Death from Overwork

Many thanks, Lloyd. Hope the same for you in each case :). Do enjoy the lemon meringue pie ;P

Yes, I remember reading about this back in late 2014 actually. The fact that Kiroshi is a word to mean death from overwork really is fascinating. There's something to do with the culture of the country and work environment broadly for something like this to perpetuate I'd think. You'd have widescale riots in the US if you saw something similar ;P

With respect to face time and leaving before your boss, I can't speak for everyone but it's generally alright in our group. The only thing to do in advance is to give a heads up and ask if there's anything immediately that they need. Over communication is critical in that sense. In terms of other fields, law is pretty grueling, and I've seen some of my colleagues at big law firms work consistently odd hours (weeks on end leaving the office at 3 and coming back at 9). The thing with law that exacerbates things is that your workload really doesn't materially decrease as you move up (in banking the nature of your work changes but you are offered some form of predictability in your life). I've seen big law partners still putting in some untenable hours consistently, but perhaps the mileage varies. Medicine also is pretty terrible at the resident level, and seasoned surgeons still are on call at odd hours as well. Different forms of stress, but stress nonetheless

I've had some rough weeks, some predictable weeks, and some pretty good weeks, which I imagine is par for the course :). Stepping back and thinking from a different perspective helps at least put the moment in context when you feel like you're hitting a proverbial wall. I'm sure there are other jobs with extreme physical workloads or untenable/dangerous conditions that are just as bad if not worse than banking.

When it comes down to it, we are well paid, well dressed, and well conditioned white collar professionals sitting behind a computer on a desk for 15+ hours a day working on a series of tasks. Definitely beats physical indentured servitude in all respects :)