I think this is all so sad. It reminds me of the sweat shop conditions one reads about from the 19th and early 20th centuries before the passage of labor laws. I realize they choose to work this way to make lots of money but there is so much more to life, including living. With that observation, I am off to plant all 100 fall bulbs I bought while my husband spends the morning hiking in the mountains as the aspen are peaking. Enjoy this day.
Of course it’s sick. But most of corporate America is sick. At the Fortune 200 company I worked in, management signed a contract requiring them to be at their desks 55-hours per Mon-Fri week. They were absolutely expected to answer email in the evenings and on weekends. And higher management was expected to spend one weekend per month on group meetings. A friend recalls being called from work three times the day after she gave birth.
The greed-is-good mentality has had its impact on all of us, not just Wall Streeters or Silicone Valley workers.
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He jumped off his building after a night of binge drinking and doing cocaine. His job may have pushed him to more substance abuse, but he was prone to it before he enter the business.
I was an associate at a white shoe firm in my 20s. I worked from 8-9pm regularly. I would turn down assignments because I was filled (our work was generally give out by assignment associate). At the same time, I had a colleague who could never say no. He would work weekends, and almost missed his best friend’s wedding. He was so afraid if he ever said no, he would miss out on a big deal. But at our annual year end review, I would consistently do better than him because I was able to do very well on every deal I was on, whereas he was too spread too thin.
I give the same advice to D1. Work hard, but at some point it is ok to say no. As an example, when asked to work on a deck over the weekend, ask if you could do it at home. D1 is fairly forceful in getting everyone’s feedback on a deck by Fri, so it could be done the weekend.
It is a matter of choice in life. They don’t pay those young people few hundred thousand $$ so they could work 9-5. If they are not mentally prepared to do it, there are other options. By the time they are VP and up, hours generally get better.
You know, there’s nothing about attending an elite university that compels you to get a job on Wall Street.
You’re right. To clarify, the typical path to Wall Street is through certain elite universities where they tend to only recruit. That is what I was referencing. However, there are also many articles on this “phenomena” including a book by a former Yale professor, William Deresiewicz (Excellent Sheep) who argues certain “Elite” schools specialize in working to feed their grads to Wall Street. It is what it is. I just think it’s sad.
Certain “elite” schools also seem to specialize in feeding their grads to Teach For America, or to graduate school, or to medical school, or to careers as writers and artists.
Is this a reason to bash the schools, bash the students, or bash Wall Street? Most kids make decisions about what to do post-grad based on a host of factors- their own interests/passions/talents being the most obvious ones. Deresiewicz has his own axe to grind… but I don’t know a lot of people who put on a blindfold and get led down a corridor to their new office without ever stopping to ask “where are we going?”
Some people believe anything they read.
There are so many “elite” young college grads working in DC (not just as lowly staffers on the Hill- but at non-profits, working in museums, federal agencies, etc.) that many colleges have their biggest alumni events/outreach efforts there. Not NY. And not wall street/banking, but public service and the not-for-profit sector.
I must run around with the wrong crowd. All the Ivy students and grads I know studied humanities. None are anywhere near Wall Street.
While a large portion of students at some wall street banking/consulting companies attend “elite universities”, I wouldn’t say that they “only” recruit at elite universities. For example, NYU is the US university with the largest number of 2015 grads that started as analysts at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, or Morgan Stanley. I expect few on this forum would call NYU an “elite university.” During the next week, JP Morgan will be attending career fair type events at the following US colleges – Fordham University, Howard University, University of Michigan, Pace University, Drexel University, and Temple University. These aren’t just publicity events. They hire from such colleges as well. JP Morgan hired as many analysts from Fordham as Harvard in their 2015 class.
University of Michigan in there with Pace, Howard and Temple? Seriously?
There were many good reasons why William Deresiewicz is a former Yale professor, and none of them related to his criticism of elite colleges which started only after his departure from New Haven. He did not voluntarily “left academia in 2008 to become a full-time writer”.
I listed all US career fair events that are occurring next week, not just ones at colleges with a particular degree of selectivity. If you’d like to review JP Morgan’s career fair schedule yourself, it is at http://careers.jpmorgan.com/careers/student-events .
For the same reasons that Blossom opted for a career in corporate HR/Talent management, instead of continuing her efforts to join the Bolshoi Ballet.
In all fairness, I don’t think the OP “… bash(ed) the schools, bash(ed) the students, or bash(ed) Wall Street?”. Maybe the last, a bit, or she simply pointed out (and, btw, linked to a New York Times article that actually is what raised the issue) that there is a high intensity atmosphere there that takes its toll and it is a shame that it happens at all, when there is more to life, in her opinion. Let’s ease up a bit. It is hardly a radical opinion, and she is hardly the first to have it.
And while there is little question that quite a few people on Wall Street come from many schools other than HYPS types, there is also little question that those schools are disproportionately represented. No judgement in the least in that last statement, at least from me. But it is hard to argue otherwise.
If you use link above and select Temple and Analyst keyword you will get job fair for Technology Analysts.
If you select Yale and Analyst you will get job fair for Investment Banking Analysts.
They sure recruit in both places.
OK, there is no question these firms recruit mostly at top schools. It only makes sense, but “top” doesn’t mean exclusively HYPS. Also, there are other routes to Wall Street than a job fair at your school. The relevant aspect to this thread, it seems to me, is that while there is a heavy flow from these top schools, the pressure and lifestyle is the same no matter where you got your degree. And it seems fair to me to ask, since these relatively few schools are disproportionately “feeding the beast”, are those schools doing all they can to improve the chances that their graduates are prepared for these unusually high pressure demands.
They also only have Technology Analyst related events at MIT in recent weeks. Among Linked In members who listed title as Investment Banking Analyst at JP Morgan’s NYC office, the largest number came from the following schools. While elite schools are over-represented, there are more than just elite ones. Temple also appears on this list, but well below top 20.
- NYU
- University of Pennsylvania
- Cornell
- CUNY, Baruch
Wolf of Wall Street pretty much sums it up
Are we all reading the same article? When I click on the link, title of the article is “Deaths Draw Attention to Wall Street’s Grueling Pace.” Where does the article talk about schools?
Bankers, doctors, lawyers, and even small business owners work gruesome hours. The reason IB get a lot more bad press is they get paid a lot more. When I used to work on deals, the lawyers stayed up as late as we did and their lawyers were no better. It was the case for accounting firms that had to verify numbers. But rarely do any of those people commit suicide because intensity of work. This young man in the article had a history of substance abuse. He probably should never have gone into such high intensity business.
where in their valley did the put the silicone implants?
Sorry, just love the typo 
Lol, I often think of Silicone when I type Silicon, I’m nearer to Hollywood and that’s why.