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Somewhere in the ballpark of 115, two weeks ago. Seven days Mon-Sun, two all-nighters. Im a new analyst in my group which is generally around 75-85 hours/week, so this was unexpected and just so fuckin bad. I was so tired my body completely rejected food and I was almost throwing up. Actually the worst week of my life. Just glad its over. This cannot be healthy.
Jesus. How long did it take for you to fully recover?
Like all of last week I was like 8-6 and barely doing anything difficult during the day so I felt better by like wednesday. Definitely not gonna be a regular thing tho, just a lot came down on us at once.
Question....how do you actually manage to stay awake during that ordeal? I'm always impressed by everyone's ability to stay alive during those hell weeks since I'm at a regular 8-5.
Coffee, red bull, and literally pure determination to make an impression since im new. I also napped whenever I could on the chairs in out office. A quick 15 min nap when nobody's looking does absolute wonders.
What job are you doing?
I thought IBs cut down on this since the deaths of those associates a few years ago? They still have you pulling all-nighters?
How do I sign up for these hours? It feels so unproductive being at home not having anything to work on.
I just will never understand why someone would put themselves through that. (exit ops, PE, we get it, we know.) but still just not enough for me to do something like 115 hours that is just insane.
Speaking from an interns perspective, I need those hours on my time sheet way more than I need a reasonable sleep schedule.
Completely different situation, you're in college, young and you are broke, obviously many people would take that opportunity in college. I'm saying more towards making a career up to MD and such. Just never really quite understood it, i understand you are providing and making it rain, but not being able to watch your kids grow up because you're 45 and still putting in 80+ hours is a questionable sacrifice.
143 hours. After that was 120 and a few 115+
143 was the first week for summer interns....pretty sure it scared the shit out of the kid sitting in front of me as that was his welcome party to banking.
Jesus Christ dude. You had literally 15 hours off that week. Glad to see youre alive. I hope you get a PHAT bonus
Edit: 25 hours
That math is sus
143 for the first-week intern? Holy shit I'm going to have fun watching other kids suffer. Been doing over 100/week on Asian cram classes since I was in 5th grade.
90 something
120 including a 3.5 hour daily commute - thankfully it was a one off
The worst I ever had was close to 150 hours (145 hours of which, I got to paid for, 10 hours of travel time because they were "emergencies" and 135 hours of work time). That was 2 24 hour days, another 3 18 hour days, and 2 16 hour days, for those wondering. I worked in a job where I had administrative and in-field responsibilities. This was 135 hours spent in the field, was all on-site and was a total clusterfuck. That week, I ended up with a backlog of about 20 hours of administrative work that needed to be done which I planned to get done the next week. I was working for a small company at the time, and I was fucking burnt out after such a rough week (and needed sleep - that week was worse than what a Resident would see when on-call, and they get time off after lengthy on-call shifts). That Sunday night, I got home at 2AM after working 16 hours and working 18 that Saturday (after finishing up Friday's 24 hour workathon), with only 4 hours of sleep in between, my manager gave me the day off, but the big boss called at 6AM, left 5 voice mails, a dozen texts, and an email in the span of a half hour, telling me I needed to handle an "emergency". Basically, he didn't want to waste his day when an overworked employee who was already physically exhausted and needed to recover could do it for him.
When I finally called him back at 6:45, he flipped off the handle at me for not getting back to him faster and then told me my day off was canceled despite needing the rest, and worked another 18 hour day (not including travel time, which would have made it almost 20 hours). My manager was pissed because she knew I needed the day off (and wouldn't be relieved either despite knowing I needed to recover) and by the time I finally got to that Thursday, I had worked 45 hours (50+ including travel) in the preceding three days, was scheduled for another 18 hour day (19 with travel) that Thursday. My manager said that after I was done on Thursday, I'd be off Friday just to recover and would force the issue with the boss, and if I got called, to let her know. I finally get to sleep a whole 5 and a half hours that Friday (from 1AM to 7:30AM) before the boss calls me demanding that I go and deal with another "emergency". I texted my manager and needless to say, I didn't cover the "emergency" but the boss reamed me out like it was no one's business for not being a team player and helping out despite being able to barely function, and he knew it. And the cherry on top, between Friday and Sunday, I worked remotely to catch up on ~25 hours of administrative work that I needed to get done. To make matters worse, the boss flipped out when he saw how much OT he paid me for in those two weeks. My in-field work was non-exempt, and while the administrative work was, it became non-exempt if I exceeded 60 hours of total work in a given week. Needless to say, I left within a month of this happening.
