I was an associate attorney at a small law firm. The hours were much less intense, but the same sort of mismanagement from the top down prevailed. The boss was a passive-aggressive, abusive person who withheld constructive feedback in favor of non-stop reprimands. Questions annoyed him, and I was brand new, so we didn't click. I made a mistake and dressed too casually one day during a snowstorm and thought I could get away with it. I was sharply warned not to do it again.... and then this incident was thrown in my face at least once a week for the next 4 months. Any time I annoyed him, he dredged this mistake up again. This firm had a reputation for churning through associates with a really high turnover. I was fired before I could get another job. The firm imploded during the Great Recession.

You were talking about how American lawyers/execs get so caught up on the office size, etc. I used to work for Coca-Cola and the HQ tower had pretty big floors. The way it was set up, about two thirds of the exterior walls with the floor to celling windows was for senior managers and VPs. Two corners of the floors were sort of open to let light into the whole floor. Then there was a ring of smaller offices on the inside that had glass walls/doors facing the floor. There was a new Jr. Manager that came in and threw a fit that he didn't get one of the outside ring offices with the view and was upset about being given one of these inner offices. HR told him, sorry but we're just all booked up in those, but you're on the list, next retirement or transfer you'll get that, so be patient, maybe 6 M to 1 Y. Well that wasn't good enough, he demanded they extend the offices on the outside to build him a new office. They said we're not going to actually change the layout and block out the light and views for everyone else, so no. He countered, why do those people even have views, they're just support staff. He ended up going over his managers head and demanded a change. The "compromise" they came up with was that if he was stuck in the junior office, no one else could have a view. So in the sections of the floor that were open to the outside with the floor to ceilng windows, they came in and installed panels that covered the bottom half of the windows. So he was happy with that, but then if you were sitting in the cubicle farm you couldnt look out and see a view, you could only really look up at the sky. And it dramatically cut down the light for the whole floor, making it feel like a dungeon. I was always amazed that that could be a solution. That an exec could insist "well if I don't have a view, no one else can either." I always thought that was just the ultimate bratty move. Also surprised the company went along. About six months later I think he got a better office and the panels came down.

Amazing that the lawyers are the ones most willing to break the law.

I also worked as a Paralegal. At my last PL job, NO staff person had received a pay raise in FIVE YEARS, myself included. The attorney I worked for told me that ALL of us were overpaid, and if we could find a better gig, then take it. So I did.

I'm European and it's horrific to hear stories about American workplaces. That could not happen here. We have rather strong labor laws. USA is definitely not a dreamland as they imagine. Moreover, that much work and the pay is that low even to European standards and also New York is an expensive city to live, which makes that wage even lower. This is a modern slavery.

While American law firms are some of the worst cases, most American jobs are toxic. Employees are treated as owned objects, that must "always be available". These laws that are meant to protect workers, are largely side-stepped by using guilt and/or threats, and most Americans cannot afford the legal representation needed to actually have the laws protect them.

She has a really sweet voice, and I bet in nature she's sweet as well. A trait that can be exploited by powerful people.

You should look into how people in catering are treated. Poor pay, non-stop work, you are on your feet from the moment you start until the 20 minute break that you might get after 7 hours work. I've been doing it for over 30 years and it has got worse rather than better. It feels like the industry that modern legislation passed by.

As a lawyer in Toronto I relate to a lot of what is in this story. "Work-Life Balance" is a buzzword term that gets thrown about but I don't think that most lawyers, or certainly the ones running the large firms, understand. I once attended a seminar for lawyers, put on by the Law Society of Ontario, on tips for how to achieve better work life balance. It should have been titled "how to wring more billable hours out of your day". One of the panelists actually said, in all seriousness and without irony, that "I am not a morning person, but sometimes my most productive hours of the day are between 5 and 7 am". That's better work life balance, everyone!

