[catchmilk]

Throughout my professional career, I've worked as an engineer for the buy-side (arguably better work-life balance compared to sell-side, i.e. banks). More often than not, I was working under a manager/team lead that made it abundantly clear to the team that one "will not progress in the company if they think they can leave everyday at 5pm". I've also had a manager who was speechless to find out that we did not, in fact, sign waivers that meant we give up regular working hours and can therefore be forced to work long hours every day or on the weekends.

Funnily enough, I can't count the number of times I had an interview and the interviewer described the company as the 'Google of Finance', with an emphasis on work-life balance. It couldn't be further away from the truth in my experience. Management in the financial industry is unfortunately still plagued with people who think that more working hours is perfectly correlated with more productivity.

[jasim]

I once worked for a German company (remotely) who made it clear that working beyond 6pm wouldn't lead to much progress, and my lead consistently logged out at just the time. So I had to follow his example and couldn't potter around after. I still love the team for that. But we consistently did a solid day's worth of work everyday and there wasn't much juice left to continue after.

[globuous]

My dad was working for a big oil company. He once told me a pretty funny story. The company had just switched CEOs, and the new CEO was walking around the office around 7:30pm, knocked on my dad's door and asked him "sir, are you bad at your job ?" My dad was surprised because he thought he had a reputation of being pretty good at it. The new CEO then asked him "so if you're good at your job, why are you still in the office at 7:30pm ?". The ideo being that someone good could finish his workload soon enough to be back home with his family by 7:30. That contrasted so much with the "stay at work as long as you can to show you're working hard" culture so many companies have.

[standardUser]

That practically brings a tear to my eye. We need a world with a lot more of those bosses.

[vbtemp]

I love this.

First time I was a engineering lead, things were going great, to the point we simply weren't busy... Long lunches, chill days, making good friendships. The younger staff became worried that they weren't busy and didn't have anything to do, because they were so used to always having backlogs of bugs and other random assignments to do. I simply said, this is what life is like when you're good at what you do - you reward good work with pleasantness instead of more work!

[iancmceachern]

This. This is good management.

[BrandoElFollito]

This is what I do (French company). I then do basically the same thing afterwards (coding and learning tech) but for my pleasure.

Then I have time to check with the kids, have dinner and watch a movie or go biking (well, the latter got complicated with our covid measures).

And the next day I am happy to be back at work.

The big, big difference is that I am in France and cannot be forced to many things, this could just have an inpact on my career (which it does not and I could not care less anyway)

[tartoran]

Yes, they’re not stressing out the team, perhaps they have long term growth in mind.

> But we consistently did a solid day's worth of work everyday and there wasn't much juice left to continue after.

I find that a bit much, one is to expect some downtime so employees switch modes a bit, maybe do research on their own on the company time, say, maybe 4-5 hours a week. Squeezing up to the last drop, even if it’s paid and within the normal 40 hours a week, is not the best way to let your employees grow.

[kazen44]

in my experience this is the norm in most european companies.

If you need to do overwork to reach the good levels of productivity something is seriously wrong in your company. Sure, moments of overwork happen, but in my experience it is usually seen as a failure in management if this happens regularly.

[AndyMcConachie]

I think it's often less about productivity than it is about instilling a sense of allegiance. Certain companies like it when their employees have no life outside of work because they are less likely to cause trouble and more likely to do what they're told.

Management in these places wants to own your time and wants you close so they can keep an eye on you.

[evgen]

The long hours also serves as a sort of hazing ritual that can increase bonding to a particular world-view. If you are a company like GS you know you can pull in the cream of the crop by dangling huge payouts at the end of the apprenticeship period. The apprentices will eat entire pies filled with shit day in and day out until they can't take it anymore and quit. Those who survive are now much more closely bonded to both their peers and upper-management (who endured the same thing in the past) and are more likely to take the company world-view as axiomatic from that point onward. You see this in finance, medicine, elite military units, and more close to home you see it all over the startup world.

[chii]

But the question is whether this sort of hazing produce better outcomes (for the company)?

You point out elite military units, and medicine. Both of these fields tend to have highly competent, highly motivated individuals, and thus their work is quite valuable. If it were better to not have such hazing, then that implies that these units are not operating optimally. But then if they aren't, why hasn't a better optimal system replaced it?