Don't get me wrong, I knew long hours were part of the deal, but there is still a need for the concern over the safety of your employees. He just didn't care and violated company policy because he could (working a 24 hour shift required that the person working get relief as soon it was available the next day, minimum of 12 hours off to recover, etc. since it was a healthcare-related job). As much I don't mind the long banking hours, medical professionals have it much worse.
Edit: Forgot to finish a thought at the end of the 1st paragraph. Edited for clarity on that point.
How much money did you make that week including overtime?
Including OT, I walked away with almost 10 Grand before taxes.
Jesus ]
That pay check came with a huge amount of burnout, loss of good will (any good will that I had towards him or his company was just about gone), a significant increase in the toxicity of the work environment (I had no illusions about the job beforehand, but in the administrative role, I was able to put multiple things together that just made it clear how unfairly he treated certain employees he favored much better than the ones he didn't, plus he let told a few of people who worked there that I got paid a shit ton for those two weeks which created outrage and jealousy among the employees - never a good thing to have when you're supposed to manage them), and made it difficult to want to be in the office unless I absolutely had to.
Worst weeks when I was in banking were around 140. I had two or three of those during my analyst years where I pushed past the 140 mark. As you can imagine, they were all for massive fire drills/live deals of which none were successfully completed. These included multiple day stretches where I wasn't even going home -- just a few power naps, shower downstairs at the gym, and keep working.
I had plenty of weeks in the 110-120 range. Sad to say this, but man do those extra 20-30 hours make a huge difference (one is just a "bad" week at work while the other is borderline torture a la sleep deprivation).
Aside from a lot of caffeine, the key to succeeding on those tough weeks is really a mix of personal will-power/determination and motivation from a supportive team. For me it always made a difference when the guys I was working for acknowledged how bad things were getting for me. To any senior bankers reading this -- it doesn't cost you anything to motivate an analyst when times are tough. You may have a sense of what it means to them, but might not know how much they actually appreciate it. Many of us just want to be the excel/powerpoint "rockstar" when we are in our early 20s and in our first job out college. When you're working those long hours (especially when we're talking multiple 100+ hours weeks where you start to realize there is no start/end of the week), the outside world becomes a blur. While you're in that state, your job quite literally becomes your world. At those points in time, there is nothing quite like a genuine thank you -- or more importantly, a good night of sleep!
How many people still use coke to make it through the weeks, or have the 80s heydays moved past?
probably addy these days
About 80 hours. I've been lucky to avoid the IB grind.
had a fairness opinion going on simultaneously with a board deck started Saturday 9-12, Sunday 9am-5am, Monday 8am-5am, Tuesday 9am-6am, Wednesday 9am-7am, Thursday 10am-6am, Friday 9am-12am. Team decided to go drinking afterwards - had two shots of tequila and got so drunk started talking to the IB team about buyside jobs I am in the process for. Good times. 134 hours.
Reading these posts thinking of all of us running around Manhattan looking like raccoons.
I assembled IKEA shelves for 16 hours straight once without eating or stopping
Once worked 21 days straight, shortest day (Easter Sunday) was 12 hours. In the middle I did a day trip from NYC to BATON ROUGE as part of diligence. The night before the IC memo goes out, me and my coworker get sent final comments. It takes us about four hours to turn minor comments because we can barely read at this point. Worst period of my life.
Did 140 hours a week before my presentation at an elite mutual fund. Consumed copious, copious amount of tea to get through. Had a health check up afterwards and my blood pressure was very low. Definitely not healthy and made me think about the trade offs between work and health.
You did this on tea alone? Holy hell.
I'd be hitting coffee x4 per day.
used to work in HL restructuring. Had 5 weeks of 110 hours or more. It was after that span that I transitioned into "F banking" mode. On the flipside, it made me realize that there really is much more to life than money and working your life away. Also made me realize that the people who don't have room for anything outside of work are boring, often small-minded people.
That one week a few years ago during earnings season when I clocked in 172 hours was rough!
Except a week only has 168 hours in it ....
I think that's the joke man
First year / only analyst in a new office with 8 MDS VPs and Directors.
