Deaths Draw Attention to Wall Street’s Grueling Pace

When pillaging the national economy with dubious deals forcing members of the shrinking American middle class to work two or even three jobs to keep their head above water, I find it hard to feel sorry for these people.

Suicides are always complicated and may occur for multiple reasons but one mantra that got me through medical training -- renowned for its long hours, intense situations -- and which I try to remind those who are in similar high-pressure situations is 'This too shall pass.' The hardest times are not indefinite usually. The other thought I try to keep in mind is to ask yourself if what worries you now shall be as important in a year, or 5 years, or 10 years. If not, don't stress too much over it.

I refuse to stay in any job that requires me to work more than 40 hours a week (although staying a few days out of the month overtime I can overlook, that's reasonable). No amount of money or prestige is worth my physical / mental health. I doubt the legality of what these financial forms are doing to their employees.

My background is film production, which is an industry that I think has really tested the limits of how many hours a person can work without dying.

Film shoots are extremely time-sensitive endeavors. You might only have rented a location for one day, so there is a lot of pressure to shoot everything you need for the movie at that location, no matter what. This would quickly get out of control if there were not expensive union overtime rules.

The result is that every day of a film production is scheduled down to the minute before the day even begins, ideally, to ensure that productions don't incur serious overtime payments.

So film is an example that it's possible to do time-sensitive, high-pressure work without pushing people past their physical limits. It just requires tons of planning and scheduling. However the only way to get an employer to put resources into planning and scheduling is to make sure that there are incentives (or disincentives) for them to behave this way. There must be strict financial penalties that prevent employees at banks from working too many hours. A 29 year-old banker getting a $400,000 bonus is not going to tell his employer that he needs to leave the office by 7pm anymore than an aspiring Hollywood actress is going to tell her director that the crew must stop shooting because it is past her bedtime. In certain industries, where jobs are highly sought after and rewards are large, you cannot depend on workers to regulate themselves.

The issue of long hours and high stress isn't confined to the business elite. At the opposite end of the economic spectrum, people working low-income jobs often work two shifts a day, close the shop at midnight and then open it at 6 the next morning, commute from one job to another job, etc. No one gets a bonus for his endurance though.

This article shows how obscenely work oriented our nation is. Knowing that people undergo 72 hour work days the moment they get into their career paths is terrifying. As a student majoring in business management, I’m unsure of what my first job will be but would feel extremely pressured to do as much as possible to prove myself to my coworkers and to appear as the perfect employee. I’d be under loads of stress at only the starting wage of my profession. Noticing that those with higher positions do less and earn more is utterly immoral and unjust, leaving other adults with added pressure for less payoff.
Shouldn’t we pay closer attention to those that distribute tasks and titles rather than the simple fact of work-oriented people committing suicide? It wouldn’t kill you to give great workers logical hours and great wages.

There is a glaring contradiction in this article. On the one hand, Kevin Roose is quoted as an authority on young Wall Streeters, and he expresses the view that they are basically a bunch of drones: "You can’t really stand out because most of what you’re doing does not require original thinking. So the only way you can distinguish yourself is by sheer endurance."

OTOH, the article points out that WS deals are not cookie cutters so that the work cannot be taken over by automation, i.e. these deals still require plenty of original problem-solving. As a lawyer who has worked with WS bankers all my career, I would say that young bankers can distinguish themselves on several different fronts, such as creativity, communication skills, client-facing skills, teamwork, and poise, in addition to work ethic. Therefore let's not add insult to injury by suggesting that young bankers can mostly compete only on the basis of becoming the biggest drone on the team.

Also, I think it's a bit too simplistic to suggest that the problem can be solved by hiring more bodies on which to spread out the work. Each hire is an additional cost exerting pressure on management to expand revenues and protect profit margin. The problem needs to be tackled more fundamentally, by re-ordering the priority given to maximizing short-term shareholder returns, and giving more weight to other stakeholders such as employees. "Benefit corporations" appear to be a good step in that direction.

The Wall Street environment is extreme, but not unique in the level of time and energy demanded from employees. I'm a freelancer, and the amount of money that I make is directly related to how much and how hard I am willing to work. For the most part I keep reasonable hours, but there are long nights that end just before dawn, followed by a few hours sleep and then I'm up again before 10am.
I know people that get by just fine on about 4 hours sleep every 2 days. Not everyone is the same. The real problem is the people who are unable to handle the relentless pace of Wall Street turning to suicide rather than just quit. When you allow your work to define who you are, no matter how hard you work, then you don't have much else to live for. For people who are all about success and achievement, failure or defeat is a sort of death. That is the mindset that needs to change. Failure shouldn't be an option, but it is a reality that can be faced and overcome, and ultimately followed by great success.

