Goldman Sachs is known as the most intense investment bank to work for, but my former bank comes damn close, and arguably can be worse since they're always working to unseat GS from the league tables. So when I read the article about new analysts raising alarms about the workload I was actually glad someone was finally speaking out, even if it wasn't well received by older, cynical business op-eds. I watched many analysts run day after day on almost no sleep and witnessed a few spectacular meltdowns brought on by stress that, in all honesty, was a natural human reaction to being put in a pointless pressure cooker environment as part of a warped endurance test.

Why is this making headlines now? Because the nature of the business is relentless, and especially during downturns in the economy if the Great Recession was representative. What deals are occurring are chased after ten times as hard by every bank and failure is not an option to be contemplated. While small businesses are closing by the thousands, individuals are being forced from their homes and depleting their retirement savings, the banks delight in posting more profitable quarters than their peers and it is all done on the backs of the analysts and associates. Fewer are hired "because of the economy" and the ones who do come to work at the banks are expected to do twice the work while living with the threat of being let go into a recession over their heads.

These 20-some year olds who don't have a lot of life experience to put all of this in perspective are ground down systematically by alternately dismissive and screaming managers and ruthless bank profit margins. Complaining beyond the underlying competition of who stayed up the latest is seen as being weak. Got sick? You can't be trusted to lead a team, ever. And wanting to spend time with a significant other or god forbid a family is a fast track out the door. 

Do they make a salary that justifies this suspension of life outside of work? I never got a clear answer on that. Most put in a couple of years and then go back to school or elsewhere in the corporate world that's more reasonable. A few really do manage to have it all, start a family, and through fast promotions manage to be in the enviable position of directing the work where hours more closely resemble a 9-5 job.

The ones who haunt me are those that made the sacrifice and regret it. They've watched their 20s and early 30s go by in a blur of work and Lucite tombstones for each deal they closed, and have nothing but money to show for it. It's not the kind of money that would allow for early retirement either; they're stuck in the unenviable middle with high blood pressure and an empty apartment, running on a treadmill they perhaps never wanted to be on.

If these GS analysts feel this strongly about their jobs being oppressive, I hope for their sake that they take the money and run at the earliest opportunity. There is so much more to a healthy life than banking mentality would have them believe, and the inevitable trade-offs will haunt them too. I wish them a larger perspective and clear-minded analysis of what will be best for them in the long run.

And again I'm reminded of how toxic investment banking is, and how glad I am that for now, I am done with it.