I had 4 consecutive weeks of over 120 hours - one was ~150 hours.I was taking modafinil and amphetamine each day in high doses. My body stopped working during week 5, even after my average sleep went from 1 hours to 3 (revocery lol) I took a literal handful of the agorementioned stimulants and immediatley slept on my desk for 6 hours. Work product was shit. Bonus was shit. You may read about a junior banker in thr midwest going postal
Moral of the story - YOU WILL NOT GET AHEAD BY TAKING ON ADDITONAL REAPONSIBILITY AS AN ANALYST. Do as little work as possible. Do it perfectly and brag like a loud faggot about how great you did it. Then fuck off as soon as your associate leaves. This is how you win banking.
Yes, this is true everywhere I think.
When I was a second year at a consulting firm I always went out of my way to help out. It ended up biting me in the ass twice because I took on extra work to be a good team player but couldn't deliver quality work product in the time frame.
I would have been much better off just ignoring the emails asking for help and going home.
I think this is pretty common among the higher ranks of consulting firms and investment banks.
Around ~100 hours I guess. Two different weeks at two different consulting firms.
The first time was an "all hands on deck" scenario and frankly I didn't mind too much because the entire team was there, even the director on the project and his deputy. The director even stayed at a hotel next door rather than going home so he could be closer to us.
Second time was at a job that frankly wasn't going very well for me. Pulled two all nighters in one week. I came VERY VERY close to just peacing out at 2am on the night of the first all nighter when it became more and more clear that I wouldn't be sleeping that night. I just stuck it out through sheer force of will and because I figured I would rather let them fire me so I can collect unemployment.
Turned out to have been a good calculation because once I made it through that week of hell I just sat around with my office door closed applying to jobs and, going to interviews, and heading to the gym at lunch time. That went on for nearly 6 months before the hammer dropped and they fired me (I was lining up two different job offers at the time).
Two main takeaways from this (disturbing) thread...
1) Don't sacrifice your values for your job. I get that undergrads these days are sold hook, line, sinker on IB - but you should realistically assess whether the potential damage to your social life and health is worth it, if you feel they will be impacted. When you get out of undergrad you're faced with real life tradeoffs. Undergrad can be testing, but at the end of the day no one will expect anything of you that will severely impact your personal life. Post-grad isn't like that, your job and your bosses will suck the life out of you if you let them and it will happen quicker than you are aware of. When someone keeps you in the office for over 140 hours in a week and you're getting 2 hours of sleep a night, don't assume that it's just part and parcel of working in finance. Just because the office culture enables it, doesn't make it fair, normal or okay.
2) It may sound jaded and cynical, but your superiors in finance will take advantage of your eagerness and seldom will reward you proportionately to the sacrifice you make. Nearly a decade ago I was pledging a fraternity, and early on I realized that the pledges that tried to be super-pledge and always volunteered themselves for more bitch-work or to fall on a grenade for their pledge brothers, only got hazed worse and didn't earn any additional respect. All it did was let the older brothers know that they were a sucker that wouldn't stand up for themselves. In a sense, this is pretty similar to being an Analyst in finance. Diving on grenades for your fellow Analysts/Bosses isn't necessarily going to make them respect you. It will absolutely make them abuse your sense of duty. Stand up for yourself and put your foot down when you have to. Those that abuse the politeness of others do not respect their victims.
Good Post.
I am suspect of people on this forum claiming to work for 100 hours plus. At some point there is a trade off in terms of productivity and cognitive function for each additional hour worked. It appears that many over exaggerate. Do you find this to be true? I mean why work 100 hours plus and be deprived of any reward- are some people delusional?( Don't mean that as an insult, genuinely curious)
In my experience it's harder to do complex work that requires deep thinking once you start getting past a normal (40-50 hour) work week.
Many of the people posting here worked as IB analysts where one spends a great deal of time waiting around for people above you to send back changes. Or, they are doing fairly mindless formatting stuff.
I 100% agree with your takeaways. I think the thing to note is that there are situations (all hands on deck, true emergency situations, or on-call situations, like I had) where these hours are meant to be the exception and not the rule. Working 100+ hours in a week is detrimental to your health and, from a cultural perspective, needs to change. I think it is worth considering that, if this is routine, whether the company or the group is the right place for you to be. And to your second point, I think it's a general aspect trying to prove yourself - taking on more than you can chew and diving on the grenade. I think that it really comes down to picking and choosing your sword to fall on, and sometimes it's not worth it to fall on the sword of being the eager go-getter.
