UBS LA Classic Definition of "Too Busy"

Wait wait wait..

Is this UBS LA?? I think its DLJ.

Check the email addresses.

And the body of the email. Attention to detail..c'mon.

We're about to enter a Great Depression. Don't you want a president who's already dressed for it?

haha this is funny

"lets define 'busy', you are 'busy' if you are working each weekday at least 16 hours and at least 16 hours on the weekend. These are working hours- not traveling, grabbing or eating time. If these are not your hours at the office, you have the capacity to take on more work."

"Vacations, weekend plans, roadshows, overstaffed due diligence or drafting sessions must take a back seat to getting work done. If you are planning any such activities you should see me before going."

sounds very hardcore to send this out as an email

My bad - it's DLJ, which became UBS LA / Credit Suisse LA. Nice catch Cornelius.

So has anybody out there actually ever worked this much? Can anyone on WSO say that they have been "busy" (as defined above)?

Don't know why people think this is so absurd. As a first year this year, I have had two weeks already like this. Literally had three days one week where I looked up at 9 PM to realize I had not eaten a single meal yet. And weekends were worse with about a total of 25 hours. Probably did around 125 in the week. Even subtracting a little time for general BS'ing around the office this still does not seem that remarkable. I can't imagine telling my staffer I am "too busy" without working about these kind of hours. Maybe other banks are different, but do people really consider 100 hours a bad week and start telling their staffer they are too busy?

I had a stretch at one point as an analyst for about 3 to 4 months where I was consistently pulling 1 to 3 all nighter's a week. I am not talking "all nighters" where you go home at 3 AM and back at 6 AM. I am talking I-have-been-at-the-office-working-on-these-f-ing-numbers-for-43-straight-hours all nighters. I ended up in the hospital with full blown pneumonia, which is not such a bad way to get a week off by the way. After coming back to work, I had to tell my staffer I was too busy. They put another analyst to work with me and we still pulled 90 hour work weeks!!

mad respect.. ibanktoo

being a banker must be like being a navy seal or something!%!!@!!!

I worked at a bank which is considered the "successor" to DLJ/UBS LA (not too hard to guess which one it is) this past summer. After the first week, every single week was like that if not worse for me. The last week, on a Friday afternoon, I went to an optometrist and I mentioned one eye feeling heavier then the other. He looked at me really funny and asked me how mnay hours of sleep I'd gotten this week. I'd had 8 hours of sleep since Sunday afternoon as of Friday.

The end of my internship was like leaving prison, I felt this indescribable feeling of elation and calmness.

It's funny that whenever I hear analysts talk about their worst stretches of work/life imbalance, it almost always turns out that they ended up in the hospital. Given the number of analysts in the City and the number that are getting slammed at any one time, they should open up an analyst bullpen in the hospital and increase productivity!

This is disgusting.

great post! I think the memo is hilarious!

While I haven't had to go to the hospital yet, after 18 months on this job (good lord) I am badly in need of glasses. Luckily the impact on my eyesight can be corrected via surgery (I'll probably sign up in 10 years), but a small part of me feels very pathetic when I try to read a road sign from far away.

~~~~~~~~~~~ CompBanker

I developed eye floaters during my internship. Google them, worst condition ever. I can seriously say that I would rather lug a broken arm around then have these things (after experiencing both). Best part is the doctor telling me that I should just "reconcile myself with who I am".

Okay so can somebody tell me why it is that in general this sort of stuff only happens in the US and not in London (I know quite a lot of analysts and never heard anything remotely similar with one exception where the guy was an idiot and got fired anyhow) yet deals still get done all the same. Worst I heard was once a guy pulled two all nighters trying to impress and was told to go home and sleep till the following day. Some of the stuff above really sounds like exploitation.

Yeah, my bank's culture's pretty serious but nothing like ibanktoo or the Yale guy's.

Just a suggestion for the eye strain. Every 30 mins or so if possible, just look at something far away for 30-60 seconds, like an exit sign across the floor. It seems hokey, but it can really work to reduce the strain - that and remember to blink. A lot of the eyestrain comes from focusing up close for long periods of time. Even though its not like lifting weights, you eye muscle do have to "hold" position (think isometric) to keep you focused on one distance for a long time (like looking at a screen) and become fatigued.

I think the best thing to do is actually to turn brightness on the screen all the way down to

The last two tips are good. Although, it is better to look away from the screen every 5-10 minutes, even if it's for only a few seconds. Don't wear contacts, get glasses. Also, buy some Lutein supplements to help your eye health.

I understand back in the day w/ deals left and right 120 hours was possible, but wtf are people doing right now for 120 hours a week? Making pitch books for the next round of treasury TARP money?! Hahaha.

Restructuring all of the LBOs that the ex-UBS LA guys did.

Its also because you say shit like "therein lies the rub." The funniest thing I've ever seen is an interview with a British actor:

"The greatest pleasure I have is coming out of the gym and, while I'm waiting for me old protein shake, I've got a fag in me mouth... It's the best fag of the day."

You silly flavorless-food-cooking bastards.

did you ever read the book Rainbow 6 by Tom Clancy.

Bankers are more like that multinational antiterrorist tactical unit than wimpy old seals.

I mean an elite special forces unit comprised of 150lb asians, jews and indians. they are so hard. ONE day you people in the rest of the world of 50 hour a week folks doing shit on something other than excel will fully comprehend their hardness!!!!

Ha, reminds me of an anecdote a banker told me at a recruiting event, of another MD looking over the resume of a 4-year NAVY SEAL and asking the other MD (seriously), "You think he can handle the pressure?" Needless to say, MD#1 laughed in his face.

Listen, I totally agree that banking was not that bad. I thought seriously about staying in it for the long haul at one point. But it reminded me of when I was interviewing for banking jobs, I was flying to NYC for an interview and happened to strike up a conversation at the gate with a VP at JPM. He looked beaten down and he said "I was an army ranger before I started banking, and I'd rather be in the rangers, to be honest." Different people take it different ways, I guess.

skins1...i laughed my ass off the first time i read it.. then i re-read it and i said to my self.. thats pretty f*cked up.

Wanted to bump this since it's one of my favorite threads of all time.

The 3 hours allotted for "food/gab" have always been my favorite part of that memo

I don't think he's asking too much of the employees...they can still get more than 7 hours of sleep a night...

^^^Never worked a day in investment banking.

16 hours of work a day not including eating, so 17 hours a day minimum at the office including eating (which I consider a necessity).

Figure a 25 minute commute each way, 45 minutes to shower/shave/brush teeth, etc. in the morning and 15 minutes to take off clothes/brush teeth at night.

That is 5 hours of sleep a night maximum.