Bank of America: former green beret dies after work 120-hour week, IB associates going on strike

[Anonymous]

This is horrible and tragic:

Death of Former Green Beret (IB Associate at BofA)

Absolutely tragic passing of a former green beret working 120 hour weeks at BofA’s FIG team on a deal.

Wso discussion here: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/off-topic/bofa-associate-death

Per Reddit:
“FYI, the group he worked in was the Financial Institutions Group, led by Greg Howe.

Allegedly, managers in that group were bragging how many 100+ hour work weeks they got their juniors to work.”

Associates are organizing to go on strike tomorrow in the NYC office:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6m76iYA-Sr/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[Anonymous]

What salary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What salary?

Why is it relevant? If you're paid 50k or 200k. There should be a law in this country that anything above 40 or 48, something reasonable, is paid as overtime for all salaried workers.

It's time Americans demand it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What salary?

No salary is enough to work like this is it? If you were offered $500K would you work this many hours to your death?

[Anonymous]

How is it correlated to his death? It’s terribly sad that he died. I didn’t click the link. Did he work remotely, travel, in office or combo? Assume he ate and showered on the fly at home, office, or location and slept 7 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What salary?

No salary is enough to work like this is it? If you were offered $500K would you work this many hours to your death?

I wouldn't, but some people would. If the salary was 500k then he had other options for a lower paying job with less hours but chose to work like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What salary?

No salary is enough to work like this is it? If you were offered $500K would you work this many hours to your death?

I think PP's point is that people do make that choice. You could choose a sane career or a sane place to work and make a solid six figure salary, but the people that choose these insane IB jobs do it because they want to make insane money. Historically, they've been compensated for their willingness to sacrifice their personal lives and sometimes their health. (Unlike some other jobs, like loggers -- which has the highest death rate and is NOT compensated like IB workers.) I support workers' rights generally, but I don't think I'm crying my eyes out for the IB folks. If they are going to get OT for working hours over 40, as PP suggested, the banks will just cut them back to the normal base salary, which is probably not what these people want. The banks probably think that the salary they pay them already is compensating them for all the OT.

[Anonymous]

Horrible. One of my BFFs works at Biglaw regularly doing 18-hr days. I really want to get her to leave since she doesn’t need the money (no kids, has a huge retirement/savinga account). But I think it gets really hard to understand that that type of work is abnormal when everyone else is doing it around you.

My friend is pretty modest, but the other thing these places do is convince you that you’re the “elite” and better than everyone else, so it’s hard to leave.

[Anonymous]

How did an office job make him die? Did he commit suicide?

I worked in IB post college and it was a grind but still a desk job.

I thought the lifestyle was horrid so I exited as an associate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it correlated to his death? It’s terribly sad that he died. I didn’t click the link. Did he work remotely, travel, in office or combo? Assume he ate and showered on the fly at home, office, or location and slept 7 hours.

He was drinking energy drinks to stay awake because his bosses demanded endless 18-hr days.

[Anonymous]

Did the strike actually happen? The original strike poster was reported to have a post history showing they weren't a banker and weren't at BofA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it correlated to his death? It’s terribly sad that he died. I didn’t click the link. Did he work remotely, travel, in office or combo? Assume he ate and showered on the fly at home, office, or location and slept 7 hours.

He was drinking energy drinks to stay awake because his bosses demanded endless 18-hr days.

Are you guessing or knowing?

[Anonymous]

What does the Green Beret have to do with this? It's not a tribute to the service of the anonymous person who died. He wasn't murdered as a hate crime against the Army. No one suggested that the Army is a factor in his death

[Anonymous]

I worked there in a different corp banking group but did overlap on a few deals w/ the head of that group. He’s a great guy. The work load ebbs and flows tremendously. I had regular 100 hour weeks but then I had very light weeks. I never saw or heard of anyone having a 120 week. The hours got lighter but the pressure increased as you moved up. You definitely needed to know how to push back bc the MDs didn’t actually know how long certain things would take but i never saw a situation where someone said they needed help and needed analysts or associates from a quiet team to roll in and help. I saw over and over guys who got caught up in a weird mentality of not pushing back or not asking for more bodies for help. Not to stereotype but these were generally analysts who had been div 1 athletes and didn’t want to look like they couldn’t hack it were competitive w/ others in their class or associates who did not have a banking background and just took longer on everything and were afraid to ask for help.
I don’t mean to defend BofA without the details, but there were tons of safeguards in place and people didn’t always chose to use them. I don’t know the details here but I don’t want the firm or Greg to get a bad name without everything coming out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did the strike actually happen? The original strike poster was reported to have a post history showing they weren't a banker and weren't at BofA.

Think they'd find the world would turn just fine if they strike, unlike most blue collar workers.