I once worked 1,140 days in a week. Yes, you read that right one thousand one hundred and forty.

But believe it or not, it was before my banking days. I was a newscaster traveling to Punxsutawney, PA for groundhog day coverage and every night when I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up the next day and it would be the same day all over again.

It was a real nightmare.

 
Marcus_Halberstram:
I once worked 1,140 days in a week. Yes, you read that right one thousand one hundred and forty.

But believe it or not, it was before my banking days. I was a newscaster traveling to Punxsutawney, PA for groundhog day coverage and every night when I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up the next day and it would be the same day all over again.

It was a real nightmare.

Pure genius!

 
Marcus_Halberstram:
I once worked 1,140 days in a week. Yes, you read that right one thousand one hundred and forty.

But believe it or not, it was before my banking days. I was a newscaster traveling to Punxsutawney, PA for groundhog day coverage and every night when I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up the next day and it would be the same day all over again.

It was a real nightmare.

...inception

 
rjroberts1:
Still don't get the obsession with touting how many hours you work in a week. Its like bragging that you get paid shit on an hourly basis. Hooray!

I agree. Typically I brag about how little work I actually do. Value add, baby!!!

Regards

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
 
Best Response
West Coast rainmaker:
Have these hours always been the norm? I can't imagine a guy in the 60's or 70's working over 100 a week.

In the 60s or 70s meaning like 1960s/1970s? These hours are pretty normalized. Echo the comments above re: inflating. In the office is usually between 80-90 on more stressful weeks, but it isn't go-go-go the whole time. There's downtime built in, but with that being said I typically take lunch at my desk and usually am in the mid to upper 80s. Put in 102 last week and was pretty tired, but that was because I went out a lot for drinks (read: not a good idea). Other than that a 100 hour week really isn't all that bad. Maybe others see it differently, but I look at it like being in a casino. There's some days when I'm like, how have I even been here that long.

Overall, the hours are manageable unless you're at a sweatshop or your group is big on face time. I'm lucky that my group culture is very chill.

 

I cannot imagine working 130 hours in a week. I would probably walk out. There is no way you are getting shit done for 130 hours.

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

THIS IS NOT A NORMAL WEEK (if you were wondering)

I've had a couple close to a 100 hours spread over 7 days. Sometimes the workload makes me go into a 'super work mode' and forget about the time. A couple of weeks ago I came in at 6am (had to finish up something from the day before) and buried myself in work. Stopped to eat, shit, hydrate and fresh air. Looked at my watch and it was suddenly 2am.

To you wannabe bankers out there; THIS IS NOT A NORMAL WEEK(DAY).

Time flies when you are doing interesting shit.

CNBC sucks "This financial crisis is worse than a divorce. I've lost all my money, but the wife is still here." - Client after getting blown up
 

And 155 hours a week would leave you with 13 hours a week for everything and anything else. I cant picture that being feasible for even the most sleep-deprived, workaholic, careerist minded monkey

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art - Andy Warhol
 

In reference to West Coast rainmaker comment: "Clearly, the hours in "most hours worked in a week" thread are not standard."

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." — George Carlin

I am still just waiting for the first high schooler/wannabe banker to take this thread to the next level; asking if this is the norm.

CNBC sucks "This financial crisis is worse than a divorce. I've lost all my money, but the wife is still here." - Client after getting blown up
 

Definitely agree with people inflating their hours worked.

I'd say standard is in the 70-90 hour range.

I also have the view that certain types of people obsess about being in the office and are often here needlessly just to satiate their own desire to "work banker hours". Its not odd to see a handful of the usual suspects in the office at any given hour weekend or weekday, who are not working on anything live or any pressing pitches. Its these same people that are adding up how many hours they worked last week so they can get a hard on when its in the triple digits. So the takeaway is... alot of the people saying I worked 117.5 hours, are fucking tools, are inefficient and largely pathetic. I don't know how you would have any idea of how many hours you work from week to week or why you would sit there keeping track.

The exception is if you're in restructuring where you're sometimes required to bill by the hour. So if all the deals your working on are hourly or you're working on-site for a few weeks, you've got a pretty good idea of how many hours you're working. I don't know in terms of the max ever... but I know I've done 110-ish for 3 weeks straight... which is about as brutal as one can imagine. BTW, 110-ish is working 10AM-4AM M-F, and Noon to Mid-Night Sat and Sunday both.

So NO ONE anywhere is doing 130 week in and week out, thats a bunch of bullshit. I also don't get why working so many hours is so fuckin romanticized on here. Its a pretty pathetic lifestyle, there's nothing sexy about it.

