100 hour work weeks

[Artificial Iverson 107]

so i've got a nephew in HS who is considering various careers including investment banking , a field i'm not familiar with. Reading some online stuff indicates IB people often work 100 hour weeks. How is this humanly possible if weekends are excluded? A week has 168 hours, subtract 48 for weekends, means 100/120 hours M-F are dedicated to the job. 20 hours remain for commuting, showering, bathroom, eating, even gassing up the car. Anyone work a 100 hr week in any profession? 

[RDCanecutter 26446]

The Army. Ask me about the time I stayed awake so long that I saw a giant purple bunny rabbit, and followed it through the woods.

[Artificial Iverson 107]

that's pretty common where i'm from. 

[Celery Man 20962]

cocaine

[Washpark 176]

you don't commute, you eat at the office, and majority of work time of screwing around the office until 5pm when then MD drops something on your desk that needs to be ready by 8am the next day which means not going to sleep that night.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Washpark

[futureman 22469]

21 minutes ago, Artificial Iverson said:

so i've got a nephew in HS who is considering various careers including investment banking , a field i'm not familiar with. Reading some online stuff indicates IB people often work 100 hour weeks. How is this humanly possible if weekends are excluded? A week has 168 hours, subtract 48 for weekends, means 100/120 hours M-F are dedicated to the job. 20 hours remain for commuting, showering, bathroom, eating, even gassing up the car. Anyone work a 100 hr week in any profession? 

they work weekends 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

24 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

The Army. Ask me about the time I stayed awake so long that I saw a giant purple bunny rabbit, and followed it through the woods.

Just a typical Friday or Saturday night brah'

[Brew 3049]

I’ve pulled 90/100 before and do it on occasion each year, but it involves working all weekend. It’s not done in 5 day increments and you end up worthless for a chunk of it. I also have virtually no commute.

[Parliament 14260]

I used to work in retail ag (seed, chem, fert, etc) 118 hours was my personal record.  You eat all your meals on the job and live close to work.

[futureman 22469]

I’d say in a given week I do about 15 minutes of real, actual work. 

[SDG 3319]

I’m not IB but I know plenty who are and from what I’ve seen the100 hour thing is an exaggeration.  I work in banking (not IB) and yeah some weeks are busier than others but I’ve never met anyone who consistently works those kind hours.  

[F250 28777]

In my twenties, I was working 12+ hours a day 6 days a week during the dot com bubble. I once did 38 days straight and pretty much lived at my desk or in the data center. 30 hour shifts were not unusual. I was going for the Mark Cuban broadcast.com money.

I didn't become a tech billionaire. Fuck working long hours.

[Washpark 176]

there have been many projects that i didn't sleep for 3+ days.

i was on a project and my MD was pregnant, and she had't sleep in 5 days. 

it happens. is it every week, no but you don't complain and you do it. 

[bluto 4930]

First real world job my busy season went may 1-July 10... no days off at all, most weekdays at least 12 hours plus 30 min commute each way, weekends 15-20 hours. I was nearing a breakdown 6 weeks in, just a shell of myself in every way. Never again doing that shit

[Chuychanga 133]

This all sounds miserable. 

[DaysOff 7951]

I know right. I can't imagine flying more than 150 days a year. Are some of these jobs even minimum wage when you divide the hours into their 6 Figs?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

I don’t care how tough you are, you produce less quality when you consistently work 60+.  I suppose you can churn out tons of production but the mistakes add up.

[Artificial Iverson 107]

regarding Investment Banking or similar financial jobs, how come 40 years ago people worked 100 hour weeks and still do today - given modern software? Why hasn't modern computing dramatically cut down on the workload??? Also, why not hire more staff, obviously more cost but damn you are killing your workers. 

[Parliament 14260]

50 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I don’t care how tough you are, you produce less quality when you consistently work 60+.  I suppose you can churn out tons of production but the mistakes add up.

No question.  It's a dangerous tradeoff.

[freyguy 4277]

1 hour ago, Artificial Iverson said:

regarding Investment Banking or similar financial jobs, how come 40 years ago people worked 100 hour weeks and still do today - given modern software? Why hasn't modern computing dramatically cut down on the workload??? Also, why not hire more staff, obviously more cost but damn you are killing your workers. 

Stupidity. 

Same thing happens in accounting when "the numbers" are due.  Finance departments work crazy hours for months to close year end.  You'd think by now most of that could be automated.  But it's not, because people are people, and some do half assed work when they're asked to work.  So all that half assedness has to get resolved at year end.

