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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

#31

Post by coolnow »

jmduke wrote: post #18
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…

Was it intentional or unintentional that your comment also describes the life of entrepreneurs/startup founders?

Through a startup, most times at least you can say you provided a service (like Dropbox). With banking, you're pretty much a devil in a lot of people's eyes and you're working purely for the profit of your employer.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#32

Post by rjsw »

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…

The article is about London, the author won't have had time to sleep before heading back to the office.

A 20 month commute would put me off working anywhere.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#33

Post by Pxtl »

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 >_…

FYI, it's mettle. Stupid homophones.

And for a client, the deadline is more important than the money sometimes. I mean, when you see what these firms bill, it's obviously money is no object for the customer... because damn.

If the job market keeps worsening and huge unemployment/underemployment/unpaid work becomes The New Normal, it will become time to have a hard conversation about hard caps on working hours as a means to improve quality of life for the workers and provide more jobs to the non-workers. You want to put in 100 hours? You'd better be co-owner.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#34

Post by danielrmay »

pc86 wrote: post #25
parasight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And don't forget, if your regulations are too difficult to conform to, these banks and hedge funds will simply move operations to somewhere less stringent.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#36

Post by JonnieCache »

jmduke wrote: post #26
JonnieCache wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

Good point. It used to be like that here in the UK too, thankfully we now have the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#37

Post by danielrmay »

adam-a wrote: post #13
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.

For an entry level position that's probably 1.5-2.5x what a software dev could expect to make in the UK. In my experience at least.

London is different in this manner - an entry level software developer position (at a consultancy, bank, hedge-fund, etc) can go from 35k-45k.

Outside of London (as I'm sure you're aware), this could be offered as a senior developer salary.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#38

Post by rayiner »

rorrr2 wrote: post #28
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.

If you're a banking intern, it means you're a college kid. If you're in NYC, you can do something like live in NYU student housing for the summer. It's no big deal.

As an analyst, you'll be making over six figures, with a base in the $70-$80k range. You can live 20 minutes from midtown Manhattan on that, though you'll probably have to have roommates (but hey you're 22 so again, no big deal).

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