The answer to your question probably lies in the old joke, "Why are bureaucrats so vicious? Because the stakes are so love."
At investment banks the stakes are high -- particularly at junior levels. So people endure. Or at least they try to.
The workhorse experience you're asking about doesn't exist at senior levels, which makes surviving long enough to move up the food chain an objective in and of itself. But what typically motivates people to accept such persistent sleep deprivation is expected future income. E($$$), for you operator fans, increases pretty much monotonically for each day you don't quit or get fired or succumb to a more tragic outcome.
If you're curious as to how this behavior became so deeply ingrained in "Wall Street" culture, start with real-time news. M&A work is often done overnight because priorities change as stock prices move, and because regulatory disclosures during quiet hours are often preferred to the middle of the trading day. Bankers and clients want to act while they have breathing room before news "hits the tape". And during the day, propaganda -- sorry, pitch books -- has to be updated to reflect the market moves and latest news.
This circularity hits the trading side of the business, too. Research analysts are paid to have a fresh view on the markets every day. In my experience this is institutionalized nonsense but it also pays the bills for said analysts. So you spend as much time as humanly possible trying to find quantitative fig leaves to dress up those new things you are obliged to say.
Consider also that a building full of smart people has a skewed and thin-tailed distribution of brain power. Unless you are Mensa material, it can seem easier to establish your claim on a (you hope) fat bonus through back-breaking work than by sleeping well and acting creatively. Naturally this idea has occurred to some of your colleagues as well and pretty soon it's a race to insomniac oblivion.
The guys (and it is almost exclusively guys) who make it to senior levels and get back their sleep while still getting paid have usually figured out how to take credit for others' efforts. That's not meant as a cynical comment but as an observation of what is sometimes euphemistically called "getting lift" from one's team. For a much more entertaining description of this pattern, I highly recommend Stanley Bing's "Sun Tzu Was a Sissy"[1].
At investment banks the stakes are high -- particularly at junior levels. So people endure. Or at least they try to.
The workhorse experience you're asking about doesn't exist at senior levels, which makes surviving long enough to move up the food chain an objective in and of itself. But what typically motivates people to accept such persistent sleep deprivation is expected future income. E($$$), for you operator fans, increases pretty much monotonically for each day you don't quit or get fired or succumb to a more tragic outcome.
If you're curious as to how this behavior became so deeply ingrained in "Wall Street" culture, start with real-time news. M&A work is often done overnight because priorities change as stock prices move, and because regulatory disclosures during quiet hours are often preferred to the middle of the trading day. Bankers and clients want to act while they have breathing room before news "hits the tape". And during the day, propaganda -- sorry, pitch books -- has to be updated to reflect the market moves and latest news.
This circularity hits the trading side of the business, too. Research analysts are paid to have a fresh view on the markets every day. In my experience this is institutionalized nonsense but it also pays the bills for said analysts. So you spend as much time as humanly possible trying to find quantitative fig leaves to dress up those new things you are obliged to say.
Consider also that a building full of smart people has a skewed and thin-tailed distribution of brain power. Unless you are Mensa material, it can seem easier to establish your claim on a (you hope) fat bonus through back-breaking work than by sleeping well and acting creatively. Naturally this idea has occurred to some of your colleagues as well and pretty soon it's a race to insomniac oblivion.
The guys (and it is almost exclusively guys) who make it to senior levels and get back their sleep while still getting paid have usually figured out how to take credit for others' efforts. That's not meant as a cynical comment but as an observation of what is sometimes euphemistically called "getting lift" from one's team. For a much more entertaining description of this pattern, I highly recommend Stanley Bing's "Sun Tzu Was a Sissy"[1].
[1]http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Tzu-Sissy-Stanley-Bing-ebook/dp/B0...