The tragic death of former Green Beret and Bank of America employee Leo Lukenas III has become a flashpoint for anger over unrealistic job expectations on Wall Street. Partly because some bankers say Lukenas’ experience is very similar to their own.
There is no evidence that the blood clot that killed 35-year-old Lukenas on May 2 was caused by work-related stress, but he recently said he had been in talks with a recruiter to find a job with better working hours. This issue has received a lot of attention due to the Reuters report. He is said to have been juggling 100-hour work weeks until his death.
Multiple Wall Street sources told the Post about frightening health problems they claim are related to the stressful job.
A Bank of America employee said, “There have been incidents where analysts have fainted during meetings due to lack of sleep or food, and cases where analysts have been hospitalized due to panic attacks, but no one has bothered to check on them. “They didn’t let me in for the sake of it,” he claimed.
A second Bank of America employee died Thursday.
London-based trader Adnan Dhumik, 25, was participating in a “5-a-side” charity soccer tournament with other financial employees when he suddenly fell and was given CPR. A person familiar with the matter said.
The cause of death is unknown, but cardiac arrest is suspected, officials told the Post. There is no known connection between Dumiku’s work and his death.
Mr. Dumic was working nearly 60 hours a week instead of 100, and the hours were extremely stressful. On some days, Mr. Dumic was making transactions worth $1 billion, people with direct knowledge told the Post.
“He was probably working 11 to 12 hours a day, and the hours were incredibly grueling…he didn’t even have time for coffee,” the source said.
This is not the first time bankers have been angered by the untimely death of a colleague, but the latest response has prompted more people to speak out, the people said.
Employees are finding validation and camaraderie on popular financial chat boards on Reddit and WallStreetOasis.com. And popular Instagram accounts like Wall Street’s Litquidity and Overheard, with more than 1 million followers, are giving airtime to some of the most egregious issues.
Wall Street Oasis 1 post A post from an anonymous banker highlighting a list of demands for employee benefits recently received more than 450 comments.
The anonymous bankers behind Wall Street Overhard spoke with multiple Bank of America employees and shared some of their comments with the Post.
“Bank of America has a system called the ‘Banker Diary’ where junior bankers enter the number of hours they work each week. By issuing a warning to those who work more than 80 hours a week, we We are supposed to protect them from the virus,” one person said. “I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve actually been asked. [managing directors and directors] This is to write a lie in the bunker’s diary to avoid being reported. ”
The newspaper has contacted Bank of America for comment.
Wall Street culture varies by company and sector, but the sector in which Lukenas worked, investment banking, is notorious for being the cutest. It’s also the most profitable bank, with bankers in their first year out of college able to withdraw $200,000 a year while regularly logging 100-hour work weeks.
This is a top-down issue, officials said. Most of the sources asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions for speaking out.
“Vice presidents don’t respect young people’s time,” a managing director sympathetic to young bankers told the Post. “They’re willing to give someone a job on a Friday at 6 p.m. that they could have given on a Tuesday. [managers] I was distracted. ”
Mark Moran, who currently runs the investor relations firm Equity Animal, spent four years working on mergers and acquisitions at Lazard and Centerview Partners.
“You typically don’t have to be in the office until 10 a.m., and you often don’t get assigned work until the afternoon,” he said of many junior employees at major banks. Once you get the assignment, you have to stay until 2pm to finish it. ”
“These CEOs love to talk about efficiency and productivity, but they’re literally wasting their most important asset: their people’s time,” one source, who left Wall Street after six years, told the Post. told.
Most junior employees, commonly referred to as associates, spend just two years at a lower level before leaving the company or being promoted.
Lukenas, who lives in Brooklyn, was a Green Beret for more than a decade, from 2013 until joining the bank as an associate last July, according to his LinkedIn page. He leaves behind his wife and two young children.
He worked about 100 hours a week for several weeks straight and died three days after completing the $2 billion merger, Reuters reported.
Those two-year associate years can be hellish, with employees reportedly complaining about not having control over their schedules.
According to a study conducted by Wall Street Overhard, junior bankers sleep an average of just five hours a night.
One source, who left investment banking for a career in private equity, told the Post that in his previous job he was so exhausted that he had to take a break in the bathroom every few hours to work. Ta.
Bank officials say sleep deprivation can lead to depression, physical illness and, in some cases, the use of drugs such as cocaine to stay awake.
Hank Medina, who chronicles Wall Street culture on his Instagram account Litquidity, was working at Jefferies Bank when, after months of chest pain and heart palpitations, he finally worked up the courage to ask his manager to give him time off. He told the Post how he was able to go to the hospital to ask for help. doctor.
Medina said the pain was diagnosed as being caused by “incredible stress and lack of sleep.”
“The week the doctor put me on a heart monitor, the analyst I was working with said he was also wearing a heart monitor… [chest pain] It happens often,” Medina said. “The adrenaline from the job was unsustainable.”
Another Bank of America official told Wall Street Overhard: I returned to work after taking sick leave, but after work I felt guilty for taking time off for my health. teeth It’s the main cause of my health problems. ”
Over the years, we have experienced a small number of suicides and deaths, and some reforms have been made. In 2013, Goldman Sachs introduced the so-called “Saturday Rule” after an intern at Bank of America in London died of a seizure after working until 6 a.m. for three consecutive days. This required employees to leave the office and not work before 9 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. Sunday.
Other companies, including JPMorgan and Citi, have reportedly adopted similar rules, but the guidelines are now often ignored by some companies, people told the Post. That’s what it means.
Wall Street firms such as DE Shaw, Blackrock, and Goldman Sachs offer egg freezing to female employees as a benefit, a process that allows women to work intensively before starting a family. is.
But officials say many of the changes are cyclical. When profits are high and talent is scarce, banks, like Jefferies, reassure junior employees by promising to limit meetings or giving them Peloton bikes.
But as soon as profits decline, companies are under pressure to cut costs, reduce headcount, and force fewer employees to do more work, and the cycle begins again.
And some older bankers are unsympathetic.
“what happened [Lukenas] “While truly tragic, it would be inappropriate for a young banker to use his untimely death to alleviate the hard work required to become a successful investment banker after 20 years on Wall Street.” one banker told the Post. “Elon Musk works over 100 hours a week, and he has never died.”
Another banker added: “If you don’t want to do the job, there are three juniors behind you who will sit in your seat.”
But one former Goldman employee told the Post there was no excuse for the heavy workload.
“While not working with your hands like you would in a factory, working 100 hours a week as a junior financial analyst has characteristics similar to hard labor in that it is physically demanding and taxing, which is why it is often under-represented. It’s appreciated,” an economics doctoral candidate studying labor and financial economics at Stanford University told the Post. “We need an overall culture change that requires both employers and employees to prioritize health and wellbeing over increased unproductive time.”
“I don’t understand it because it wouldn’t take that long to be a leader and make real change,” another longtime Wall Streeter told the Post. “It’s a very old-fashioned culture.”
