Intern dies after ‘working until 6am for three days’ at Merrill Lynch

http://metro.co.uk/2013/08/20/intern-moritz-erhardt-dies-after-working-until-6am-for-three-days-at-bank-of-america-merrill-lynch-in-london-3930924/

by samspenc • 13 years ago

34 35 13 years ago

metro.co.uk

csdrane• 13 years ago

I saw in another article that Erhardt had been reportedly died due to a seizure. What happened to him is absolutely horrible. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable about such matters can chime in about whether exhaustion actually might have triggered the cause of death.

NegativeK2• 13 years ago

Even if his death isn't related to his work schedule in any manner, 100+ hour work weeks are an absolutely insane concept.

droopybuns• 13 years ago

/s/100+ hour work weeks/100+ hour unpaid work weeks

freehunter• 13 years ago

There really should be restrictions on how much an intern can actually work. I know in the US, if you work more than 32 hours a week for a full year, you are considered full time for benefits purposes, but if they work you for slightly less than one year you can work as many hours as you want. I recently got an email from my school advertising an internship at $10 and 50 hours a week, right as the new semester is starting.

It's absolutely insane, and the intern's manager should have stopped him from working so much, even if he was never explicitly required to work that much. During my internship, my manager sent me home even if I wanted to work more.

pisarzp2• 13 years ago

What is actually insane is the amount of face time and waste due to process and bureaucracy in that 100+ hours.

I was really shocked when I moved from this to Google where all that mattered was the outcome and I did more work in 50h per week...

People in investment banks waste time on most idiotic things. The most drastic example I remember was importance of order of people in the To field in the email (People had to be ordered by their seniority)

venomsnake• 13 years ago

There are enough documented cases (mostly in Asia) of people dying after multi day long gaming sessions.

Sleep deprivation is considered torture for good reason. You can be sure that it didn't improved his health.

My personal record is diablo 1/heroes 3/bridge mixed session for 120 hours straight - at the end I felt pretty miserable. Throw some genetic weakness into this kind of load and you have potent disaster recipe.

pdpi• 13 years ago

Sleep deprivation can and does make you more susceptible to epilepsy episodes.

Source: my wife is epileptic.

meritt• 13 years ago

Correlation does not imply causation.

bherms• 13 years ago

Makes no mention of the hours he worked being actually tied to his death. Sensationalism and baiting much?

rayiner2• 13 years ago

There was almost certainly drugs or some sort of heart condition involved. Unfortunately, congenital defects can go unnoticed until circumstances like these.

The idea that three long days, alone, is what killed him is ridiculous. Going a few days with just a couple of hours of sleep a night is something many people do at points in their lives (e.g. working parents with small children when they get sick). And the "100 hour" weeks mentioned in the article are stressful, but again, nothing a working mom (or dad!) with a baby hasn't experienced.

leeoniya2• 13 years ago

agreed. what ridiculous sensitization of long work hours and "banking culture".

none of this stuff is unique. people can survive a week with 4 hours of sleep, while performing physical labor 20+ hours per day...all without dying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEAL_selecti...

how about 260 hours with no sleep?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_%28record_holder%...

every time stuff like this floats to HN's front page, i wonder where this community is heading.

[EDIT] Seals can sleep up to 4 hours in a 5.5 day period.

MartinCron2• 13 years ago

people can survive a week with no sleep, while performing physical labor 24/7...all without dying

Sure, most people can survive like that. Others probably can't. I would like to think that being a banking intern is less physically taxing and dangerous than being a Navy Seal.

Raphmedia• 13 years ago

I used to be running on 3h of sleeps for almost a year while in school.

Never came close to dying even once.

itengelhardt2• 13 years ago

True. It is highly unlikely that sleep deprivation alone killed him.

However, there were a few studies performed on animals where the test subjects died after 5-20 days of (complete) sleep deprivation. There does not seem to be a study about the long term effects on humans.