Not only US law firms, I have worked in firms in the UK and Australia. It is the same in law in general. The unwritten rule is you have to bust your guts as a junior to prove your worth. The financial KPIs are hard to reach and you are often raked over the coals for not reaching your targets in front of your whole team. I can tell you many stories that trump this one, unfortunately.

Your show has helped me so much. I'm still healing from my last experience. Thank you. 😊

There's no way id let someone shout at me. It's abuse unacceptable and unnecessary.

Please can you undertake a segment on health and social care and the culture in the sector its shocking

Another horrible sector, depending on your clients, is IT.

construction worker here. I've been told I wasn't needed anymore on a job site coincidentally the same day i asked for time off.

PTO means NO WORKING. At my first job in my home country, I was happy to work on weekends, holidays because I loved my job so much and really liked my colleagues. Then my first job here in Tokyo and the GM was horrid to me that on holidays and days off -- I would switch off completely. While I enjoyed the job and working with my colleagues at the time, the GM would criticise me on my work when he didn't even know anything (he joined the company 1 month after me) so I felt like he didn't deserve my hard work (I still worked hard regardless but only for when I'm being paid).

In the UK, my job contracts have been "You may be required to work additional unpaid hours" . You agree to this, or you don't get the job. So yes, there have been times when I've been forced to work until midnight every night, plus weekends, and no, they're not required to pay overtime, so they don't.

That's a story that truly has to be shared as a warning! Because at some point I was at similar situation, especially the hiking story gave me such flashbacks, and it wasn't even a law firm! So I was working like this with veery toxic executive woman, thinking that maybe there is something wrong with me, until I changed a job, and found out that corporate culture can be so very different

This American work "ethic" is way over the top, especially in law firms. But they are so proud of it. The fact that it harms employees and reduces overall efficiency is never even considered - not for a second. It will never change.

Paralegals need a UNION!

Thank goodness she got out of that company!! Sounds like it was completely unsustainable

It reminds me a lot of my experience in consultancy. Same working hours and dynamics. And it is so true that at the beginning of your career you don't know any better and you may remain in toxic environment for years....I surely did it 😂So happy to be out of it!

Awful story but I can't say I'm surprised that this is the culture in an American Law Firm...

Ben, I've been following your wonderful content for a while now, and can honestly say the extent to which some of these bosses behave is just honestly shocking, and of course quite entertaining. I would one single episode where your viewers talk about bosses that did something amazingly well. How they went above and beyond the normal requirements of goodness, bending over backwards to help their employees. I really think, that this would be a breath of fresh air.

Email systems can be managed such that your emails (incoming and outgoing) can be held and reviewed by the supervisor or an agent working for them. They can delete or delay your email to get you into trouble.

What no part 2 I have to expend effort having to hunt down through hundreds of shorts.

Accountant and during a AR/Bank rec position I once got a stapler thrown at me for asking the debt collection lady to stop yelling at me, which she was yelling because I asked the other person she was yelling at if she was OK.... My grad role at a non for profit had a room that was called the crying room that the admin staff and other grads would you can probably guess what it was. Not to mention me walking out on a senior role just before the 6 month mark I would have to give notice of 4 weeks on due to the new toxic manager and culture, the previous person in my position was there for 2 months.

She lost 15lbs in a month.. meh.. ;-P I once lost 7 to 8 lbs in one night working at UPS.. and that was over a 4 hour shift. They had me unloading a truck that had been sitting out in 100+°F heat all day. It was basically like an oven or sauna by the time I go into it that evening. At the mid-shift break, I took my t-shirt off and wrung it out.. it was like I just climbed out of a swimming pool. Just what I rung out left a sweat puddle on the ground about 2' across. I was so dehydrated by the end of that shift I knew I had to weigh myself at home to see how low I was on fluids. Drank water at break and when I got home and could still barely get out of bed in the morning. And they only allowed for 4 hours shifts in the warehouse (aside from Supervisors & Managers) because no one could stand to work a full-time shift there on a rough night. I was young and in-shape but I'd have left in an ambulance if I tried to keep that up for 8 hours on that one specific evening. There was one upside.. on top of decent pay for a college student.. I lost my entire Freshman 20lbs (ok, more like 30lbs) in the few months I worked there.

