Goldman Sachs is ordering employees back to the office 5 days (or more) a week
fortune.com
fortune.com
Pretty much sums up the CEOs thoughts in a single sentence. People that aren't in the office don't "feel" like going to work.
I don't "feel" like sitting in an office being unproductive, distracted and running from meeting room to meeting room anymore. If your culture is keeping people at the office for 70 hours per week and you're afraid that vanishes if suddenly those lazy people don't have to sit there anymore... then maybe your culture isn't worth much.
So some teams were told that a certain number of people had to work from home several days a week, and everyone in Engineering was hot-desking... so you might not be sat with people you are working with. Couple that with the fact that most people are working mainly with people in other regions (or just on other floors - it's a big building) over Zoom, and it's hard to see much distinction between in-office and remote.
The constant break room noise was horrible. The smells from people microwaving Erdrich horrors mixed with the scent of fried foods. I was so far from everyone that no-one would bother visiting or even know I was at the office unless I wandered over and said hi. It seems inevitable that hot desks are always placed in the most horrible locations.
Whoever came up with the concept of "Hot-Desking" should be launched on the next solar probe as heat shielding.
Basically anything else? Terrible.
Haha, this is the funniest way I’ve seen someone express rage in a really, really long time :)
That said, it's a worker's market right now in many industries, and many companies are going remote. Honestly, I think this puts GS in a vulnerable position, as other IBs could just double-down on remote/hybrid work a thing and steal employees that way. Unless the industry agrees with GS in that everyone should be on-site, no exceptions.
Engineering is a different kettle of fish. We need quiet time to concentrate.
Source - tech guy who's lived with finance bros in NYC for more than a year.
First year analysts (excel monkeys), basically people with a business degree and a middle-school statistics education are getting paid easily $110k base with $90k bonus (this is MIDDLE of the road). I live with people who are 25, have nothing more than a finance degree from the university of Florida and have made "associate" at second-tier firms like Lazard and RBC making $220k base and easily $110k bonus.
The hours and suffer culture are real, however. Even if you’re lucky enough to work in a space with short trading windows, you likely have to spend a significant amount of off-work time making social connections with your counterparts at other firms. That part of the job intersects with a drinking culture that is no doubt hazardous for many who participate.
The best example of this I've been given was a friend who asked an MD (someone making $1.5MM+ at BofA) whether they'd considered using outsourced tutors for their kids exam prep after spending days if not weeks complaining about quality of western exam prep / online instruction. The MD supposedly had never heard of it and brushed the idea off entirely.
I built trading platforms for a bank. I am not a banker nor was I in banking
Most people I know glorify working more productively in less than 40 hours per week.
Source - another tech guy who lived with bankers in nyc.