[RDCanecutter 26446]

2 hours ago, Artificial Iverson said:

regarding Investment Banking or similar financial jobs, how come 40 years ago people worked 100 hour weeks and still do today - given modern software? Why hasn't modern computing dramatically cut down on the workload??? 

I was at a "computer" conference in the 80s where a nice CS professor said that, with all the labor-saving devices, we'd all be working 10-hour weeks in the future because that's how long it'd take to get the same stuff done.

HA HA HA HA.

More like, get your ass inside the box, now start producing more by using these widgets.

[Parliament 14260]

And your ass is grass of you don't reply to my evening texts.

[Mr. Drummond 2199]

I did 75-80 hours pretty much every week with no vacations for almost a decade.    I got fat (whataburger at my desk) and more miserable than i normally am.   That all started to change in 2016, now i only work 45-55 hours and feel like i barely work.  

But it was my own company and in 33 months i wont work another day in my life.

[beer 3220]

When I was a resident we worked 100hr weeks (if you counted the time on call...some of which was in bed) but now they are limited to 80.  They werent all 100hr weeks but many of them were.  Only way I survived was knowing it would come to an end.  I work 25 30ish hour weeks a year now. Fuck all yall. 

[Dahobbs 17566]

6 hours ago, Artificial Iverson said:

regarding Investment Banking or similar financial jobs, how come 40 years ago people worked 100 hour weeks and still do today - given modern software? Why hasn't modern computing dramatically cut down on the workload??? Also, why not hire more staff, obviously more cost but damn you are killing your workers. 

Technology doesnt reduce workload. It increases efficiency. And that typically means exponentially more work is created. For instance, a factory goes from produce 10 widgets an hour to over 100. Now instead of having to do the work necessary to package, sell, and support 100 widgets, you have to do 10 times that. 

[bluto 4930]

40 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Technology doesnt reduce workload. It increases efficiency. And that typically means exponentially more work is created. For instance, a factory goes from produce 10 widgets an hour to over 100. Now instead of having to do the work necessary to package, sell, and support 100 widgets, you have to do 10 times that. 

Ahhhh it's a profit scheme! /NavinR

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Technology doesnt reduce workload. It increases efficiency. And that typically means exponentially more work is created. For instance, a factory goes from produce 10 widgets an hour to over 100. Now instead of having to do the work necessary to package, sell, and support 100 widgets, you have to do 10 times that. 

Technology has tremendously increased my flexibility( ability to work from home around 10 to 15% as part of my real responsibilities) as well as increased my efficiency at work.  My career  started in the 90's, we had reporting and correspondence that used to take a full work day to complete that now takes me less than an hour to build. Info and presentations are so much more user friendly now.  When i tell noobs what we used to do, they say they never could have done it.  Technology has actually improved the quality of parts of the job.

I have 50 to 75% more headcount reporting to me than my boss did when he first started.  Chalk that up to corporate efficiencies( thanks no-fun Wall Street approach) and better technology.  I get waaaay the fuck more done than my predecessors. 

 

As far as OP's question about workweek, the first mistake is subtracting out weekends.  In my industry, if you are averse to working weekends and holidays, you are fucked.  When I first started, I worked 75-80 hours a week.  100 hour work weeks were definitely the exception, usually driven internally by corporate visits and prep time.  Now i work about 60 hours a week on average and either a Saturday or Sunday every other weekend.  I make my own schedule, but love to show up on the random with either customers or for direct reports, especially when my competitors are off... because fuck them.

Edited April 28, 2018 by slorch

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

6 hours ago, Mr. Drummond said:

I did 75-80 hours pretty much every week with no vacations for almost a decade.    I got fat (whataburger at my desk) and more miserable than i normally am.   That all started to change in 2016, now i only work 45-55 hours and feel like i barely work.  

But it was my own company and in 33 months i wont work another day in my life.

I wonder hoow that works out for you.  Many people who put those kind of hours in can't fill the void left when they don't have that in their lives any more...

 

When I'm not stressed (time stress not the actual work which I love). I start to feel like I need more work.  50- 60 hours a week feels right to me.

[Brew 3049]

12 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

I wonder hoow that works out for you.  Many people who put those kind of hours in can't fill the void left when they don't have that in their lives any more...

 

When I'm not stressed (time stress not the actual work which I love). I start to feel like I need more work.  50- 60 hours a week feels right to me.

This is my life. I couldn’t work a 40 hour week on average if I wanted to and I would probably drive my wife nuts if I tried. It’s the same reason I can’t take long flights, I don’t function well with down time and my ADD kicking in. My work isn’t as much client service any more though so a chunk of that time is spent running the business, working on acquisitions, long range planning, etc. 

