Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 225 posts

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#201

Post by sklivvz1971 »

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

That is so false, and if it's true is unbelievably stupid. It means that your work is so useless you can do it completely sleep deprived and burnt out.

Wow, a great contribution to a company.

I'd think that a company that needs to perform at the highest level should do so with smart people giving their best hours and resting appropriately so they can be sharp.

The number of hours is irrelevant. Great people are great because their contributions are of great value, not because they contribute mediocre work three times as much as everybody else.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#203

Post by hysan »

rayiner wrote: post #179
iyulaev wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not have team members work shifts? Get 24 hour coverage in the office without having frazzled people making poor decisions. Besides, the people making the decisions aren't these banking interns nor the junior associates. The more junior guys and gals are, from what I understand, mostly just doing grunt work.

Why don't programmers work in shifts? You work on a module for eight hours then someone steps in at 6 and picks up where you left off? Juniors don't make decisions, they do analysis to support the decision makers. If a decision maker proposes something in the afternoon, he wants the analysis by morning to make the decision.

> Why don't programmers work in shifts? You work on a module for eight hours then someone steps in at 6 and picks up where you left off?

We sorta do in some cases. If you've ever worked closely with an outsourced team (in my case, India) handling support cases, this ends up being almost exactly like working in shifts. We make sure to commit our code and update the bug/client ticket before leaving. Then someone on the India team can pick up the work from where we left off.

Of course, this was only used specifically for high priority cases that came directly via a client rather than a normal bug fix or feature request. But I think this reflects exactly how and when shifts should be used. Work that can wait until tomorrow doesn't need to be handed off to someone. Work that is urgent can be handled in shifts.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#204

Post by michaelochurch »

danielrmay wrote: post #24
Mikeb85 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (n…

100+% bonuses still exist, but for VP and higher and in high-performing groups. Analysts aren't getting those post-2008.

Typically a VP in a high-performing group will outrank an ED or MD in a lower-ranking group (say, $150+300k vs. $300+100k).

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#205

Post by michaelochurch »

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…

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 particular love for banking. Being on HN, the obvious suggestion would be software development (not a bad choice, considering the current state of the market), but there are a lot of other options out there as well.

If you fail in software, then you're just an out-of-work programmer. If you fail in banking, you take a two-year timeout at Harvard Business School and raise a search fund before you're 30.

The upside of software is arguably better (fatter rightward tail, more interesting work, more impact, less tied to NYC and London) but the insurance is not there.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#207

Post by Mikeb85 »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #197

I think it's a way of rationalizing the insane amount of money they make and fighting off the guilt they have for basically not deserving most of it. But of course, I'm not a banker.

Our economy doesn't reward workers based on merit, but on dynamics like supply/demand, risk, scarcity, etc...

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#208

Post by michaelochurch »

I might sound like a dick here, but I'm just trying to be matter-of-fact about it.

If you have depression, anxiety, or panic disorder, you probably shouldn't consider an analyst program to be a viable career option, just as being a pro basketball player isn't viable for 99+ percent of people. Sorry, but it's just not going to work; those typically manageable conditions become crippling disabilities in the crucible of a 100-hour work week. You should probably find another way; if you're smart, you can do something more interesting than analyst dreck, get an MBA, and move in as an associate-- or, perhaps even better, stick with technology and move in as a quant and have a ~10-hour day.

This person had epilepsy, which is potentially fatal. He never should have taken on an analyst gig.

I'm not saying this isn't horrible and wrong-- obviously, it is-- but I wish in general that young people were more aware of the reality of health risks. It's one thing to go into a job like that knowing what the risks are, but a lot of people have no clue.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#209

Post by michaelochurch »

No1 wrote: post #113

What I find most intriguing is that the whole banking intern hours thing is that it's not the result of a resource constraint - they have plenty of money and plenty of intern applicants. It's also not about getting particularly difficult work done - intern-level spreadsheet and PowerPoint work isn't the sort of thing that only a select few can handle. It's entirely about filtering for people who will submit to abuse.

It's entirely about filtering for people who will submit to abuse.

Sort-of, but not entirely. You have the typical corporate exponential bottleneck (~25+% per year attrition) and extremely competitive people, but the work isn't intellectually difficult, so people need to compete on something, and it comes down to conformity and availability. It turns out that some people can take that to an extent that would kill many of us. We're good at our stuff; they're good at theirs.

I don't think the intention is to subject analysts to "abuse" at any level beyond the abuse that comes from clients. Sure, there's a bit of hazing and testing that goes on, but it's there for a reason: when shit really does hit the fan, even the MDs (who usually have a 9-to-5 existence if they want it) are working 24/7. You can't be a front-office banker if you can't deal with those kinds of hours-- even into your 40s.

Re: Pushed to the limit as a banking intern

#210

Post by w1ntermute »

michaelochurch wrote: post #205
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…

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 particular love for banking. Being on HN, the obvious suggestion would be software development (not a bad choice, considering the current state of the market), but there are a lot of other options out there as well. If you fail in software…

> If you fail in banking, you take a two-year timeout at Harvard Business School and raise a search fund before you're 30.

Uhh, what? How many people can get into HBS? I don't think it's that simple.

OTOH, if you fail in software, you just find another job - that's what the market is like right now.

Post reply on HN