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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

#81

Post by wavefunction »

jackgavigan wrote: post #48

When Google was a young company, she worked 130 hours per week and often slept at her desk. "For my first five years at Google, I pulled an all-nighter every week," Mayer said in a recent talk at New York's 92Y cultural center. "It was a lot of hard work." Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223723

I'm sorry but that's bullshit and unsustainable imo. I say that as someone who has worked nearly 100 weeks of 80+ hours over my career and has worked 100 hour weeks for a month or two.

It's not believable that Mayer worked 130 hours per week for 5 years.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#82

Post by static_typed »

You have to experience working in an IB to appreciate the article. They are very very much swamped down in politics process and paperwork (albeit electronic these days). It takes ages to do small things, forever to do the rest. No one has a long-term view beyond the next quarter, and most believe in doing just enough to grab some bonus and run. You will encounter big swinging dicks who like to lord it over the interns, making them stay late, just because they can. You will see many many unhappy faces everyday, and you will feel a little bit more lost with each day you remain there.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#83

Post by harryh »

DanBC wrote: post #59
harryh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might sound wrong to you, but that's fine. You can do something else. There are plenty of people who love working in banking with this sort of culture (and the financial rewards it brings). There's nothing wrong with different people having different goals.

It is clear that perverse incentives exist in some industries, and that those industries have failed to self-regulate. They now need regulation forced upon them. Luckily, in the UK, we have the European Working Times directive, and so interns should not feel forced to work 70 continuous hours.

How is "you'll have to work insane hours, but we'll pay you a shit ton of money" a perverse incentive?

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#84

Post by jbooth »

31reasons wrote: post #80

Computers have increased people's productivity through the roof and still we see people working more than 100 hour/week. Are they working on something that can't be automated or they don't want to automate ? Are they doing something that can't be done by two people instead of one ? Something is not right.

They do small bits of work that would be hard to automate, accompanied by metric shitloads of reporting and process so that the people at the top can look at an oversimplified graph of what's going on.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#85

Post by 31reasons »

jackgavigan wrote: post #48

When Google was a young company, she worked 130 hours per week and often slept at her desk. "For my first five years at Google, I pulled an all-nighter every week," Mayer said in a recent talk at New York's 92Y cultural center. "It was a lot of hard work." Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223723

I somehow feel that when your company is growing 1000% a week and you have lot of equity in that company, somehow you find strength to work that many hours without breaking sweat. I believe thats more enjoyable experience than just work.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#86

Post by purplelobster »

enraged_camel wrote: post #74
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Three hours of sleep - if that - is far, far too little for any normal human being to function normally. Also yes, working until 6 AM is an all-nighter, it's dawn then. > Second, how many times did you pull a few all-nighters in a row during college? I can't even count. I certainly didn't die. Never. I don't get why people do it either, it's not like it makes you a better student. If anything, having to pull all-ni…

College students who pull all-nighters do so two reasons: 1. They tend to be terrible at time management and prioritization. They procrastinate until the last minute and then have no choice but to cram. 2. They do it to create a narrative that can protect both their ego and their image. "I failed the exam despite pulling an all-nighter - it was just crazy hard!" sounds a lot better than "I failed the exam because I'm…

Yes, I see having to pull an all-nighter as a big failure on my part. I did once or twice, but I noticed it's just counter productive. I was adding negative value at 2-6am, it would have been better to sleep and continue the next morning, or just let it go.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#87

Post by [deleted] »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #5
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…

Because banking makes a hell of a lot more money.

[deleted]

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#88

Post by 31reasons »

wavefunction wrote: post #81
jackgavigan wrote: post #48

When Google was a young company, she worked 130 hours per week and often slept at her desk. "For my first five years at Google, I pulled an all-nighter every week," Mayer said in a recent talk at New York's 92Y cultural center. "It was a lot of hard work." Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223723

I'm sorry but that's bullshit and unsustainable imo. I say that as someone who has worked nearly 100 weeks of 80+ hours over my career and has worked 100 hour weeks for a month or two. It's not believable that Mayer worked 130 hours per week for 5 years.

Its technically possible, all you have to do is put sleep in your task list.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#89

Post by DanBC »

31reasons wrote: post #85
jackgavigan wrote: post #48

When Google was a young company, she worked 130 hours per week and often slept at her desk. "For my first five years at Google, I pulled an all-nighter every week," Mayer said in a recent talk at New York's 92Y cultural center. "It was a lot of hard work." Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223723

I somehow feel that when your company is growing 1000% a week and you have lot of equity in that company, somehow you find strength to work that many hours without breaking sweat. I believe thats more enjoyable experience than just work.

but would you have the self discipline to recognise when long hours are becoming counter-productive, and being harmful not helpful?

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#90

Post by DanBC »

harryh wrote: post #83
DanBC wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is clear that perverse incentives exist in some industries, and that those industries have failed to self-regulate. They now need regulation forced upon them. Luckily, in the UK, we have the European Working Times directive, and so interns should not feel forced to work 70 continuous hours.

How is "you'll have to work insane hours, but we'll pay you a shit ton of money" a perverse incentive?

The guy says that he wasn't doing any work. He was just a warm body.

Thus "You'll have to be at your desk for insane hours. You won't be doing much work. You increase the chance of fat-finger[1] errors. We know you'll probably have to take illegal drugs to stay awake that long. We're borderline illegal. We're opening ourselves up to serious legal liability (eg, causing harm to our workers). But hey, you'll get a shitton of money. (Where shitton is not that much, and less than you'd get from other more normal jobs)"

It's a perverse incentive because there's money slopping round in banking, and there are not adequate controls on how that money makes its way from A to B to C.

The bank does $SOMETHING, and the customers are happy and pay, and the bank pays $BONUS. But there's randomness in the system and often the $SOMETHING has very little to do with actually making any money.

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