[Sam Lin 3559]

As mentioned, weekends are not excluded. 100hr probably isn't the norm, but 90 will frequently be. That works out to 13hr a day, leaving you 11hr to eat, sleep, get back to work. I've had plenty of friends go through it, in banking as well as medicine. Law wasn't that far behind.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

Many industries could lower hours or hire more people (all at lower salaries) but the people involved are willing to trade their hours for higher wages.   The result will be that some industries/companies will have long hours.

For those of us who don't work 100-hour weeks, you may have watched a few episodes of the Deadliest Catch show about Alaska fishing.  The workers are on deck fishing for 100+ hours per week.  They're shown falling asleep and making mistakes, probably due to sleep deprivation.   The boat owners could easily double the crew size to improve the work environment but it would also require asking the crew to accept a 50% pay cut.    The guys who can handle (or fake it) 100 hours weeks will gravitate to the boats that require it so they earn more.  

When I've had times to work long hours, it wasn't the lack of sleep or less personal time that killed me, it was that I couldn't mentally escape it.  I would go home and think of nothing but work.  Usually being pissed about something or someone.  I couldn't find ways to let it go.

[Guest]

Crab season last around 4 weeks.  hell, we did that shit hauling hay and running sileage on the dairy.  It wasn't all day every day though-  yes milking is twice a day every day, but you have staffing for that.  I'm talking about peak business.

The Deadliest catch thingy isn't a good comparison.  i always get the feeling those guys don't do jack shit for the other 11 months of the year unless they own the boat.

[Whitman 694]

Does perusing Shaggy/Surly count toward the 100 hrs?

[pearlandhorn 3270]

5 hours ago, slorch said:

Crab season last around 4 weeks.  hell, we did that shit hauling hay and running sileage on the dairy.  It wasn't all day every day though-  yes milking is twice a day every day, but you have staffing for that.  I'm talking about peak business.

The Deadliest catch thingy isn't a good comparison.  i always get the feeling those guys don't do jack shit for the other 11 months of the year unless they own the boat.

Most of them who are on the vessels will always work on deck with the captain through the non crabbing seasons and catch salmon, cod, etc.  They are on the boats probably 8 months of the year.

I worked 60-65 hours per week for a good 3 years in public accounting. You suck it up and do it because you leave for a better job. Same with investment banking.

[Artificial Iverson 107]

1 hour ago, pearlandhorn said:

Most of them who are on the vessels will always work on deck with the captain through the non crabbing seasons and catch salmon, cod, etc.  They are on the boats probably 8 months of the year.

I worked 60-65 hours per week for a good 3 years in public accounting. You suck it up and do it because you leave for a better job. Same with investment banking.

what do you achieve by working the extra hours, presuming you are saiaried, in terms of career growth? The damn boss doesn't give a damn about your broken back right? did you get a promotion?

[TwiceHorn 31489]

1 hour ago, Artificial Iverson said:

what do you achieve by working the extra hours, presuming you are saiaried, in terms of career growth? The damn boss doesn't give a damn about your broken back right? did you get a promotion?

There's always a reward of some sort.  Fishermen/crabbers make five figures for a month's work.  Associate investment bankers and lawyers aren't looking for the discrete promotion, so to speak, but advancement within the firm to a managing director/partner position where they get a goodly percentage of the billings for all that time. In a law firm, you stay "with your class" by billing sufficient hours or you are invited to leave or to join a non-partner-track position.  Similar I believe in most IB firms. And, as Washpark said, a lot of that 100 hour per week, probably more properly considered 400/month, is downtime waiting for things to come back from the lawyers/bankers for further grinding.  A lot of it is also fairly mindless.

Edited April 30, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[pearlandhorn 3270]

2 hours ago, Artificial Iverson said:

what do you achieve by working the extra hours, presuming you are saiaried, in terms of career growth? The damn boss doesn't give a damn about your broken back right? did you get a promotion?

By working long hours, I showed that I can get a task done regardless of the amount of time needed to get it done and in a deadline. It was a thankless job that I needed for my resume to open doors later in my career. I was promoted to senior associate and left.

[Doc Holliday 199]

I did 80-100 for about 2 months and it burned me the fuck out.  I refuse to ever do that again.  As soon as I was done and saved the projects and program, as I was the person in charge, I got released.  Nice way to say thank you.

[Washpark 176]

I don't believe some of these jobs scale with more people. Regarding IB, you can only have 1 person building the model so sometimes it isn't a body count issue. 

