You can sleep when you die

I used to work at an investment bank and the CEO’s motto was “you can sleep when you die”.

When he entered the building, you could feel his presence.

Everyone knew “Don was in the house” as he strutted through the front door.

Every day, he would walk through the analyst department and grill every analyst.

He spent 5–10 minutes with each analyst picking their brain with tough questions.

The pressure was intense and if you didn’t cut it, you were gone.

It was a cut-throat environment and you had to fight to survive.

The analysts would be at their desks by 8 AM and worked past midnight on weekdays.

They would also work weekends taking maybe a half-day off to have some “fun”.

90–100-hour workweeks were expected.

If you survived your first year, you would be invited to stay.

Otherwise, you were shown the door.

Luckily, I was the IT guy, so I wasn’t expected to be in the office as much as the analysts, but I was expected to respond to their pages 24/7 if they had tech issues.

Elon Musk’s ultimatum to Twitter employees reminds me of my days at the investment bank.