Threaten these workers with being fired for drug use. Did it ever cross your mind, that if Wall Street was serious about doing something about this, they would have already implemented required mandatory and periodic drug testing like most big employers? No, there is a culture of being above the law that permeates this industry and the rewards for breaking the rules are all there.

Cocaine problem + alcohol + frantic insatiable need for something, then more something = depression.

I really question that this work requires this sort of dedication that requires 72 straight hours of work. Most of these jobs don't even benefit society they are just shaving a couple of cents here and there to make profits for people who are already extremely rich.

It is time for a reality check on what is important and what is not.

As a surgeon, I completed 7 grueling years in post-medical school training often working >120 a week, albeit without the 400K bonus or lavish trips that many investment bankers take. In the middle of this, regulatory bodies instituted the infamous "80 hour work week" to limit the abuse that many in training faced during the demands of residency. Perhaps a similar system is needed here. However, what is glossed over is that many (if not all) in banking are trying to get ahead only to make money- and making 400K at age 25 is kind of like a drug in an of itself. I have watched this over and over again with friend in finance-The superiors only care about the "deal" and the "pitch" and how much of a bonus they will get. No regard for humanity or basic human needs such as sleep or food. This in turn stimulates young bankers to take drugs such as cocaine to keep them going. A sick vicious cycle perpetuated by only one thing- more money. So sad for the parents...

"And there is no evidence that the incidence of suicide by young professionals on Wall Street is higher than in any other industry."

In other words: There is no trend here. Wall Street people are no more likely to kill themselves than anyone else. So, it's hard to say Wall Street jobs cause suicides -- these suicides or any other.

There is also no news here. These guys work long hours for demanding employers. So do many other workers, many of whom have no choice in the matter, and get paid much, much, much, much, much, much, much less.

So why is this article here at all? Every death is a tragedy. It's terrible for a parent to lose a child. Of course the parents want to tell their stories. Most parents don't get to do it on the front page of the New York Times. Why are these any different?

Is it because their kids were bankers?

It's not much better in big NYC law firms, even if you're not young or male. A good friend is in that world. My husband and I reached out to her and her husband in uly to see a Broadway show in October because it starred an actor that we all adore. We were told that no can do, from then through December she has to work every evening until late in the night - and weekends - and there is no way she can make an 8pm show even with 3 months notice, because that's just MUCH too early to leave work. She has two children in elementary school. I could never.

It's not just Wall Street where this happens. It's rampant problem in our workforce. How many people die in car accidents, or prematurely because they are tired to death? How many people have serious medical problems because they have no time to take care of themselves? How many people cannot relax because they are so afraid of losing their jobs that they are on call 24/7 just to prove their value? American employers seem to feel that they own their employees at and outside of work. We are drug tested, credit checked, interviewed, and put through our paces like we are horses. But horses get better medical treatment than we do. Horses are allowed to rest. We are stressed until we burn out. Once we're burned out we're tossed aside. We treat animals better than we treat employees. We value machinery more than our employees. We'll put in air conditioning and clean rooms for vital pieces of equipment but we don't make sure that workplaces are safe, clean, adequately ventilated, or humanely run for the humans. So, to repeat, it's not just Wall Street. It's all of America that treats employees like serfs.

Someone dies of a cocaine induced suicide and it's a story to the times because they were rich.

How generous - if you schedule ahead, you would get to see your wife or girlfriend ( if you ever get one) or your kids (should you ever get one) one weekend a month!. Otherwise they're sleeping when you leave, in bed when you show up at midnight.
There's more than one type of slave labor.

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/05/banking-deaths-why-jpmorgan-stands...

What is unique about the banking industry is that many banks take out "employer owned life insurance" on their employees. So, if junior bankers commit suicide, the bank profits. This insurance can apparently be taken out WITHOUT the knowledge of the employee.

It would be useful to know if such insurance was present on this particular case.