Ben I want to know what you think about billable hours at 2000 hours per year. It seems impossible to me that lawyers do that on mass. But that can be the expectation.

Yikes especially in a law firm where they hold others accountable l, they definitely need to do better.

And people are surprised when ex employees go on a shooting spree?

Nurse here. Unbelievable. There is often forced overtime

Small town USA here… the WORST job for invading my family time was when I was employed at a small attorney office for about 3 years. He would call me as I was putting my children to bed and call me in “for just a half hour” (lie). It could have been awesome but the self-righteous attitude was off the charts.

Who else remembers the Opinionistas blog about a junior associate at a NYC law firm who wrote about the punishing hours worked by young attorneys on the partner track? I read it but had little sympathy because that was the game she chose. Melissa Lasky, an Ivy League grad, eventually quit and outed herself and had a moderately successful but short-lived career in journalism. That was the game played by ambitious attorneys, play it or quit, but it is NOT the game for paralegals making a low wage and denied overtime by their ruthless boss. Paralegals are not on track for partnership and this particular one was only looking forward to continued exploitation. She can be a paralegal anywhere.

"Sorry dude that place was a salt mine we thought you knew" A thing I got told after the company laid off half the staff and I commented on how easy and low key my new role was. So I get the new grad not knowing what a office was supposed to be like. Been there done that.

Funny sitting at my desk at 3 in the morning working on month end accounts and hear Ben mention Insurance.......my heart sank. I work in insurance.

US companies do try to ride roughshod on this side of the Atlantic too. I recently had a issue with a US company I'm contracted to in Europe. They'd introduced a security system that required 2 part authentication (a message would be sent to your 'phone and you'd swipe the screen to get access to the IT system. However, I don't have a 'smart' 'phone. So the US office said to my manager that I'd either have to buy a 'smart' 'phone, or be dismissed. My manager told them to get fucked. But, I'm always having comment's made like 'Why don't you get a 'smart' 'phone?' (I have a Nokia 105) - my answer is quite simple - "I don't want one, and I'll be fucked if I'm paying the guts of a grand to buy a 'phone, or get myself locked into a fucking contract where I have to pay three times what I currently spend monthly on pay as you go (I spend less than 10 Euro per month) for something I don't want and is of no benefit to myself, burning up memory and power (as it's constantly running) only for the next new thing the company comes up with to render that 'phone obsolete.

Honestly kindof wild that my near-minimum wage night security job has better respect for work-life boundaries than jobs that pay four times as much. EDIT: oh shoot, nvm, this lady barely earns 50% more than me even after the conversion rate

45k in a law firm in NYC. The young woman is being underpaid. I worked in a firm in the late 1990s and made 42k as an office receptionist and case filer.

Another terrible sector is education/teaching. Bringing work home is an expectation, you get blamed for the actions of children regardless of how things happened, your bosses will throw you under the bus to make the organization look good, taking a day off means extra work and the pay is low.

She really was pleasant to listen to. I wonder what field she chose instead.

There's a certain level of Irony here. From what little I know of American law, it sounds a lot like this firm, a law firm at that is opening itself up to dozens of lawsuits...

Everyone who works in law thinks they want to work for a big firm. I work for a small law firm and love it. Our boss has a philosophy that work shouldn’t get in the way of our family and associate attorneys have been let go if they aren’t treating the rest of the staff respectfully.

at any major professional services/consulting firm in the US you bring your laptop on vacation and weekends...its expected to advance....After 20+ years in industry I formed my own consultancy is I could control my hours and client base

The absolute absurdity, that this very prestigious law firm with this very important project is going to fall apart, for the lack of one paralegal. If that’s the case, they really don’t deserve the prestige they have, nor the important project if the entire thing balances on the actions of a single paralegal. Of course, it doesn’t balance on the actions of a single paralegal. This is really just about a gigantic power trip of a group of men with a huge case of imposter syndrome. The only way they can feel as important as everyone is telling them they are is if they shit on those below them.

