Working until the late night is a common habit amongst (young, especially) investment bankers.
In fact, when you work in a stressful environment, the fear of not finishing before the deadline, making a mistake in a deliverable, failing to meet expectations and to impress your senior banker(s) keep you moving along. The incentive to perform well far outweighs the detrimental effects of impoverished sleep… in the short run.
There is a misconception that working until late is going to produce a superior product, but most of us still remember the effect of the sleep deprivation of the engineers who worked for NASA leading to the Challenger explosion, or the tragic death of the 21-years-old Moritz Erhardt, Bank of America intern.
In fact, all else being equal, a well-rested person will be more productive, creative, efficient in a shorter period than he will be after sleep deprivation.
In fact, the extra hours quite regularly hinder performance: this seldom gets noticed, when you are creating a Powerpoint presentation that will be revised or even drafting a contract, that doesn’t require split-second irrevocable decisions.
When they finish so late, junior bankers try to come to the office a bit later, but this can only happen if there are no commitments in the morning, like a conference call, internal meeting or a client meeting. Young investment bankers also tend to often find apartments relatively close to the office, so they can maximise sleep time and shorten the commute.
All-nighters and late nighters investment bankers are always sustained by an ongoing vicious cycle: monetary benefits push them beyond unfathomable boundaries. After a while, when health starts to deteriorate rapidly, regrets arise… until the paycheck arrives – then it all starts again. This vicious cycle usually gets only broken by the realisation that family, travelling the world, and health may be more satisfying goals to pursue in life. So, to change the situation, investment bankers often try to use their productiveness, efficiency and intelligence to digest their workload and manage their time better, avoiding late night instances always more and more often.
Some specific investment banking jobs and tasks also do require extremely mental sharpness, and people in those areas does get reasonable amounts of sleep. Traders in for example, including entry level trader assistants, need to be well rested: otherwise, they would risk being negligent in split second multi-million-pound transactions for not being at their mental best.
Actually, who will be actually giving to clients that Powerpoint presentation that the junior bankers created during the late night and answer the clients’ questions will get a good night’s sleep before doing it. In fact, it is widely recognised that if you haven’t slept enough, you will have a quite unprofessional look and you won’t be able to answer properly to any questions: for this reason, you won’t be allowed to approach a client.
