
Goldman Sachs limits interns to 17 hour workdays - z0a
http://mashable.com/2015/06/18/goldman-sachs-interns/
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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9739254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9739254)

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MathsOX
I'm a summer intern at Goldman in S&T. Days for interns are the same as for
the MD (managing director) you're under. You try to get in just before they do
and leave when they do. Generally this is 6AM-7PM for me. I don't step foot in
the office after 7PM Friday and have zero reason to do so until Monday.

On the IB side working 9AM-11PM, with many days working to 2-3AM, is
absolutely the normal. As is working on each day of the weekend. However,
these new hours are being enforced by HR heavily - to my understanding,
there's no reason for them to apply to S&T - although I'm not sure it'll
mitigate any stress.

The issue with IB internships, like any internship, is that you have huge gaps
of lull time between projects. However, when you do get projects they're
generally time sensitive and need to be done regardless of how long it takes
you. This is the life of IB analysts, that those doing the IB internship are
lining up to try to get, because it all comes down to doing your two years and
going to somewhere (supposedly) bigger and better.

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kzhahou
6am-7pm -- how many of those hours are productive? My own brain tends to melt
and needs a break after a couple hours of solid work.

I always assume when people (not you) brag about their 100-hour workweeks,
that in fact a huge chunk of that includes hanging out with co-workers, lunch,
some down time throughout the day, so on.

So, what's your own day like? What's a GS intern do, anyway?

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MathsOX
Well, for IB I can't comment much. I'd say there's a lot of downtime, playing
with basic models, etc.

In S&T it's quite different and depends if you're on a quant desk; relatively
illiquid trading desk, like some kind of structured product where you'll get a
few trades a day; or a more normal fixed income or commodities desk where
you'll be making markets throughout the day constantly trading, analyzing, and
monitoring the markets.

On my desk - which falls under FI, although I won't say which area - it's
quite liquid, client-focused, and fast-paced.

6am-7am - Making sure all your systems are launched, working, and then
analyzing what your colleagues in London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo were up to
while you were asleep. Often your book will be managed by those folks and so
you'll want to know what/how they executed (assuming they didn't call you
through the night to get your opinion, which does happen depending on the
product you trade).

7am-5pm - You're constantly trading; analyzing your positions; looking at your
risk; calling middle/back office to get things analyzed; on the phone with
colleagues in London, Tokyo, etc.; perhaps stepping into the odd meeting,
getting someone to watch your monitors; talking to your sales people, giving
them ideas, feedback, what clients should like a certain thing at a certain
level, etc.

5pm-7pm - Making sure back office completes your risk, analyzing and
amalgamating your PnL for the day, chatting with other offices just as you did
at the start of the day.

7pm-11pm - Perhaps you'll go home and go to bed early (9pm or so), or,
depending on your area, you may go to dinner with clients or have some other
social engagement until 10-11pm.

\---

Trading is incredibly diverse, but I think this largely captures the roll of a
sell-side (Goldman) trader in most front-office trading rolls. Quant-traders,
like you'd find at certain quant hedge funds, tend to be less common at sell-
side shops. You'll usually have traders, who just trade, with maths, comp sci,
etc. undergrads who work with the quants (who have PhDs in those fields and
don't trade at all) to get the data, systems, etc. they want. As a result
traders generally, well, spend their entire day trading. Even on quiet days
you'll be glued to your screen waiting, reviewing, thinking about what to do
next. Market making doesn't involve letting clients dictate where the market
moves necessarily, it involves being a liquidity provider and risk mitigator,
which is what I'd say traders on the sell-side largely are.

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kzhahou
Wow, thanks for the reply! Sounds quite stressful.

Go get some sleep!

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kevinpet
Complete click bait.

GS is telling interns "you can't be in the office between midnight and 7am". I
assume they didn't previously have a policy. So what anyone would consider a
strict improvement over the previous situation is criticized because it isn't
enough of an improvement.

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jlarocco
The criticism is entirely valid.

This is just a policy, so for now all they've done is announce it and write it
down. They could have just as easily made up something more reasonable, like
interns can't work more than 60 hours a week.

17 hours a day is up to 119 hours a week, which is clearly exploiting them.
The fact that it's (apparently) an improvement is a little scary, and the
banks should be embarrassed and called out on it.

~~~
kevinpet
Interns working only 60 hours a week is much harder to monitor. A policy that
says they can't be in the office between midnight and 7am is simple to
monitor.

The press has implied or allowed readers to conclude that interns were
previous working more than 17 hours a day, which is nice for the author
because you don't need to support an implication and you can't be called out
for being incorrect in something you never say.

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kazagistar
Is it not intellectual work? Sleep deprivation really wrecks my ability to
think clearly.

