I've been working as an associate at one of the top-tier banks for almost two years. I've handled the ridiculously long hours and work pressures, but I'm reaching the limit in being able to handle unreasonable demands from my boss. I work for someone who is widely disliked, but quite important to the firm. Despite talking about "work-life balance" and "talent development", the firm offers no safeguards to ensure that we receive some basic employee rights:
- We're systematically denied any exposure either internally or externally. Our team members' names never appear on anything we produce and we're told not to email anyone of importance from our own accounts.
- Boss won't meet with staff until 8pm, so there's no possibility of leaving work at a reasonable hour, and we usually have more to do afterwards.
- Routinely expected to work nights/weekends when there is nothing urgent. I often get home at 10pm and find emails from my boss to my personal email asking me to do things that night. This despite compliance regulations against directing work-related email to personal accounts.
- Always asked to work on weekends. Happy to work when there's necessary work to be done, but boss will gratuitously think up tasks to keep us busy. This is coming after a 70-hour week.
- Routinely ignores leave requests, making us have to go back and ask again and again, and making it difficult to plan holidays.
- Stingy with bonuses.
Maybe I shouldn't be complaining given the current market environment but I'm so fed up. I'm working for a reputable institution with supposed respect for employee values, yet someone in a senior position can behave this way with impunity. I almost died laughing when I heard the firm is working with management consultants to develop a strategy for retaining and developing talent. How about just enforcing some basic safeguards to prevent exploitation? Like requiring that the author of a document be credited on it? How about a basic rule against requiring employees to work on weekends, when there's nothing urgent? How about responding promptly to leave requests? Or enforcing the rule against emailing personal accounts?
It would be interesting to compare notes and receive advice on whether there is any way to improve the situation.