Bankers’ Hours Are Still Pretty Bad

I guess the old standard for investment banking analyst hours was “it’s about 100 hours a week, unless you need to work more,” and the new standard is “it’s 80 hours a week, unless you need to work more”:

Doesn’t that still sound bad? Like an 80-hour week is pretty long, and when you phrase it like that — “80 hours per week unless there’s a live deal” — that suggests that it’s a floornot a cap. If there is nothing particularly urgent for you to do, it’s fine for you to come in at 9 am and leave at midnight Monday through Friday and work just one afternoon per weekend, but obviously if you’re on a deal you’ll need to to more. Eighty hours a week is a lot to work when there isn’t anything urgent.