[Mr. Drummond 2199]

On 4/28/2018 at 7:03 PM, Onboard 2.0 said:

I wonder hoow that works out for you.  Many people who put those kind of hours in can't fill the void left when they don't have that in their lives any more...

 

When I'm not stressed (time stress not the actual work which I love). I start to feel like I need more work.  50- 60 hours a week feels right to me.

I plan to masturbate....  A LOT.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

30 minutes ago, Mr. Drummond said:

I plan to masturbate....  A LOT.

That's the only way I ever get thru those 80-100 hour weeks.  Pressure release......

[troph 24810]

I probably averaged 70 hours a week for over a decade.  one summer I worked 7 days a week from 8am until 10pm and lived in my office or my hotel room from June to the middle of August.  that was about 100 hours a week for 2.5 months.  most hard months though were 80-90 hours a week.  with 50-60 being a slow week.  I can't go past 40-45 anymore.  burnt out.

Edited April 30, 2018 by troph

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

I do 6:30.to 5:30 four days a week, and then fridays do 6:30 to 10:30 and take care of my old man from then until 3pm or so.  That includes commute time.  Still a beating. I can’t imagine spending 100 hours in the office.  That’s untenable.  

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

5 hours ago, Washpark said:

I don't believe some of these jobs scale with more people. Regarding IB, you can only have 1 person building the model so sometimes it isn't a body count issue. 

Some work is hard to share between people but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Personally I don’t think people are nearly as effective after 60 hours.   Maybe I’m wrong. 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Nice Guy Eddie

[Macanudo 12979]

On 4/27/2018 at 5:24 PM, futureman said:

I’d say in a given week I do about 15 minutes of real, actual work. 

I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

[dingleberryswitzer 2724]

Yea, ill pass on that 100 hour bs.   Actually ill pass on more than 45.  I have other interests and family.  My wife and kids are more important than an extra 50 grand a year.

[We’reTexas 1473]

I’m a midlevel M&A/securities associate at a biglaw firm. Lifestyle is comparable to my IDB friends at associate/VP level, though not as bad as the analyst days. As others have mentioned, a great deal of it is downtime - especially in banking, where’s there’s generally more of a face time requirement - and there is a great deal of unpredictability in actual work flow. I don’t really know how to say how many hours I work per week. Emails began around 7 am and stop around midnight, so I am generally up past 12 doing stuff most weeknight. But I wouldn’t say I work 16 hours a day at all. 

I think it’s more accurate to say professional services require extreme availability. It’s the existential dread I feel when my phone vibrates on a weekend, not sleeping for four days, and inability to make any sort of firm commitment to my family and friends are the true stressors in this line of work, not sitting at a desk 12 hours a day. 

[GringoSalado 1651]

I worked 109 once in the ohl fill, and 9 weeks straight. But I probably averaged "only" about 80-85.

 

 

 

 

So fucking glad I'm not doing that shit anymore.

[Fudge Nuggets 19195]

A couple of years ago we were doing performance reviews and there were two guys in line for one available promotion in their pay group.  Now these two dudes were very similar in ability and results over the previous few years so it was coming down to tie-breaker type shit.

Some of the other reviewers pointed out Candidate A works really hard and puts in a ton of hours while you won’t see Candidate B in the office after 5:01 so they figured Candidate A had the better intentions and should get the promotion.  I pointed out that since their output and quality of work was very similar then Candidate B was a lot more efficient and would be better suited for the increased responsibilities that come with the promotion.

Didn’t matter, Candidate A got the promotion, crashed and burned in the new role and Candidate B went to the competition where he has been very successful.  Go figure.

Moral of the story is hours aren’t everything.  Output and quality of work is what matters.

[Dbeasy 15052]

1 minute ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

A couple of years ago we were doing performance reviews and there were two guys in line for one available promotion in their pay group.  Now these two dudes were very similar in ability and results over the previous few years so it was coming down to tie-breaker type shit.

Some of the other reviewers pointed out Candidate A works really hard and puts in a ton of hours while you won’t see Candidate B in the office after 5:01 so they figured Candidate A had the better intentions and should get the promotion.  I pointed out that since their output and quality of work was very similar then Candidate B was a lot more efficient and would be better suited for the increased responsibilities that come with the promotion.

Didn’t matter, Candidate A got the promotion, crashed and burned in the new role and Candidate B went to the competition where he has been very successful.  Go figure.

Moral of the story is hours aren’t everything.  Output and quality of work is what matters.

The people that put in the extra hours and do great work are the best assets to have.