Someone kills themselves after a cocaine and alcohol binge so we blame it on their job. Really? As far as I know we don't allow indentured servitude anymore. So if he didn't like his job he could have quit. People who take these jobs have no illusions about what is expected of them. The clearly aren't for everyone but I'm sure there are multiple applicant for every slot. This article is just another one in a long list of ones in the NYT which demonize Wall Street.

With the hell they create for the rest of us, it is hard to feel for any of them. While Marx was wrong about virtually everything else, he was absolutely right about Wall Sstreet. So is Bernie Sanders. Capitalism, not corporatism; break up the big banks, abolish legal tender laws and fractional reserve banking. Overturn Citizen United, and treat corporations as what they are, "legal fictions," subject to HEAVY regulation. Moreover, outlaw private banking, charter state banks and allow only private, member-owned credit unions.

Like many Americans, I have trouble pitying role on Wall Street for he long hours they put in. After all, isn't part of the allure that you'll work 90 hour weeks from age 22 to 35, and make so much money in that time that you can retire and never work again afterwards?
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That said, I think everyone should remember that you can always walk away. If the pressures are too much - leave. Become a school teacher, or go into design, or travel out west and be a financial adviser in Colorado. Or what have you. No need to jump out a window.

The hours being decried as inhumane for young finance workers are fairly routine for many physicians throughout their entire careers, especially for those practicing surgery, and the rate of suicide among physicians is higher than for finance workers, and consistently the highest of all occupations.

Interestingly, however, the outsized compensation for finance work mentioned in the article--$500,000 for a 29 year old associate--appears to be taken as a matter of course. On the other hand, the fact that some senior physicians can make this sort of income at the end of their careers is routinely decried by the NYT as evidence of our profession's greed and lack of altruism.

We need to greatly reduce the number of people who qualify as exempt from overtime to combat abuses like this and also to bring balance back to the employee, employer relationship. Something like a $150k or $200k minimum annual salary for being exempt would be appropriate.

No matter how you excuse it, work hours like those described are an egregious form of torture.
I suggest that lawsuits should ensue.

In the parallel piece on Valeant we learn that many drug companies are putting the cost of inexpensive, existing drugs through the stratosphere. Law and finance haven't changed because those involved in them have become so much better. They have changed because any semblance of sanity and proportion has ceased to exist. These, I'm afraid, are the "dog-eat-dog deals" that are consider important. We're informed that Mr. Moelis's stock is valued at over one billion dollars - for what?

Those who feel that the measure of their worth is wrapped up in the money that they make and in the trappings of success that they can present to the world, would do well to re-examine their values and priorities. Better to be poor and living a very modest life than to live like this young man did. What a terrible, empty, and stressful way to live.

What a bizarre world. The people who thrive on this kind of life remind me of extreme sport addicts. I don't think its about the money. That is only one of the rewards of sacrifice. It's more about the thrill of the chase, the need to run with the best, and the brief victory at the end before it all begins again. Those who crash and burn are just part of the game. It it weren't for them, how would you even know what you were risking?

There are always going to be those more powerful, richer, smarter, and far more ruthless than you if you are playing in that world. Those at the very top of it have the most to lose and play harder than anyone.

It's an entirely self created world and those who chose to join that world and play by its self imposed rules should not expect sympathy from the rest of us mortal types. Especially not now when it is becoming evident to the mortals whose money they are playing with.

Just one question from the peanut gallery here. What are you going to play with when our money runs out? Even the most rapacious parasites in nature don't kill their hosts enmasse.

WORK THAT KILLS Lethal jobs are not limited to high powered financial types or exclusively to grinding demands and schedules. In Japan they have a term for middle management men who typically work unending hours and drop dead, usually in their middle 50s or earlier. The mining industry loses workers every time there is a mine explosion, collapse or not enough oxygen. Previously workers in ship-bulding and others in contact with asbestos dust died decades later from mesothilioma. In the meat packing industry, workers routinely sustain disabling and disfiguring injuries that leave them unable to work or to function independently. In my opinion, the thinking that pervades such work environments is similar: There's work to be done. You're paid to do it. The company obligates you to complete work over any other commitments in your life. Status, financial pressures and social relationships are factors that inhibit workers form demanding jobs that allow them to live humanely.

Let's face it. Anyone who works a horse around the clock without rest knows that the horse is going to die from exhaustion. There are many exposes about the evils of industrial farming and abuse of animals.

But who writes about workers who are expected to work themselves to death, sooner or later? Who speaks for them? Not even animal humane societies!