So it might be possible to kill someone from sleep deprivation - it might just take a while.

src: http://sleepjunkies.com/features/sleep-deprivation-and-tortu...

temuze• 13 years ago

It happens in some highly stressful situations. In Japan, they have a word (and a statistic) for death through overwork: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi

ocfx• 13 years ago

Amusingly enough I read something not too long about about how if someone falls asleep during a meeting or at work (in Japan) it is respected because it is assumed they fell asleep through overworking.

swalsh• 13 years ago

Back when I was a junior developer, I spent months working literally 16-18 hours a day for weeks. There were also my fair share of 26 hour days. I burned out eventually which lead to depression, and lack of motivation, and all kinds of bad things personally and professionally.

But I didn't die. I'd be willing to bet there were more relevant health related issues with this young man.

Edit: I also developed an unhealthy addiction to energy drinks and caffeine. I gave up the energy drinks because my chest started to hurt, but the caffeine is still required to fend off head aches.

basseq• 13 years ago

Reminds me of the Ogilvy employee who died, allegedly of overwork.[1] With the risk of being seen as a corporate apologist, I'll say that it's really tough to tie this directly to overwork and not to a preexisting condition.

E.g., { People Who Die } ∩ { People Who Are Overworked } ≠ { People Who Die From Overwork }

[1] http://adage.com/article/global-news/young-ogilvy-china-staf...

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

preexisting condition

I appreciate what you're saying, and of course we don't really know what happened here, but outliers are people too. Humans vary in a number of different traits. If 1% of interns will suffer an injury from working 100 hrs/wk, (hopefully a larger percentage will "suffer" from fuck-you-i-quit-itis) that is an argument for interns not working 100 hrs/wk. It might also be an argument for not hiring "weak" interns, if it's possible to weed them out in an interview.

ghc• 13 years ago

I don't think you can die from overwork at that age. This is, frankly, nothing compared to some of the long hours we worked in project groups at Georgia Tech from CS class final projects.

It's more likely that he had an unknown condition that surfaced due to bodily stress than that he dropped dead from overwork. Well, that or he was keeping himself awake with pills.

darkchasma• 13 years ago

A decade ago I would go weeks working 18-20 hour days, 7 days a week. It wasn't good for my health, cost me my marriage, and started a dependency on alcohol. However, it certainly didn't kill me. I'd like to know the cause of death here, because working 100 hours a week isn't entirely uncommon in our line of work.

dtf• 13 years ago

Sensationalism aside, this kind of work culture makes for pretty grim reading.

"One intern, who worked at one of the American “bulge-bracket” firms, memorably described the experience of working all night only to start the new day an hour later: “Every intern’s worst nightmare is what’s called ‘the magic roundabout’,” he told the Standard, “which is when you get a taxi to drive you home at 7am and then it waits for you while you shower and change and then takes you back to the office.”"

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/inside-the-w...

There's a certain machismo attached to pulling all-nighters. I think many developers can relate to that.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

Lame. My last job had showers on site.

dylangs1030• 13 years ago

This title is about as meaningful as saying, "Intern dies after taking shower" or "Intern dies after moving to United States."

Correlation does not imply causation; 100 hours of work is something parents in their 30s and 40s frequently do. For a 20 year old, this alone would just be tiring. He died from something else.

Flagged for sensationalism and linkbait.

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

"Bank of America Merrill Lynch"

jakub_g• 13 years ago

BTW a question regarding HN ranking.

This story has now 26 points after 41 minutes and is placed 83th (was 30th when I entered) whereas a story posted 4hrs ago ("Mattermark Index: Y Combinator Summer 2013 Companies") has 27 points and is on the front page.

Can someone explain that? I though that new stories with similar score should be much higher.

Are there negative votes on submissions possible (and I don't see them due to karma thresholds)?

randyrand• 13 years ago

I absolutely hate this shitty type of journalism. Not only is the implication that this would directly kill a young man absolutely false - it is also disrespectful both to the deceased and to his family to turn what would otherwise be a normal death (most likely caused by a seizure) into a political spectacle just to deplore banks.

The lengths we go to promote our own political agendas is sickening.

My condolences to the family.

gte910h• 13 years ago

Mandating them encourages drug use to get there, stay awake, etc.

They ARE dangerous. It isn't like humans stay awake on their own for 3 days. Drugs are required to do that practically speaking

Intern dies after ‘working until 6am for three days’ at Merrill Lynch

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