[evgen]

I guess I would assume that it produces better outcomes from the company perspective but honestly can't think of a good counter-example to use as a comparison. After enduring the hazing it is much easier to convince you to do things that might be a bit morally questionable (e.g. shifting your personal ethical Overton window) by reminding you in subtle ways of what you endured to reach this point, what it means to others that have endured with you, etc.

I would assume that in certain adversarial environments it is better to have a small team that will focus on a goal without question than one in which either the goal or the means to accomplish it are ever up for questioning, but someone with any knowledge of academic research on leadership and team dynamics can probably answer better than I.

[goatinaboat]

it is much easier to convince you to do things that might be a bit morally questionable (e.g. shifting your personal ethical Overton window

Same reason that executives like to go to strip clubs together, it creates a sense of “if I go down you go down with me”.

[newsclues]

It creates loyalty and trust. Important when doing dangerous or illegal things.

[TeMPOraL]

I recall this being a topic of interest in social sciences in general. My general impression[0] is that hazing rituals are very important in creating and maintaining group cohesion. The rituals evolve towards being tough enough in terms of pain and self-esteem: enough to filter out people with weak desire to join the group[1], and enough to do some lasting - but not debilitating - damage[2], but not enough to be seen as abusive by the group members[3].

The driver of evolution of these rituals is just group survival: very bad ones will self-destruct a group, good ones let the group be more effective and outcompete less effective rivals[4].

Here are some predictions from this view, which I think all pan out:

- Groups that survived for a long time have such rituals. They evolve towards less tough/abusive if the group isn't in fierce competition. They may ultimately become painless, effortless, make-believe rubber-stamping, but at that point the group is dying.

- When new groups form around some domain, some may go overboard with their rituals - it takes time for groups to self-destruct or be outcompeted.

- Groups overlap, and the demands of supergroup may temper the hazing rituals of subgroups. The most obvious example: the laws of your nation will put a ceiling on what kind of hazing can happen in groups that exist under its jurisdiction.

--

[0] - Not a social scientist, have no sources to cite, going from memory of all the stuff I read in books and blogs over the last decade of procrastination.

[1] - In cases where joining is voluntary - e.g. a fraternity. Contrast that with tribes, where everyone born to in it is expected to go through a coming-of-age ritual.

[2] - The group wants its members to contribute fully to its goals, so rituals will not threaten that - unless there's a steady stream of candidates that needs to be filtered anyway, in which case surviving the ritual unscathed becomes a filtering criterion. On the other hand, scars - be it physical or emotional - are encouraged, if they're not compromising performance. Such scars serve as a reminder of the commitment, in-group identifier, and (particularly with scars gained post-hazing) can confer social status in the group.

[3] - The goal is to boost group cohesion, so having new members harbor resentment towards the group is counterproductive.

[4] - Note that when talking about market players, the "group" here isn't equivalent to a company. A company is a different intersubjective entity, largely independent from a group of people. In a company, people are fungible. A group can form in a company, or across companies, and can easily move from one company to another, retaining its members and rituals. Groups cycle its members too (e.g. people die, or retire from service, or quit the industry), but it's a different lifecycle.

[heavenlyblue]

> But then if they aren't, why hasn't a better optimal system replaced it?

Because we’re not living at the limit of infinity and this discussion is there to change this fact

[908B64B197]

From spending time with medical residents, a good chunk of the "overworking" happens because the environment is completely dysfunctional and unorganized.

They are pitted against one another to show their values to their superiors, leading to taking on longer and longer shifts, and an obsession to be the one that ends up being right. Since demand is basically guaranteed (people won't stop getting sick) and money keeps being poured into these underperforming organizations (due to the artificial scarcity of residency spots) there's no incentive to change, better organize and improve the situation. No matter what, the checks keeps coming every months for the organization.

[goatinaboat]

You see this in finance, medicine, elite military units

And in distinctly non-elite units too: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-56406948 in fact this is probably a result of that unit trying to emulate what they imagine real units do

[JumpCrisscross]

> it's often less about productivity than it is about instilling a sense of allegiance

Note that the senior people at these firms are usually pulling, while not 80+ hours, at least 60 a week (e.g. 6AM to 6PM Monday through Friday).

[ghaff]

A lot of the commentary here is (correctly) on the associate "hazing." But, yes, partners certainly don't just cruise in for a few hours a day either and there's definitely a hierarchy of partners. In my experience, with investment banking there's a fair bit of high-end FIRE with at least some of those who stick it out retiring in their 40s or so.

