53 Comments
 

Do you mean just a single day, because I'm sure people have worked for 24 hours straight.. Or do you mean the longest someone has worked without going home?

 

Yup. It’s not the one-off all nighters that bleeds into a 36-hour run that will kill you, it’s the string of 19-hour days where you’re eking out whatever naps you can to keep your eyes from fluttering and skin from buzzing. I still burn the midnight oil maybe once every two weeks but couldn’t pull off anything close to the bullshit from when I was an analyst. Man I do not miss those days at all. Godspeed boys

 

You guys are chumps, I would just go home and go to sleep and show back up in the mourning, if they say anything... doctor's notice saying I need to get my sleep on.

 
Wasting TimeYou guys are chumps, I would just go home and go to sleep and show back up in the mourning, if they say anything... doctor's notice saying I need to get my sleep on.
not sure but i think you are not an analyst yet....and from what I heard its not the way it works in the banking world. if you have a deadline to do a model by next morning, it doesn't matter if you are having a heart attack...you have to do that model
 

If you won’t do it, someone else gladly will. No need to waste a spot in the bullpen on what will be perceived as a slacker when there are 10 other kids itching to jump up the MD’s ass in hopes s/he will learn their name. It sucks but it’s true

 

it's tough to work for 20+ hours without going to sleep i know....but it's not really as tough as it looks...and frankly, there are other jobswhere you might have to work longer hours than in investment banking.. i didn't do it, but in the IT company that i worked earlier, some guys stayed back in the office for 21 days straight without going home because the stupid delivery manager has promised an impossible delivery time for a client...their sleeping schedule also sucked...something like 3 hours sleep 4 hours work 2 hours sleep and so on...basically they slept whenever they had some time..

 
flyingkolousit's tough to work for 20+ hours without going to sleep i know....but it's not really as tough as it looks...and frankly, there are other jobswhere you might have to work longer hours than in investment banking.. i didn't do it, but in the IT company that i worked earlier, some guys stayed back in the office for 21 days straight without going home because the stupid delivery manager has promised an impossible delivery time for a client...their sleeping schedule also sucked...something like 3 hours sleep 4 hours work 2 hours sleep and so on...basically they slept whenever they had some time..

This is called slavery.

 

When I was in banking I lived 5 minutes walking distance from the office so that a couple hours sleep was easy to get. Most I ever put in was 24 hours, then two hours sleep, and then another 20 hours.

Tech can be way worse though as the above poster suggested. As an analyst the task you do are basically not that difficult, with some exceptions, it's just a matter of getting it done. As a programmer, you actaully have to create and make leaps of logic which is very hard to do when extremely tired.

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I did tech for my program (I'm in the third year of my program, albeit it at a different bank) and the hours were bad sometimes.

The thing that sucks about tech is that there are a shit load of companies to follow and a buttload of lists to sort, pitchbooks to make and constant nagging by sr. bankers.

Longest I did was from Wed 8AM to Fri 1AM then I was on a plane at 830AM after driving one to pickup my associate, who lied to me and said he lived in a conveneient part of San Fran to reach. Bastard.

 

yeah you end up pulling all nighters no matter what kind of job you work at, I used to work at a law firm in office services and had a few 36 hour days.(8 am to 8 am, and then another 12 hours till 8 pm)

if you think Investment bankers get nuts about their copy jobs, you've never met lawyers.

Oh and of course the fun thing was, that all of that was for 7 bucks an hour.

 
Best Response

well I was the only one who actually knew how to work the machines, who was still there. The other guys punched out at 6...and the lawyer pretty much told me that it had to be done by the morning no matter what. What can I say I'm dedicated to my work hehe.

But yeah this is one of my main weaknesses, I put work/school before anything else. i.e. during the past 4 years or so, I've missed a total of 2 days of school. The first was when I had to go to the hospital for a kidney stone, and the 2nd was when I couldn't get out of my driveway due to snow.

On top of this, I've never been late for class...came close a few times, but both times it was a mad dash at 100 miles per hour, but I still managed to walk into the class room just as the professor was about to start the lecture.

I blame all of this on my middle school in Russia(Soviet Union back then), I got bitched out hardcore(profanity etc), by the principal for coming to school late. I think this wss the 4th grade. Since then I've never been late.

 

I know IB's work alot of hours but at least they get compensated for it. I once delivered a yacht from Thailand to Singapore, it took me almost five days and even with two of us I only got about 7 hours of sleep the whole trip. And there was nothing to do but watch for fishing boats and pirates. I made about a $1000 for that.

 

well I would think, cruising in a yacht is a little bit less challenging than crunching #s. But yeah I agree, you end up pulling all nighters no matter what kind of job you are in, granted much less frequent compared to IB...but still the possibility is there...so you might as well work in a job that compensates you for it

 
29 hours ... followed by a 5 hour nap ... and then back to it

29hr, 20 hrs, 23 hrs...what do u do?

can someone who works for more than 13 hrs explain briefly wat they do?

 

if you mean why they are doing it for so long, its mostly because the higher up drops a huge work load on you at the last moment.

if you mean how they manage to do such hours? Just take a look at the latest poll that asked about drug use

 

Not in I-banking, but 25 hours, and about a quarter of that was manual labor.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 
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Around 34-from 9 am on a Thurs. to 7 on a Friday.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

60 hours. Back to back all nighters ending at around 8pm on the 3rd day.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

To those who've done more than 24 hours, how much "rest" did you guys get?

People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people Jeremy
 

51, no rest, constant manual labor and being treated like doo-doo butter

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

When I was in the Army I went about 80 hours straight aided substantially by go pills, dip and rip fuel. I was so dehydrated and retarded toward the end that I had a long conversation with a shack that I thought was a vending machine that had stolen my money.

As a civilian I don't think I've done much more than about 36 hours.

 
AggravateWhen I was in the Army I went about 80 hours straight aided substantially by go pills, dip and rip fuel. I was so dehydrated and retarded toward the end that I had a long conversation with a shack that I thought was a vending machine that had stolen my money.

As a civilian I don't think I've done much more than about 36 hours.

Actually saw a guy try to shove a quarter in a tree during an FTX one time...pretty hilarious

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

Question coming from a freshman looking up ; Do I-Banker's adapt to their sleep schedules? Are they healthy physically and mentally after a weeks / month of work?

"There's no such thing as a normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." --Doc Holliday, Tombstone, 1993
 

I'm not a banker yet, but during one of my superdays, my interviewer said he had a "46-hour workday."

I just don't really understand the point of that though. I think you would be just as effective, if not more, by working 20 hours, sleeping for 6, and then working another 20 instead of working for 46 hours straight.

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