It’s one thing to be at the office late when you’re single and fresh out of undergrad, another to do it consistently when you’re in your 40s.Jupiterimages/Getty Images
Scrambling to file a story earlier this spring, I reached out to a top-ranked corporate lawyer for some assistance. By the time he got back to me, at 8:13 p.m., he'd missed my deadline.
Because he replied too late, he apologized – something that certainly wasn't necessary. He then went so far as to say that if I needed anything else, he'd still be in the office for a while.
At first it felt nice to know he could still make time for me if I needed him. Once that subsided, I wondered why one of the country's top lawyers was burning something close to the midnight oil on a mundane Monday.
He surely wasn't the only one. Such hustle is common on Bay Street, where traders can be punished for being a minute late to the 7:10 morning meeting, and where management consultants offer edits on PowerPoint slide decks hours after they eat dinner. It isn't a capital markets phenomenon, either. Bank executives regularly take credit reports home after their 11-hour days, and they often read economic updates on the weekends.
For many, the grind is particularly gruelling right now because deal flow is through the roof. Some investment bankers have said this is the most hectic market for initial public offerings they've seen in their careers and 2015 has already seen at least seven billion-dollar share sales. The first quarter was the highest for underwriting fees ever.
Despite the lucrative compensation that stems from such stellar deal flow, there is a constant need to deliver more. You might have already made your group's budget for the full year, but you'll still get in trouble if you lose market share relative to your rivals and fall in the league tables.
Those who can endure this grind deserve some serious credit, because it is intense. It's one thing to be at the office late when you're single and fresh out of undergrad, another to do it consistently when you're in your 40s.
Lately I've been thinking about the personal tolls that arise from abiding by such a tough schedule. Earlier this month, there was the eye-popping news out of San Francisco that a junior Goldman Sachs banker died after pounding through 100-hour workweeks and pulling close to a triple all-nighter. There's no doubt this was an outlier. Even the most intense capital markets jobs don't come with such severe consequences.
Still, it serves as a cautionary tale of how far we'll push ourselves.
It also made me wonder why we don't focus on personal issues, or our families more. We're so often laser-focused on winning the next big advisory mandate or fairness opinion – or in my case, on meeting deadlines – that we forget what we're doing to our bodies and those we care most about. I often wonder if the media is to blame. Court victories and heavy deal flow are what grab headlines – not if you made it home for dinner.
I'm as guilty as anyone else. One morning last July, my mum called me at 7:28 a.m. to say she was worried my dad was having a stroke. She was right, and my sister and I dropped everything and raced to the hospital. There are few things as upsetting as seeing your father lying there with his face paralyzed on one side and unable to speak or eat.
Thankfully, he started showing recovery signs within hours, which we learned was common for stroke victims. The brain has a mysterious power to rapidly heal if the stroke isn't incredibly catastrophic.
So I started working again, the very next day, from his bedside.
It didn't seem like it took much of a toll on me at the time. If anything I was happy to be buried in the work. But I've been exhausted since then – that's almost a full year – and I just came back from two weeks' vacation during which I still had dreams about the ordeal. Thankfully, he made a miraculous recovery, and he's as alive as ever as Father's Day approaches. (So you can understand why he's on my mind.)
In service and advisory businesses, the client's needs always come first. That's never going to change. But personal boundaries are necessary. Delivering deal flow is crucial. But so too, are all the other important things in life.
And believe it or not, taking time away is better for your clients. So many jobs on Bay Street are built on ideas – a trade idea, a merger idea, a legal workaround. The smartest of those often come when you feel refreshed.