My bank is piling on the work but to no one's benefit

Dear CA,

Your letter will sound familiar to a lot of “tweenie” people in banking. They’re now at a level where they are no longer juniors but are not yet senior enough to influence the organisation around them.

At this stage, the job often expands without the commensurate recognition that it carries a lot more weight. Teams shrink or stay constant in size, mandates multiply, someone leaves and their coverage suddenly becomes yours. White space turns into your space, whether you like it or not.

These are difficult circumstances to manage, and it can feel worse when the work itself becomes more chaotic. You get the sense that the firm is chasing too many things at once and as a result, the long hours feel pointless rather than challenging. That is a legitimate frustration and you are not strange for feeling it.

At the same time, it’s worth keeping a sense of perspective about what the industry is and what it has become. Investment banking has never been a nine-to-five job. It has always required long hours and a degree of personal trade-off. Nobody enters the business expecting great work-life balance.

In fact, most people who have been around a while would say that the junior banker life is more humane today than it was in the past. Banks have introduced protected weekends, implemented formalised staffing systems, and brought to bear a level of attention to workload that simply did not exist in the old days.

That doesn’t mean the job is an easy ride or a cushy gig. The baseline expectation remains that people will work hard when the firm needs it and not invoke the working time directive. Senior bankers tend to assume that anyone who has applied to work in the industry understands this as part of the bargain.

That reality colours the conversation you are thinking about having with your boss. If the discussion is framed as “I am working too much”, it is unlikely to come across well even if your boss is sympathetic. Most senior bankers will hear that as a complaint about the nature of the job and accuse you of cakeism.

A more productive approach is to talk about effectiveness rather than hours. If you believe the team is pursuing too many opportunities, say that you worry the group is spreading itself thin and that the business could suffer. Emphasise the importance of prioritisation. If certain tasks genuinely add little value, raise that calmly and, most importantly, with specific examples. Managers are often more receptive to arguments about focus and results than about workload alone.

You should also be honest with yourself about what is realistically going to change. C’mon, you already know the answer, don’t you? If the firm has cut headcount and is now trying to grow, extra resources are unlikely to appear overnight. Your boss may listen and even agree with you, but that does not mean the pressure will ease. In many cases the best you can hope for from such a conversation is that expectations become clearer. You may learn which priorities truly matter and which things can safely be done later or done less perfectly.

And let’s not lose sight of one key fact: no one is forcing you to stay. Investment banking can feel like a closed world, but it is still a labour market. People leave for private equity, corporate roles, advisory boutiques, or entirely different careers every year. Some discover they prefer those environments. Others try them and return. The important thing is that the choice exists. If the balance between effort and reward no longer works for you, it is reasonable to test the market rather than hoping the industry will change its character.

I’m not saying you should simply suffer in silence. A measured conversation with your boss about priorities is sensible and often appreciated. Just go into it with realistic expectations. Finance remains a demanding métier, and mid-career bankers are usually the ones asked to absorb the strain when organisations are stretched. That may not be satisfying, but it is part of the deal many people accept because of the opportunities the job still offers. The question worth asking yourself is not only whether the current workload is fair, but whether the broader trade still works for you.

Realistically yours,

Craig