 
Marcus_Halberstram:
I know I've done 110-ish for 3 weeks straight... which is about as brutal as one can imagine. BTW, 110-ish is working 10AM-4AM M-F, and Noon to Mid-Night Sat and Sunday both.

This must have been when you made the thread about living in the office.

"One should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it, indeed, especially when one doesn't like it." - Charlie Munger
 

Marcus, totally agree. I hate the fucking office and I try to get out of here as early as I possibly can, but I know plenty of people who will sit here until 10 or 11pm on a week night because that's what they do, regardless of how much (rather, how little) they have to do. Whenever I have work, I complete it as quickly as humanly possible to GTFO of here. I might only work 70-80 hours a week (or less), but I know people would take 90-100 to do the same shit, not because they're incompetent (though that could be part of it) but because they think it's "cool" to leave the office at 10pm on a Friday night, meet up with their friends and brag about the shitty week they just had. If I can get home by 8pm on a Wednesday night, I'm doing it.

I also know plenty of people who just show up Saturday at 11am or noon to "check email" or "finish a slide" or something stupid, and then use that excuse to stay in the office for four or five hours on a Saturday. Is life that pathetic and boring that you couldn't either (1) do it from home, (2) finish it Friday night, or (3) take care of it first thing Monday AM?

 

I just got off one of my more miserable weeks. Definitely over 100, probably teetering on ~115-120. It more speaks to the shitty structure in our group - 3rd years and 2nd years who are on their way out do not get staffed and can easily roll off of client accounts, while those returning get all of their work.

Flat out, I did my absolute worst work over the past 2-3 days. Any complicated analysis was just downright painful to think about and I could barely even get by without making retarded mistakes (i.e. mislinks were pretty much a given in anything I worked on that involved excel.)

 

I know people have asked this before, but why the fuck don't they just hire more people so no one has to work 100 hours a week? I mean all you do is plug shit into excel sheets and edit power point presentations all day, there is no other job that I know of that has people work these hours when they are literally doing mindless, degrading, mostly useless work. I just don't accept there isn't a better way to run the business.

 

LOL ekude, sounds like you're one of those idiots who actually thinks the work you're doing is REALLY time sensitive and important. Fortunately, I work with senior-level folks who, for the most part, realize that any work rolling in at 9PM is work that can be done the following day. Obviously if it's something crazy for a client that MUST be done, it will (and the analyst staffed will have to complete it, whether he's left for the evening or not), but it seems like you're a sucker for face time. Blows.

I've seen maybe one project get staffed to an analyst past 7:30 or 8PM, and even still the amount of work required right at that time was absolutely minimal.

 

Where's the correlation? Because my seniors don't require someone to be staffed on a project that comes up at 8pm, there's a lack of dealflow? I don't understand.

I'm not saying I actually leave the office at 7pm (as you should be able to infer based on my 70-80 hours per week), but if there's ever the opportunity, I'm out. What kind of dealflow pops up at 8pm on a week night? Pitches? Well, fortunately for me, if/when we pitch, if it comes up at 8pm, my senior guys wait until the next day to staff someone. Sell-side M&A deals aren't popping up at 8pm, either, and if they do, that can wait until the morning as well.

 
jimbrowngoU:
Where's the correlation? Because my seniors don't require someone to be staffed on a project that comes up at 8pm, there's a lack of dealflow? I don't understand.

I'm not saying I actually leave the office at 7pm (as you should be able to infer based on my 70-80 hours per week), but if there's ever the opportunity, I'm out. What kind of dealflow pops up at 8pm on a week night? Pitches? Well, fortunately for me, if/when we pitch, if it comes up at 8pm, my senior guys wait until the next day to staff someone. Sell-side M&A deals aren't popping up at 8pm, either, and if they do, that can wait until the morning as well.

Can I come work for you?
Get busy living
 
jimbrowngoU:
Where's the correlation? Because my seniors don't require someone to be staffed on a project that comes up at 8pm, there's a lack of dealflow? I don't understand.

I'm not saying I actually leave the office at 7pm (as you should be able to infer based on my 70-80 hours per week), but if there's ever the opportunity, I'm out. What kind of dealflow pops up at 8pm on a week night? Pitches? Well, fortunately for me, if/when we pitch, if it comes up at 8pm, my senior guys wait until the next day to staff someone. Sell-side M&A deals aren't popping up at 8pm, either, and if they do, that can wait until the morning as well.

I make dealflow pop up at 8pm for you client service monkeys everyday. Something like 80% of the deals I got staffed on back in IBD used to hit my desk at 8pm or later, so now I get the joy of returning the favor! I used to always wonder why someone would be creating work at that time of night, but once i hit the buyside, it all made sense...

 

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