine » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

I think it'd be an interesting idea to try and ban people from working more than 50 hours. It's better for the humans in the long run, they'll feel better and be more healthy. I also think there should be mandatory physical movement policies. Have teams of people make a few laps around the block or a park or something. That'd get the dopamine flowing and again, everyone would feel better.

That being said, I don't feel that sympathetic to these juniors, but I can understand why they feel they need to do this. Finance is opaque and obscured by design, to keep people out of the money mansion. They are in a hostile environment and they adopt hostile behaviors to survive. It's not different than violent prisons imo, in concept. They just adapt.

What a world.

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#45

Post by ForHackernews » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #24

> "The sleep deprivation, the treatment by senior bankers, the mental and physical stress... I've been through foster care and this is arguably worse." I know GS'ers aren't popular people. But this is no way to treat anybody.

No one's forcing them to put up with it: they're paid handsomely (not compared to their abusive superiors, obviously) and they can quit any time they want.

My sympathy for greedy masochists is limited.

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#46

Post by kaesar14 » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

LeonM wrote: post #34

I call BS on the 95 hour claim. Among a lot of people, especially bankers, there is a sort of bragging right about making insane hours. But 95h/week is impossible. That would be almost 14h per day, for every day of the week. Or 19 hours a day when working week days. My impressions of bankers is that they are like programmers. They are paid to think . Performing research, reading reports, etc. Most people, myself incl…

I'm not sure how to disprove what you're saying, but I'm right around the age of these first year analysts and have friends working at top IB firms in similar positions, and 95 hours is usually the extreme end of what they work a week. It's always at least 85 hours, and has gone up to 100 - 105 hours. Yes, it is around 14 hours every day if not more, with some weekdays being closer to 17-18 hours. It's the nature of the industry.

Much of the time they're paid to create similar models to stuff they've done in the past, it's not the MOST intellectually demanding job in terms of needing optimal creativity and brainpower. And a lot of the time it's just doing stuff like double checking numbers and rearranging reports.

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#47

Post by siva7 » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

rktdno wrote: post #26

As a resident in the hospital (a couple years ago) I worked 100 hours a week and there were others on the team who were putting in more hours than I was. I think the hours are similar at some law firms. Honestly I find it hard to believe people actually exist that only work 40 hours a week.

I am sorry to give a reality check, but there are plenty. making even more bucks in 20 hours than some residents in a hospital in 100 hours. so for me its hard to believe there are people putting in 100 hours for their employer for free (guess your contract says 40 hours)

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#48

Post by buro9 » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

LeonM wrote: post #34

I call BS on the 95 hour claim. Among a lot of people, especially bankers, there is a sort of bragging right about making insane hours. But 95h/week is impossible. That would be almost 14h per day, for every day of the week. Or 19 hours a day when working week days. My impressions of bankers is that they are like programmers. They are paid to think . Performing research, reading reports, etc. Most people, myself incl…

I worked for Morgan Stanley in London almost a decade ago, they were a notch down from Goldman Sachs, and there I worked supporting analysts roughly 90-100 hours per week for the entire 6 week engagement (and occasionally this was 6 days per week). I only did 6 weeks, but this was absolutely normal for those in that department.

This isn't to say that the whole of the company do it, but some teams, some roles, some functions... they really do these hours.

PS: "Notch down"... there was an unwritten hierarchy, if you worked at one rung of the hierarchy then you were good for that rung and the rungs below but not the rung above. This can be translated as "if you could survive in Goldman Sachs you can survive anywhere" and "if you can survive Morgan Stanley then you can survive anywhere except Goldman Sachs". "Survive" isn't just hours, but also being shouted at, whipped to work at a certain level, the sexism/racism... as a programmer I built a reporting system and one of the reports constructed by the manager at Morgan Stanley was nicknamed "the baseball bat" as it formed the basis for ritual punishment and humiliation of low performing analysts and traders.

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#49

Post by AlwaysRock » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

zelon88 wrote: post #2

> Rectifying The Situation: 80 hours per week should be considered max capacity That's not tone deaf or anything.

Lol. That is an incredible bullet point. Someone actually decided okay we need to draw a line in the sand where anything more is excessive. That line is at 80 hours. After that is too much.

God I hate late stage capitalism.

Re: Goldman Sachs Working Conditions Survey

#50

Post by liquidify » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

Wow. Personally I wouldn't make it a week. I value my time outside of work more than I value work. Of course, like they said, they didn't sign up expecting a 40 week. But yeah, this sounds like torture.