My younger brother died last October at 60 unexpectedly from advanced, undetected heart disease & sleep apnea. He worked himself to death.

Long, round the clock, work hours have been the norm in Wall Street and big law firms for, at least, the last several decades.

Many of the young people coming into the work force from privileged families are used to being coddled. "Helicopter" parents are now complaining about employers the same way they complained to teachers if the kids didn't get an "A". (No family member should be surprised if a Sullivan & Cromwell young attorney doesn't get Easter brunch off).

As sad as any suicide is, perhaps young adults who can't handle long hours should be steered away from those jobs by the same system of parents and tutors that has been demanding achievement at the same time they were hand-holding, and over indulging.

Mothers are always in denial when their sons kill a bunch of people---or themselves. "...she thinks he was working too hard but that his death 'is a tragedy that defies any kind of explanation.' The recent Oregon college shooter's mother is nowhere to be seen in the media. And she owned lots of guns and took her killer son to target practice. Adam Lanza's mother gave him guns. He murdered little school children, and her.

I guess "stuff happens." Can't be avoided.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his own soul?

This is a sad commentary on contemporary life in this country, where the pursuit of wealth at all costs is the by product of American capitalism.

Young college and business school graduates don't have the maturity and perspective that comes with age. All they seem to see is a job that has the potential to pay them hundreds of thousands and even sometimes millions of dollars and they equate that with a happy and fulfilled life. They are willing to trade any semblance of a balanced life for all that money, including time to spend it.

I just don't see how it is worth it. The mental and physical toll this kind of pressure and lack of sleep takes on an individual is damaging in so many ways.

The daughter of a good friend of mine is a third year associate for a pretogious law firm in New York City. She is very bright and ambitious and works very long hours. When she was in law school I asked her what kind of lawyer she wanted to be. Her answer was "a rich one".

I have very little doubt that she will achieve that. But I also fear that in her focus on achieving career success and material wealth that she will miss out on so many other things in life. Before she knows it she will be turning forty with very little in her life besides her job and a large bank account.

But maybe that will be enough for her -- everyone is different.

I had a long career on Wall Street. It was rewarding and demanding at the same time. Just like the rewarding part was not only about $, so was the demanding part not just about time commitment. It exacts a mental and emotional toll which gets tolerated - or not - in different ways. For me personally psychotherapy helped and today in my practice I help bankers (and others) deal and work through life's many struggles and challenges.

My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.

The article caused me to meditate on society's relationship with and disproportionate rewards conveyed to the finance world. By and large value is not created in any relationship to the profits gained by this world.

But they only gain so much because the rest of us are willing to fork over the cash by the choices we make. I don't expect people to reflexively target the space based upon anger or jealousy. But self interest and personal values can have results.

In my case, I am an entrepreneur who started a company decades ago that employs well over a hundred people and is nicely profitable. I am regularly approached to sell my company. One of the factors that has kept me from doing so is a recognition that the reputations of companies acquired by the private equity people in my space is by and large abysmal. Glassdoor reviews pan the cultures and leadership of these acquired companies. I like my staff and client too much to allow this to happen to my company, so I hold off and continue to enjoy the responsibilities and perks of ownership. If and when I sell, it will be with a careful and open eye on the culture of the acquirers, based upon actual track record, not empty promises.

And when it comes time to choose partners to assist in the sale, I will look to the culture of the advisers and how they treat their staff.

Lastly, as an investor, I avoid those with high fees in favor of indexes and the like.

The most insidious exploitation is that which pays the willing victim handomely. Rationalize all they want (Houghes had peronal problems) the conclusion is inescapable that more workers would solve the problem of an acqisition and merger sweatshop. These young men and women sorely need a union as did earlier exploited classes. Yet their eschewing such a remedy perfectly fits the basis for the exploitation on the first place: bloated notions of materialism's importance, even though culture (attending an opera), family leisure, and sometimes life itself are destroyed by these notions. Condolences to these families.

When we are young and straight out of graduate school, we can put up with all kinds of sacrifices--for awhile. No sleep, long journeys to close deals, no "real" relationships with family or friends, let alone with a loving partner. But the price paid for sacrificing our humanity in such transitory achievements and bonuses is the ultimate one. No human being needs this kind of life. My heartfelt sympathy to the families on the deaths of Mr. Thomas and Mr. Gupta.
As to the senior bankers for allowing this life-draining culture to exist: you are complicit.

