Investment bank intern dies after pulling three all nighters in a row

[mongers]

The oil industry does pay quite well, but it's impossible for them to have good working conditions. It's an inherently dangerous job.

Not in my experience and probably Vikings perhaps. 

But it's also in part cultural, that very successful TV series about those macho men, no doubt  makes it out to be inherently risky and exciting, perhaps they even play up to camera a bit ?

Personally I've not seen drilling conducted in that bravo manner myself. 

My guess is oil industry work is not much more dangerous than driving a cab, though clearly figures would vary between countries.

[Syt]

Once when he was particulary busy he was still working at 22h,

That sounds like me several nights a week, every week pretty much.

That said, I'm always at home by that time and remoting in.

Is that work you do in the extra hours really necessary?

And if you have to do those extra hours on a regular basis, are they compensated in any way?

Would it make sense to hire an additional person, or a part time assistant?

[alfred russel]

Is that work you do in the extra hours really necessary?

And if you have to do those extra hours on a regular basis, are they compensated in any way?

Would it make sense to hire an additional person, or a part time assistant?

I work no where near the hours a lot of investment bankers claim to work, and a lot less than they actually do work, but when things really get going it isn't unusual for me to work past midnight. Usually a couple of times a year I'm good to stay until about 3-4 in the morning. I've done all nighters, though less frequently as I get older. Usually I go home to change and shower, but I've also just worked straight through without changing (I know once, maybe twice).

It is just the nature of the beast that the workload in a finance type job dramatically increases when something big is happening, and throwing more bodies at the problem doesn't help. Most of the time I'm going home at 6-7, but those few times when things go crazy all bets are off.

That is fine for me, but the problem for investment bankers is that if they are in demand and working, they are always helping clients during their times when things are going crazy. If they aren't, they have some incentive to stay at the office to cover that up.

[Barrister]

The oil industry does pay quite well, but it's impossible for them to have good working conditions. It's an inherently dangerous job.

Not in my experience and probably Vikings perhaps. 

But it's also in part cultural, that very successful TV series about those macho men, no doubt  makes it out to be inherently risky and exciting, perhaps they even play up to camera a bit ?

Personally I've not seen drilling conducted in that bravo manner myself. 

My guess is oil industry work is not much more dangerous than driving a cab, though clearly figures would vary between countries.

"driving a cab" is not a very good comparator, because it's a fairly risky job in itself.  All that time in traffic increases your odds of getting in an accident, plus the ever-present risk of being robbed.

I have plenty of in-laws, former-clients, and lots of witnesses and accuseds who work in the oil patch.  It is dangerous work.  They take all kinds of steps to avoid that, of course (hence things like mandatory drug testing and mandatory sleep times) but you can only minimize, not eliminate.  Any time you're working with multi-ton equipment a tiny mistake can be lethal.

[Eddie Teach]

But it's also in part cultural, that very successful TV series about those macho men, no doubt  makes it out to be inherently risky and exciting, perhaps they even play up to camera a bit ?

A cable reality show can be very successful without being something that people will know what you're talking about when it's mentioned. As happened here. 

[Jacob]

Not in my experience and probably Vikings perhaps. 

You worked in the oil industry?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm going to suspect something more than we're hearing about. Staying up for a few nights by itself shouldn't be enough to kill a healthy young adult. Maybe he was taking a lot of stimulants (and not of the caffeine variety) to stay up and that lead to a problem, or maybe he had a preexisting heart condition or he has an blood glucose problem or etc and during his marathon all nighters he didn't eat enough or something.

[The Larch]

Once when he was particulary busy he was still working at 22h,

You're the kind of people who has a sleeping bag in some back room in the office, right? 

[mongers]

Not in my experience and probably Vikings perhaps. 

You worked in the oil industry?

[mongers]

A brief bit of googling seems to indicate that barrister is right, but that it appears also to be cultural as well, as the US/Canadian has X fatalities per 100,000, where X is high but not the most dangerous industry, that appears to be agriculture/fishing at about 35, followed by mining at 30, which I assume oil and gas is part of.  And I'll make the assumption that coal is more dangerous, so oil/gas is a bit below that figure. 

In comparison, fatality rates in the UK are so low, the more usable figure is a combine fatality/serious accident metric, which indicates off-shore oil and gas is on average safer than several other UK industries, it has an accident rate below the national average across all industries 

[Barrister]

A brief bit of googling seems to indicate that barrister is right, but that it appears also to be cultural as well, as the US/Canadian has X fatalities per 100,000, where X is high but not the most dangerous industry, that appears to be agriculture/fishing at about 35, followed by mining at 30, which I assume oil and gas is part of.  And I'll make the assumption that coal is more dangerous, so oil/gas is a bit below that figure. 

In comparison, fatality rates in the UK are so low, the more usable figure is a combine fatality/serious accident metric, which indicates off-shore oil and gas is on average safer than several other UK industries, it has an accident rate below the national average across all industries 

May also be that UK oil industry is mature / declining, whereas in Canada it is still expanding.  The most dangerous phase is construction / drilling, from what I understand.

[mongers]

A brief bit of googling seems to indicate that barrister is right, but that it appears also to be cultural as well, as the US/Canadian has X fatalities per 100,000, where X is high but not the most dangerous industry, that appears to be agriculture/fishing at about 35, followed by mining at 30, which I assume oil and gas is part of.  And I'll make the assumption that coal is more dangerous, so oil/gas is a bit below that figure. 

In comparison, fatality rates in the UK are so low, the more usable figure is a combine fatality/serious accident metric, which indicates off-shore oil and gas is on average safer than several other UK industries, it has an accident rate below the national average across all industries 

May also be that UK oil industry is mature / declining, whereas in Canada it is still expanding.  The most dangerous phase is construction / drilling, from what I understand.

I think Viking is our point man to give a view on the N.S./wider European oil/gas industry practice, but he doesn't appear to be about today. 

[Caliga]

I'm going to suspect something more than we're hearing about. Staying up for a few nights by itself shouldn't be enough to kill a healthy young adult. Maybe he was taking a lot of stimulants (and not of the caffeine variety) to stay up and that lead to a problem, or maybe he had a preexisting heart condition or he has an blood glucose problem or etc and during his marathon all nighters he didn't eat enough or something.

I agree.  What we've been presented with can't alone cause someone to die.  I've worked for stretches as long as 28 hours straight and I wasn't dead or even close to it, though I was extremely tired of course.

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah, I was on duty 36 straight hours during a blizzard/ice storm in 1994 with only a couple short combat naps here and there every few hours, but I was fine.

Kid was probably up to his ass in Alderall.

[derspiess]

I don't do well going with zero sleep.  Hated having to do that in the field in ROTC.  If I'm lying prone on the perimeter at night, I'm gonna eventually fall asleep, simple as that.  I used to eat instant coffee straight out of the packet to try & stay awake.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.