Why work late instead of getting in earlier?

I don't understand why staying late is the only way to get work done on time when trying to meet a deadline.

There seems to be a general expectation that the later you work, the later you can go into the office the next day. For example, working until 4am means you can go to the office for 10 or even 11am the next morning and it's acceptable.

Is there a particular reason why analysts can't go home at midnight, then come back to the office for 6/7am to finish off the work they would have done into the early hours of the morning? Surely it won't make a difference if seniors have the work ready before they get there?

Interested to hear your thoughts.

7 Comments
 
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You don't just "get work done." You have to wait on people. Like, I have nothing to do right now, but I can't just "go to my next class" in college..

 

Exactly. Issue a lot of the time is senior bankers giving you an assignment at 5pm while they walk out the door asking for something by morning or something.

Also, you run the risk of having something run longer than anticipated, or you thought you had all morning to work on something but then get blown up by something last minute. For all those reasons you end up working late instead of working early.

 

Yeah, a lot of senior guys also tend to be in (or at least online) really early. Since they usually aren't waiting up for you, they want them in their inbox first thing in the morning.

 

You have to take in to account that most of the time people are bad at accurately estimating how long a task will take. People in IB know this - it is simply too risky to go to bed without having tasks that have a next day (or morning) deadline finished.

It just comes down to the fact that staying and grinding late means you have a much larger margin for error. Think about it - there are times when you will pull a full on all nighter (as in, you don't leave the office), if you had left early and tried to finish in the morning you simply would not have finished the task. You can come in late the morning after grinding deep in to the night because, well.... the task is done.

 
"InvestInYourShelf" You have to take in to account that most of the time people are bad at accurately estimating how long a task will take. People in IB know this - it is simply too risky to go to bed without having tasks that have a next day (or morning) deadline finished.

It just comes down to the fact that staying and grinding late means you have a much larger margin for error. Think about it - there are times when you will pull a full on all nighter (as in, you don't leave the office), if you had left early and tried to finish in the morning you simply would not have finished the task. You can come in late the morning after grinding deep in to the night because, well.... the task is done.

Yes. How well can you really sleep at night knowing you have deliverables due early the next AM and not much time to complete them? I'd rather not take the risk and finish it all at once.

 

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