Burnout and stress in finance
I'm a junior surgical resident in a high stress specialty working 80-100 weeks. In medicine, we constantly as a profession, talk about burnout and physician overwork, stress and suicide. Ironically, it tends to be the doctors who work the least hours, like family doctors, psychiatrists etc. talking about burnout as an issue, but all the meanwhile doing nothing to actually reduce hours. I find that i use the word burnout a lot working these hours with the kind of stress i deal with on the job. I wonder how much of it is a self-fulfilling prophecy i.e., because medical school and the profession discusses burnout and stress all the time but does nothing to actually fix anything, I find myself thinking about burnout and stress (and feeling sorry for myself) more than I would have otherwise.
I don't see the words, burnout, stress and suicide nearly as much in high finance. The hours are similar, ibankers seem to do 80-100 hours a week just the same, but I find this kind of victim mentality just doesn't seem to be as prevalent in banking. For bankers out there, do you feel frustrated or feel like a victim re: your hours? Or do you just feel like this is the norm?
What are you doing on a finance forum?
OP - General answers you'll get here are drink lots of water, shoot for a minimum of 6 hours of sleep daily, don't rely too heavily on caffeine or prescribed stimulants, etc.
One that I don't think gets enough attention is mandatory vacations/time out of the office. A friend of mine who just made partner at her law firm said this is something that is becoming increasingly popular in her profession, not wide spread at all, but more common nonetheless. Every 3-4 months, have a 3-4 day weekend. No work at all during that time aside from emergency emails. May be difficult for a physician, we're finance people here, it typically isn't life-or-death for us. But just put it in your schedule/have your admin/secretary do it, no scheduling or major operations/whatever you do during that "long weekend". The key is to actually get out and decompress for more than the 6-8 hours you typically get between those long shifts you work at the hospital
It's well studied and documented that more work doesn't always equal increased productivity, in fact its typically the opposite. Issues of anxiety and depression are very common with individuals who work ridiculous hours over long periods of time with heavy stress.
No one is forcing you do to this or work this much, so hopefully you like it. And hopefully you have some sort of life outside of work, otherwise what is the point. I think if you have those two things in check, and set up healthy habits and a schedule with how to manage the two, you'll be fine and hopefully not find yourself in the victim mentality you referenced.
And to finally answer your question - Yes, it is the norm, but you knew that when you signed up
Really appreciate this answer, yes I definitely do like it. I mentally prepared myself coming in, there are good days and bad days, but there are a few breaks in between, a few months here and there where you are on an easier rotation with time to take a bit of a break.
Luckily as residents we do get vacations and fortunately we all take our vacation, there isn't a culture of not doing so.
Banking is orders of magnitude less stressful and less taxing than medicine practiced in a high acuity setting (i.e. inpatient / hospital).
That's why you don't hear these things discussed as much with white-collar office professionals.
Once done with residency or fellowship, what is your typical hours per week that you expect?
In my specialty, around 70 hours a week + call which varies depending on how many surgeons you share the call with. Depending on the type of practice I go for, I could probably do as low as 65 hours a week and as high as I want.
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