AUS, Oh yeah there is a a huge trade-off between cognitive function and hours worked. I can tell you right now that the less sleep I got, the harder it was to function. I drank a lot of hospital coffee too just to stay awake. I can work 18 hours and run on 4-5 hours of sleep. Doing that 7 days in a row takes it toll on you. There's enough out there that shows the impact that sleep deprivation has. I had a few clients complain to me that I was doing the kind of hours they did as residents because my performance was slipping. I was on site and the clients were not happy and cut me some slack. These were all clients who I had good relationships with and knew that I understood the business. The problem was that if I napped while hurrying up and waiting, I could be zonked out from lack of sleep, but if I staid awake and waited til I got home, I'd be a detriment to myself, which is just as bad. I will say this though, yes, people can be delusional about that shit. At the top, it comes down what I say goes, and at the bottom, it's a function of trying to keep your job. So as long as shit don't change, it will never get fixed.
Good lesson on setting boundaries. You get out of life what you're willing to tolerate. Others also won't respect your time if you don't respect it first.
My max is 118 for 7 days and 163 for 10 days.
It was fucking brutal. I felt like I had been hit by a truck (or a really bad coke hangover). But honestly, I pull over 100 twice a month now so it isn't that far off my normal. Just the extra few on Sat / Sun can really fuck you. Normally I can still get 8-9hrs on fri / sat night which really helps me reset for the next week. That was an all-nighter sunday into a full week and another busy weekend.
I'd say anything under 80 is easy, 80-90 is starting to get to the point where you feel like you're working a lot, 90-100 and you start to feel it in the AMs, 100+ and you literally hate your life all week and feel physically sick.
Non IBD: 98 (6 AM to midnight x 5 plus 8 on Sat)
My max is 140 hours in 8 days (Mo-Mo). Lunch/Dinner always at the desk; IB internship in Europe; Monthly wage: 2.2k
Day 1 : 9am-1am Prepare some slides for a pitch
Day 2 : 9am-1am Research financials for a MD/ Shitty companies, took ages
Day 3: 9am-2am New Pitch/ Prepared slides for equity story, financials etc.
Day 4: 9am-3am Pitch: Prepare potential buyers universe with another intern; including financials, rationale etc.; We had 300 companies in the list (the Analyst wanted to impress and was considering companies for no reason in the list)
Day 5: 9am-6am Around 11am I noticed that the other intern made a lot of mistakes in his part. He knew it and tried passing the blame on me. He received another task from the VP and I was left alone with the list. Took me a whole night to correct everything. The best part: The analyst held me responsible because I had more experience and was in charge in his opinion. Around 5am I got a call from the same Analyst, that there is an opportunity to get a deal for the company and he needed me to prepare some stuff. Note: We had a policy, that no intern should stay alone in the office, I was let alone the whole night. And afterwards I found out, that we had 9 days’ more for the pitch and the only reason we/I was working long hours is, that the Analyst wanted to impress the MD/VP.
Day 6: 9am-5am So, new deal/pitch and I am in at 9 on Saturday and waiting for the Analyst. He arrived at 1pm -.- I waited 4 hours for no reason to be there, but ok. I received my tasks which I completed at 8pm. I went to the Analyst and caught him watching YouTube videos and reading news. He told me that his Excel had some bugs and since I am pro in Excel, if I could finish the task for him (his only task). Took me a few hours to finish everything. At 3am he came with review notes which he could have corrected by himself in PowerPoint, but no, he argued that I should have some learning effect and do it by myself. At 5am I was done with everything and we went home.
Day 7: 9am-1am At 8am I received a call from the VP that he cannot reach the Analyst and I should go to the office and edit the PPT with his review notes. Arrived at 9am at the office and started to work; Analyst came by at 11am. He waited until I was done with everything at 8pm -.- and then starting to review me. Took us a few hours to agree on something and then he sent it back to the VP.
Day 8: 9am-1am VP and MD praised the Analyst and he took all credit. I was given more work for another project and worked until 1am. Also, I worked the whole week until Saturday and then got a day off (Sunday)
Pretty much my horror story from Investment Banking.
Your analyst was such a punk.
We did the math when I was at a BB: For my time as associate 0 - associate 1, I physically spent more time in the office than I did outside of it.
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