‘No one goes until at least 10’: Singapore intern struggles with 13-14 hour workdays

SINGAPORE: One Singaporean intern has admitted she is struggling to adjust to working life after being put through 13- to 14-hour days during her first week at a buyside investment firm.

In a post on the r/singaporejobs forum, the young woman said she had recently started her internship and quickly discovered that the working hours were “brutal.”

She claimed she had been working from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m every day, with little indication that the long hours would ease up.

“My whole team works like this; no one goes until at least 10, so it’s not as if I can leave,” she wrote, adding that by 7 p.m., the office was “practically just us.”

The intern acknowledged that she was fortunate to have landed a role in an industry that many people would be eager to enter. She also recognised that some firms expect employees to work even longer hours.

However, knowing that others might have it worse did not make the situation any easier for her.

“I don’t think that makes me feel any better,” she said. “I’m actually so tired I don’t know how people work like this for years.”

The long hours were also difficult to accept, particularly as she felt she was not “getting paid well.”

According to the intern, she earns only around S$1,000 to S$2,000 a month and does not receive overtime pay.

For now, she said the only positives were that she was learning a lot from the “ton of work” she was being given and that her team had been OK with her so far.

Seeking perspectives, she wrote at the end of her post, “I would appreciate any thoughts on this. I just don’t know what to do, and I can barely drag myself to work. It’s also giving me really bad anxiety.”

‘Tough it out’

Many Singaporean Redditors chimed in, with several sharing their thoughts and giving the intern some advice.

One Redditor said long hours were simply part of working in an investment firm.

“An investment firm is like that one. You are paid a lot for the lack of work-life balance. Even my friend who is day-trading on his own is pushing himself around that much. It's a matter of ‘time is money’ and what kind of targets.”

Instead of worrying too much about the hours, the Redditor encouraged her to “focus on what you can learn out of this role.”

Another echoed this view, saying, “If I were you, I would try to tough this out and learn as much as I can, given that it's an internship that is graded. You can’t exactly afford to give this up (I am assuming).”

Others, however, felt the experience could be a sign that the industry was not for her. One user suggested that she might want to reconsider whether it was the right career path.

“You must ask yourself whether you want to be in such a role,” they wrote.

Another commented, “I guess my question would be, why did you decide to pursue a career in finance to begin with? I thought it was common knowledge that people in finance work insane hours.”

A third added, “Unfortunately, you're not cut out for this industry. The sell-side has it worse than you, by the way. Glad that you know it now and not 10 years later.”

In other news, a Gen Z commuter wearing a yellow “May I have a seat” card allegedly refused to cave in after an elderly man demanded that he give up his seat on the MRT.

A fellow commuter who witnessed the incident shared the story on the r/SMRTRabak forum, saying the encounter unfolded over two train stops and ended with many passengers watching the drama play out.

Read more: Elderly man allegedly scolds Gen Z commuter over MRT seat until a ‘May I Have a Seat’ card appears