[Frost1x]

It's also about ekeing out any additional labor because the employer pays a flat rate. It doesn't matter if 20-40 of the hours after 40 hours only gain 10% additional work relative to the 90% done in the first 40 hours. That's still a 10% gain for the business at no cost. Employees are going to cycle out anyways naturally looking for better opportunities so who cares if they get burnt out?

Exempt positions shouldn't be an option in any industry, in my opinion. As they become the norm everywhere they become an excuse to abuse labor for whatever reason the employer decides.

[MereInterest]

Except that every productivity study shows the exact opposite. For a week or two, you can spend more hours to produce more. On any longer timescale, the extra hours decrease your productivity/hour so much that the total output goes down. It's not just abusive on the part of the employer, but is also just plain stupid.

Definitely agree on overtime-exempt positions. The terminology is also really messed up. Normally, being exempt from something is a good thing. Here, "non-exempt" and "exempt" should be referred to as "paid for overtime" and "screwed for overtime".

[1123581321]

An “up-or-out” pyramid structure doesn’t see as much of that longer-term effect because it creates a selective environment for people who can work longer hours, and because it is overworking a stream of new interns and graduates who don’t stay for as much of the low productivity period as employees would in a traditional organization.

[MereInterest]

How long does it take to get promoted out of the initial hazing? Productivity at 40 hours/week beats productivity at 60 hours/week over any time scale longer than a month. I sincerely doubt that the turnover/promotion rate is only a month long.

I do agree that there is a misalignment of incentives. An employer is not financially responsible for the burnout that they induce. If it takes the employee an extra 2-3 months between jobs due to recovering from that burnout, that is a financial hit to the employee on top of the emotional hit, even though they were not responsible for causing the burnout in the first place.

[1123581321]

Yes, they're around longer than an extra month, but as these organizations see it, they would never get the valuable work they really want out of the eventually promoted juniors who burn out that quickly, anyway, regardless of work hours. The shortened tenure just reduces the cost of their process to find people who will thrive when they are given seniority and staff on top of their ability to work long hours well.

If you want to put math on it, something like this might be the model:

Value of low stamina junior employee, overworked: x

Value of low stamina junior employee, 40h/week: 2x

Value of high stamina junior employee, overworked: 1.5x

Value of low stamina junior employee after seniority: 4x

Value of high stamina junior employee after seniority: 5-10x

This gap trend continues to widen up the ranks, up to the top, since the top executives of these companies still have to close deals with the most significant clients.

My opinion is that up-or-out is a worse model for most organizations than a flatter model that promotes and pays ICs and technical leaders accordingly and doesn't assign outsized prestige to deal closers--but I can't deny these organizations are effective at selecting the right people for them.

[watwut]

It does see exact same effect. The people are not fired after the few weeks before productivity is down. It takes much more time.

People who can work long hours long term dont produce more lomg term. They just dont quit and work long hours with lower hourly productivity.

[logicchains]

>Funnily enough, I can't count the number of times I had an interview and the interviewer described the company as the 'Google of Finance', with an emphasis on work-life balance. It couldn't be further away from the truth in my experience. Management in the financial industry is unfortunately still plagued with people who think that more working hours is perfectly correlated with more productivity.

Some HFTs are better in this regard, as developer quality/productivity matters a lot more for high-frequency trading than it does at a slow-trading bank or hedge fund, and mistakes are more costly, so they have incentive to treat their developers better.

[raverbashing]

What do you mean by the buy-side exactly? Investment funds?

[Galanwe]

Financial jargon.

Buy-side are traditionally firms that are the "leaf" of the system: investment funds, hedge funds, etc. These are buyers of services.

Sell side refer to firms that are selling a service for the buy side, brokers, banks, etc.

[phyalow]

Yes Hedge Funds usually. Sell side is banks selling services and the buyers are Hedge Funds, Asset Managers etc.

[ludwigschubert]

Yeah, funds, or anyone who makes investments essentially. Unlike banks, which focus on the sale and generating revenue from fees etc. rather than investment insight. Investopedia isn't always the best source, but for definitions they come in handy: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/buyside.asp

(I had a brief internship in finance on the buy-side and had to look up a ton of terms like that, to the degree that I was given this tongue-in-cheek "guide": https://www.amazon.com/Damn-Feels-Good-Be-Banker/dp/14013096.... It's immature af, but managed to teach me the cliches and terminology.)