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A 21-year-old Bank Of America intern died earlier this week after reportedly working for 72 hours in a row. That’s three consecutive days if you aren’t so good at the math. Moritz Erhardt, a German foreign exchange student at the University of Michigan collapsed in his shower just seven days before his internship was up at BoA’s London offices. Ehrhardt apparently suffered from epilepsy, but it is not known at this time if it is associated with his death.
An anonymous poster on wallstreetoasis.com said that “He was found dead in the shower by his flatmate. Intern at BAML (Bank of America-Merill Lynch) who went home at 6am three days in a row.”
That’s some serious interning. Condolences to the friends and family of Moritz. It’s not like Moritz was your run-of-the-mill intern, though. BoA London interns make over $3,500 per month, but are regularly asked to work 14 hour days, upwards of 100 hours a week and often do what are called “Magic Roundabouts,” where you tell the cab driver to wait outside of your flat while you shower and change so they can take you right back to the office in the AM.
Ehrhardt’s internship resume was damn impressive, too. He’d already interned at Morgan Stanley’s Corporate Global Investment Banking and Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Finance Division. If you don’t have a case of resume envy after reading that, then I can’t do anything for you.
Sad to see a kid like this go. Hard work is always to be admired, but in cases like this, it’s just tragic. In an industry where 100-hour work weeks are the norm, it’s a miracle stories like this aren’t more prevalent.
[via The Independent]
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Brian McGannon
What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.
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brianmcgannon
Imagine how shitty the quality of work is by that 14th hour. I wouldn’t want my interns barely running at 1% with millions of dollars on the line.
If you think there are actually millions of dollars “on the line” with these interns you’re out of your mind. They basically are tortured by guys asking them at 12:30 am to put together pitch books that will never get used.
Well of course I assumed they didn’t do any actual hands-on work, but I like to run an all-around tight ship no matter what amount of money is on the line. I love every dollar equally.
Not as bad as you think. Your body adapts to being fully functional on ~5 hours of sleep a night
As long as you can train your body to immediately enter into REM, I agree. http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/27/relax-like-a-pro-5-steps-to-hacking-your-sleep/ I was referring to the “Magic Roundabouts.”
Fuck that
Wow
Pretty brutal to die from working when you’re only making $8.75 an hour.
I don’t think staying up for 3 days could kill you in and of itself. Most of us have probably done it while simultaneously dumping toxins into our bodies.
I’m no Doctor but I would have to surmise that having epilepsy might cause some pretty serious added complications in this scenario.
This doesn’t just happen in investment banking
http://goingconcern.com/2011/4/did-a-pwc-auditor-work-herself-to-death
Happens in law too
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/06/in-re-the-passing-of-a-skadden-associate/