Once they reach a certain level, they DO NOT READ THEIR EMAILS ! Oh well.

The kicker is, the bet the whole "project" actually wasn't all that objectively important.

A paralegal job requires a specific BS degree. To be working at a top law firm in NYC as a paralegal and only making $45k a year seems ridiculous unless this happened to her in the 1990's. In fact, a quick Indeed survey of paralegal jobs in NYC shows that they start at around $65k to a range of $80k to $100k. Even a legal assistant would probably make more than $45k -- especially at a top firm in NYC where the cost of living is so high. I do believe her when she talks about the crazy hours and toxic environment, though, because I've had friends who worked in law firms like she describes.

the reason why US law firms work like this is that if a lawyer can justify $3000 an hour for a client, the client expects them to work for that $3000 per hour as quickly as possible

I didn’t realise paid overtime was even a thing in those places.

I've recently discovered your channel, and enjoy the content. I've noticed you don't engage with the comments. For me it seems to encourage more "likes" and even more comments. For me, thousands of comments piques my interest in a video. (BTW, I discovered it through your shorts if it helps you)

My ears perked up when she said she was making 45k. Is that livable in NYC?

Louis Litt needs his mud baths to stay calm.

None of what is described in this video surprises me at all. This is why I left my previous law firm and opened my own with my law partner.

Is there any way to contact you with our terrible experiences? I would love to share mine from when I was a part-time graphic designer (Canada) with you.

I’m a hairdresser I have stories to tell you! I have records, screenshots and audio recordings! That some salon owners are crayola crayon’s wacko Jackie

Dam, go into civil construction, abusers get their arse chewed off and 8 hour days.

I thought it was The Firm with Tom Cruise!!😂🤣😂

You can't drop the ball if you're not on the pitch!!

The difference is that he is on the big bucks

Omg I NEED to tell you my story about toxic workplaces! How do I send it to you 😂😂😂😂

I suggest they try working in a kitchen sometime. What she described is child’s play compared to a very busy, upscale restaurant kitchen. 12 hour days, screaming, swearing, drug abuse, alcohol abuse. It’s all common. I could tell you stories that will make you speechless.

Any lawyer knows American law firms are where you make BANK but lose all your time and social life

Try working in the Printing industry. You meet some very weird bosses with strange demands.

Not all law firms are like this. Move to the West coast

First of all, her voice is annoying as is her way of speaking. That said, what her story conveys to me is the typical busy for the sake of saying you're busy strategy. In this law firm, you're rewarded not for your actual production but for your appearance in production. Bus, there's a boatload of unnecessary communication and constantly doing and redoing the same things over and over again. Sure it's a very effective way to Bill clients, but it's not a great way to actually be productive. I've been in lots of environments like this and the one thing that doesn't happen is a lot of work, mostly it's just a lot of wasted time. Nobody is actually productive for 12 hours a day, especially not in something as complex as corporate law. Everybody's productive for the same number of hours, which is usually 4 to 6 at most. The rest of that time is just unnecessary communicating so that you appear like you're working.

You should contact me to discuss the American retail automotive industry. Makes lawyers look well adjusted

Ben how do I get in touch with you? I have a story for you.

Is it any coincidence that almost all of these stories are from the USA?

Was the boss named Louis Litt?

His name is Ben Askins because he has Been Asking the right questions all along.

Ok, pleae don't be a nurse then. Working long hours is known for both professions.

Cry me a river - those hours are NOT uncommon - have a look at any of the top 4 audit firms - Deloitte etc will make you work 20hr days as a grad

She has the most beautiful feminine laugh ever