A handful of junior bankers at a Midwestern bank have admitted that they’ve experienced long hours and unfair treatment from their bosses, including reprimands and harsh punishments for their lack of productivity, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The insight that these bankers gave into their workplace has created a conversation around burnout and the general toll that high-pressure environments can have on young professionals. This treatment isn’t anything new for professionals working on Wall Street. In fact, long, grueling hours and the intense pressure from managers have long been considered part of the culture in finance. Despite being considered normal in the profession, it definitely doesn’t make it acceptable, especially when many of these junior bankers and analysts have experienced health problems as a result.
At Robert W. Bairda handful of junior bankers and analysts shared their grievances with the company on a popular Wall Street message board. One banker explained how they had raised concerns to human resources about the consistent 20-hour workdays. However, instead of their concerns being addressed, things only got worse.
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According to The Wall Street Journal, weeks later, the banker was diagnosed with a failed pancreas after collapsing at home from exhaustion.
Doctors said they believed the organ failure was due to the banker’s heavy workload. Not only was this banker in the hospital that first time, but he ended up back a second time, as well.
After their second visit to the hospital, the banker was fired for “poor productivity.” In the posts on the Wall Street message board named Oasiswhich eventually went viral, there was a lot of attention brought to a mid-level banker who would assign 20-hour work days, according to an employee who worked with him.
The banker in question, Aaron Haney, was eventually let go after the posts went viral, people who worked with him said.
One former analyst admitted that he worked for a year on a drawn-out deal that meant regular all-nighters spent at his desk pitching materials, according to the WSJ.
When he stepped away for about 25 minutes to grab dinner one evening, his boss was enraged and said that he shouldn’t leave his desk for “more than five minutes without notifying him.”
Other former employees claimed that they were worried about complaining because they thought it would make them look “more weak,” and that many of their managers were already aware of the long hours they were working.
Since the start of 2024, more than a dozen junior members of the team at Baird have left. Including the banker who had raised concerns about their workload to human resources, another employee ended up in the hospital because of the work as well.
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Bankers and analysts at Robert W. Baird aren’t the only ones who detail unconscionable working conditions. According to a survey of 13 first-year analysts at Goldman Sachsthey have to endure very long work hours, pressures to meet deadlines, and abusive behavior from superiors, leading to problems in their personal lives.
First-year analysts detailed having to work 95-hour weeks with only five hours of sleep each night. All respondents in the survey stated that the long hours they work have negatively impacted their relationship with family and friends, while a majority claimed they have been the victims of workplace abuse, including shouting and swearing, and considered seeking counseling or therapy.
Nothing can justify any employee, no matter where they’re working, having to endure conditions that put their physical and/or mental health at risk.
This normalization of toxic working conditions in finance, especially when this type of behavior wouldn’t and shouldn’t be tolerated in any other career field, reflects the issues that stem from prioritizing profit and productivity over the actual well-being of employees.
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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
