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Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#21

Post by Mikeb85 »

cliveowen wrote: post #6

This is all really, really wrong. I wonder how we, as a society, have managed to lower our values this much. Working days and nights and for what? Even if you do become rich, then what? You can't have your health back and you wasted years of your life chasing a dream. When you're on the patio of your beach house with your high blood pressure, anxiety and depression, what have you accomplished? Is reality like the dre…

Plenty of people also work these hours not to get rich, but just to get by. Over-working is a problem in our society in general, not just banks.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#22

Post by yogo »

bambax wrote: post #11

> Lots and lots of people, particularly Americans, will use Adderall, Ritalin and Modafinil. I don't understand. Are we supposed to feel sorry for them?

Naively when I see a job ad asking for a rockstar programmer I assume there will be a supply of coke :P. Asking for a ninja... well that doesn't seem as much fun.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#23

Post by jackgavigan »

andrew_gardener wrote: post #10
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product is billable hours in a lot of cases. Productivity doesn't matter.

That actually makes a lot of sense then. They have an overabundance of interns who are willing to work pointless exhausting hours to prove their mettle allowing them to make bank on man hours. The question become then, why do clients allow them to get away with it? Do they satisfy their clients to such an extent that they don't care about bloated costs or do the clients just not know? Edit: changed metal to mettle >_…

Bankers don't charge by the hour. Lawyers are the ones with billable hours. Bankers make fees or commissions on a "per deal" basis.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#24

Post by danielrmay »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #16
danielrmay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intern was set to make £45,000 / pa (not including bonuses) as an Analyst, but I suppose it opens doors.

In that industry bonuses will increase your salary by double or more... Junior analysts in a big bank/hedge fund can expect to make as much (or slightly more) than a senior programmer in Silicon Valley.

I work in that industry, and that's not quite the case any more. Bonuses for junior analysts can reach up to around 50% (which nearly every other profession could never expect), but they would never exceed base salary.

Anybody saying otherwise has been reading too many tabloids.

You can find out more details about salaries in this area by using a site like glassdoor.com. This 100%+ bonus culture is simply not true (now).

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#25

Post by pc86 »

parasight wrote: post #17
w1ntermute wrote: post #3

Isn't this all just a matter of supply and demand? There are a lot more young people willing to work in this industry than there are positions, so those people who actually get the jobs have to put up with all kinds of stupid shit. I've never understood why these employees (who are clearly quite intelligent) don't just pursue another career where they have more leverage. After all, I don't think they have any particu…

It is rather a matter of missing regulations.

And what regulation(s) would you suggest? People always suggest "more regulation!" as if it's some magical panacea.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#26

Post by jmduke »

JonnieCache wrote: post #20
rayiner wrote: post #14

People like to dramatize this a bit, I think. First, I'll quibble with the definition of all-nighter: "I ended up doing an all-nighter in my first week as an intern, which is when you start work at nine, you stay until five or six the next morning, you go home, have a quick shower and then head back into the office and continue working." If you leave work at 5 and start at 9, and are sensible and live within 20 minut…

>3 whole hours of sleep >100-hour weeks will be interspersed with very dead weeks That still sounds pretty dramatic man. Would you want your doctor on that schedule? Your bus/cab driver?

Would you want your doctor on that schedule?

Doctors in their residency have notoriously awful hours, so bad that they had to legislation was crafted merely to cap the hours at a four-week average of 80 hours (meaning that, yes, they could work 3 one hundred hour weeks and one 20-hour week).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_resident_work_hours

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#27

Post by 001sky »

marco-fiset wrote: post #2

This is stupid behavior from the banking people. Don't they realize that they are less productive working all-nighters?

Its not about productivity. the people doing the work are junior and replaced every 3-5 years. they are disposable, in that sense. Since the repsonsibility gets quite steep quite quickly, its more efficient to haze the junior staff, to push them to the breaking point and see how they do, before promoting them. Many people enter banking who are not suitable to it, because of greed or social pressure. It would be a lot worse if those people were not weeded out. it might sometimes seem impossible that banks could be more poorly run, but there are many who would be far worse to put in these positions.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#28

Post by rorrr2 »

rayiner wrote: post #14

People like to dramatize this a bit, I think. First, I'll quibble with the definition of all-nighter: "I ended up doing an all-nighter in my first week as an intern, which is when you start work at nine, you stay until five or six the next morning, you go home, have a quick shower and then head back into the office and continue working." If you leave work at 5 and start at 9, and are sensible and live within 20 minut…

I think you overestimate how much banking interns make. By a lot.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#29

Post by rayiner »

cliveowen wrote: post #6

This is all really, really wrong. I wonder how we, as a society, have managed to lower our values this much. Working days and nights and for what? Even if you do become rich, then what? You can't have your health back and you wasted years of your life chasing a dream. When you're on the patio of your beach house with your high blood pressure, anxiety and depression, what have you accomplished? Is reality like the dre…

So the article is describing investment banking, which is particularly demanding because it's a service job. You're helping a client do a deal, and clients are demanding and deals are time-sensitive.

People generally do not go into investment banking expecting to make a career out of it. A few-year stint as an analyst is a great way to get into HBS/GSB/Wharton, and from there into a CFO-track position at an F500. It's also a good way to get into a PE/VC firm or a hedge fund. Because those firms do their own deals and have a lot of autonomy from their "clients" (LPs), the jobs aren't quite so demanding. Finally, some people just want to stick it out for 8-10 years, save up a couple of million dollars, and do something else after.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#30

Post by [deleted] »

andrew_gardener wrote: post #10
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product is billable hours in a lot of cases. Productivity doesn't matter.

That actually makes a lot of sense then. They have an overabundance of interns who are willing to work pointless exhausting hours to prove their mettle allowing them to make bank on man hours. The question become then, why do clients allow them to get away with it? Do they satisfy their clients to such an extent that they don't care about bloated costs or do the clients just not know? Edit: changed metal to mettle >_…

[deleted]
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