Story of a troubled young man, kicked out of his boarding school for cocaine use. His breakup due to "reckless behavior" Sounds like the cause of his suicide was substance abuse, not working long hours. If people want to work long hours and trade their lives for money thats their choice. I'm not going to feel bad for them.

This article paints a simplistic picture of a very complex world. I was in law. In Toronto (we call it "Bay Street" versus "Wall Street"). I worked with lots of these Goldman Sachs types. First, I loved every minute of what I did. No one "made" me work those hours - they were necessary because, if a client has a deal to close and it must close within a certain timeframe (and bear in mind buyers of bonds have bought hedging contracts that will be extinguished if the deal is delayed), then you had to do what was necessary to close that deal. For the commenter who alleges that we weren't productive after 72 hours, I will only say that you have to be there to see how productive most of us were. I negotiated and drafted very complex tax-based concepts after 4 days with only 3 hours sleep. It isn't the partners who "make" juniors do this - it is the clients. And if you say no to that client you'll never do another deal for him again. Finally, if anyone had made me take off a day under a policy to reduce my stress, I would have been overwhelmed by the stress of realizing I'd lost 24 hours in my drive to close the deal. Was it good for my health? No. I'm paying for that now. Do I regret it? Not for a second. Best years of my life and I miss it everyday.

Life on Wall Street was not always like this. Get some input from people who worked there in the 50's and 60's and 70's.

Life changed in the 1980's in Law and on Wall Street and then, in all employment in the USA. As US colleges and universities have drastically changed over the last 25 years , so too, have Law and finance become barbaric, dog eat dog, *athletic* activities, albeit without the constraints of *rules of the game*.

One's heart breaks for the Gupta and Hughes families and for all the boys and girls who submit themselves to these occupations in this time of a *Global Economy* when the standards of Communist China towards the human being appear to control many aspects of our economic and political life.

Mr. Hughes wonders why Wall Street doesn’t just hire more people and pay everyone a little less?

Its the super chicken theory come home to roost (see TED talk by Margaret Heffernan). The partners at these firms believe they are superchickens and need to promote competitive behavior - everyone comes from the right schools, the right internships, and have the right associations. The young suprechickens peck their way to the top. The older chickens know better, but they keep promoting the behavior, capitalizing on youthful ignorance masked by exhuberance.

Add to the mix a little greed, and its no wonder there are serious casualties in today's super-connected age. Since when does not allowing people to come into the office really matter, when their office comes home with them in the form of their laptop or phone?

I find it telling that in a NY-based newspaper read by all and sundry in the financial world, there is no comment on this article. It appears that the moguls in the financial institutions believe that the obscene amount of pay makes up for the awful stresses and strains caused by the unending hours. If, as is stated in the article, these deals do not call for creative thinking by the junior associates, then surely a lot of their work can be done by forms, etc. Creativity requires a quick mind that has been rested and treated appropriately. Please correct me if I have misstated the situation because I have no experience in this financial maelstrom.

These type of work hours are completely unnecessary and are really simply torture equivalent to an initiation at a fraternity. Employees should not be measured by the number of hours they put in, but by their productivity. These absurd hours are nothing more than macho bravado. And certainly firms with the profits of Wall Street can afford to hire more employees if they are truly needed.

An employee who works even 18 hours straight is not and cannot be productive and cannot think clearly, never mind someone who has worked 72 hours straight. Is that who a Wall Street company wants analyzing or negotiating a deal or performing due dilligence?

And while drugs are available to almost anyone, wealthy or not, the riches paid by Wall Street firms encourage expensive drug use, such as cocaine.

This is also the sign of a society which values wealth for the sake of wealth above all else: above creativity, humanity, friendship, family and general well-being. If these deaths along with the other news today about the billionaires who buy up drug companies and then increase the price of life-saving drugs 20 times doesn't tell us that these extremes of capitalism haven't turned us into a very sick society, then nothing will.

The pay is good but is partly what we economists call a "compensating differential," payment not for skill but to compensate for the unattractiveness of the job itself. The term is typically used to explain why some trash collectors make more than teachers. But it could apply here due to the hours and stress. One must recall Peter Falk's line from The In-Laws: "The CIA has a great benefits plan. Staying alive. That's the key to the CIA benefits plan."