"110-Hour Workweeks Drove Young Bankers at a Boutique Firm to the Brink"
https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/banking-culture-robert-w-baird-aeccc947?mod=hp_lead_pos2
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No opinion on the actual events / main thread other than: I don’t ever want to work 110 hours a week. Have done 100+ weeks 3 times in my career and they took their toll. I’m sure prospects are thinking the same thing. Regardless of business reality, this is not a good look for any bank.
Only time Baird bankers make it to wsj!
Stop deleting comments mods
What's more astonishing is that plenty of boomers in the comments are defending Baird and saying that analysts are free to quit. But they miss the point.
The point is that if you are actively attracting talent to your bank, then take some accountability and don't fuck up those kids' career, because there are professional repercussions of quitting your job and then trying to justify it in upcoming interviews assuming you overcome the prejudice of those checking it to even get an interview. So you're exploiting someone's fear to the point of coercion. If they quit earlier they might altogether quit finance because it will raise eye brows on other firms so it will make it extremely hard to recruit for another FO role.
But when articles like those are made public, it's easier for others to see your resume or trajectory and get more clarity on your situation if you end up quitting + easier for prospects to understand if the environment is toxic because no insider will tell you all the bad besides some generalized statements that it's "sweaty". So always important to voice those things if management fucking sucks, especially when there are plenty of ways to remain under anonymity.
p.s. lol at some comments with "in my days...", those boomers are on fucking mushrooms. We do in 1 day what they took 14 days to do. The products that firms make nowadays are more polished and prepared way faster and more accurate and at extreme levels with comments circling back and forth on the spot 24/7 so no mental downtime to even recharge.
These are the same boomers who don’t even know how to turn on a laptop
This is embarrassing. Almost every other IB group on the street is somehow able to work long hours and close deals effectively without analysts wondering if the Geneva Conventions apply to them. Hope these analysts can get some good exits and build a career somewhere with more competent/efficient seniors.
Sucks to be the staffer mentioned by name in the article. WSJ, how are you gonna pin the blame on a mid level staffer when those most responsible are the actual leaders of the firm who dictate policy and culture?
100% agree — anyone who has ever worked in banking know the staffer is a passthrough. They can obviously force people onto deals, but this doesn’t sound like a case of one guy getting crushed for no reason. This was group wide and systemic, which means 75+% of the blame falls on the seniors. Blaming the mid levels is a cheap way to avoid addressing legitimate leadership shortfalls
They will 100% just change the staffer and call it a day.
Yeah I worked with the VP back in the day when he was a junior banker and he was always a stand up guy/hard worker. Not sure how much he changed, but definitely didn't deserve to take all the heat from WSJ
Yeah okay hang this whole thing around a VP’s neck, who is still just a pawn for Mike, Joe, and Joel. Once again, nothing changes
The wildest thing about this story is that it is Baird industrials.
If these guys were being paid a fuckton to do huge high stakes public m&a that reshapes entire industries, I might understand. Not everyone is cut out for the big time whatever
But how does one manage to turn selling $100 million westbubblefuck car washes into the eastern front of world war 2? Seriously? Senior bankers cant do this without sacrificing junior bankers and their own reputations with this sort of press lol?
To me this feels like an indictment of intelligence, talent and managerial skills as much as anything else.
I am completely bewildered
Their selling point is we will treat your deal independently from your size. at the end of the day why should the management care when who creates the deck are people who will eventually leave anyway? Head mentioned multiple times that should improve efficiency with VP encouraging to get more deals as the capacity is there!! Quote :if you are not working till 3am everyday your capacityshould not be zero
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