[AMG Power]

A 26-year-old employee of Ernst & Young, Pune has passed away due to what her mother claims was "work stress." She had started working at the firm just four months ago. Anna Sebastian Perayil, a Chartered Accountant from Kerala, passed away after being overloaded with work. Her mother, Anita Augustine, has sent an email to the company's India boss, Rajiv Memani, criticizing the firm for promoting excessive work and pointing out the gap between the company’s stated human rights values and her daughter's experience.

Perayil passed her CA exams in 2023 and started working at EY Pune as an executive in March 2024. It was her first job, and she worked hard to meet expectations. However, this took a serious toll on her health. Her mother said she started facing anxiety, sleeplessness, and stress soon after starting but kept pushing herself, thinking hard work and perseverance would lead to success.

Source

[V.Narayan]

First my condolences to the parents for whom this loss is every parent's worst nightmare. May this young woman's soul rest in peace.

Unless we have more hard data it is impossible to state the real reason. Maybe lack of sleep or an undiscovered congenital problem or self medicating on anxiety pills or a lurking medical condition that lay undiagnosed there could be so many other factors. For a 26-year old to simply die for no cause is a hard act to follow. A young body is a very robust machine. I can relate to the anxiety of succeeding though. It can consume you. It certainly over enveloped me on more than a few occasions.

[AMG Power]

A few months ago:

Work strained 25 year old IIT / IIM graduate and McKinsey employee commits suicide

https://www.freepressjournal.in/amp/...ies-by-suicide

[Noctis]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Maybe lack of sleep or an undiscovered congenital problem or self medicating on anxiety pills or a lurking medical condition that lay undiagnosed there could be so many other factors.

According to an open letter from her mother, she had undergone medical tests shortly before the tragic incident, with the cardiologist clearing her of any issues but giving a warning about the sleep deprivation she was facing.

However she continued to be overworked with uncharged/unassigned tasks from her manager even on Sundays and was unable to take rest as recommended by the Doctor.

I've personally heard of these kinds of stories from those who have worked at EY Bangalore, so none of these feel surprising. Apparently no one from EY even attended her funeral.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Noctis

with the cardiologist clearing her of any issues but giving a warning about the sleep deprivation she was facing.

Sadly too many young people cut out sleep for other activities in this poor girl's case, work and coping with boss pressure.

Apparently no one from EY even attended her funeral.

That is truly sad. I don't know too much of E&Y's culture having dealt with them only as a customer. But I can well imagine their consulting side having this hard driving culture.

We all can fully understand the distraught mother's letter and struggle to find answers for this tragedy. But we must wait for the facts to come out before blaming anyone. Social media has given each of us the power to publicly blame or shame someone with limited or even no facts and like with our accidents the bigger vehicle takes the blame.

Some on Team BHP will shame me for saying this but we as parents also have a duty of care especially when our children as young adults are stepping out into the bad world for the first time. One of my kids started her first job at age 22 with an organization, in another city, which I realized in two or three months had a terrible culture of pressure, lack of resources and yelling. In 4 months I could sense over the phone the kid was at her wits end while at the same time clinging onto the need to prove herself. But I was forced to intervene when she fell ill with exhaustion, travelled over to her city and got her back and very soon later had her change jobs.

I don't know if there has been a postmortem or not that could give some answers. Of course, none of this takes away from the extreme grief of the parent.

[subraiyr]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Sadly too many young people cut out sleep for other activities in this poor girl's case, work and coping with boss pressure.
That is truly sad. I don't know too much of E&Y's culture having dealt with them only as a customer. But I can well imagine their consulting side having this hard driving culture.

This is terrible. At the start of one's career, a person passes away due to performance pressure. What are organizations setting up themselves for?

I am working for a leading consulting firm. I have been part of them for the last 12 years, and the pressure is quite high. There are various factors affecting the pressure employees face. Key among them are

1. Deadlines - Many of this is manifested thanks to account leaders who do not or cannot push back clients. We have clients who float RFPs for large-scale transformation and expect responses within a week. This is nonsensical in my opinion and such clients are just fishing for information

2. Supervisor expectations Many leaders who have done candle burning expect their juniors to do the same. However, times have changed and peoples' priorities have changed. They do not realize this

3. Peer expectations - Peers too are responsible for inhuman expectations. I am a bachelor with nothing much to do at home and therefore would end up working long hours vs someone who is married or someone who has kids.

4. Self-expectations - All of the above translates to incongruous self-expectations by the individual. In the struggle to make themselves a name in the organization, chasing bonuses and elusive promotions they succumb to inhuman hours of working

In my current firm, the unstated expectation is to put in anywhere between 70 to 80 hours worth of work in a week. I have been in situations where I worked 14 to 15 hours through weekends in prep for a client discussion. My first thought when I landed up at my current firm was of John Grisham's novel "The Firm". The culture is exactly like that - billing crazy hours and backstabbing one another all in the name of revenues and profits

Today I am extremely wise. I push back hard on such obnoxious deadlines and work pressure. I say no to calls beyond 8 in the evening irrespective of which geography it is. If I can stay late and take calls, the folks from Americas can get up early to handle calls as well.

Most consulting firms are in a similar situation with southerly winds impacting their top line and the need to keep cost down. The labor practices really need to change to enable a healthier work atmosphere.

[raghu.t.k]

Condolences to the family.

Sadly the pressure to deliver is very high and to add to it, few of the so called successfull managers get into yelling expecting everyone to work just like them.

Every individual has a different breaking point. I myself went into a shell and had anxiety problems when put under constant pressure and calls to followup. This was after being in the IT industry for nearly 10-15 years. It went to a point where a fear kicks in when the mobile rings and would give me a shock at the back of my spine. Even though I have moved out of that company, moved roles and more than a decade passes, when the mobile rings even today, I get un-easy about it.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by subraiyr

This is terrible. At the start of one's career, a person passes away due to performance pressure. What are organizations setting up themselves for?

1. Deadlines - for large-scale transformation and expect responses within a week. This is nonsensical in my opinion and such clients are just fishing for information

2. Supervisor expectations Many leaders who have done candle burning expect their juniors to do the same.

3. Peer expectations - Peers too are responsible for inhuman expectations. I

4. Self-expectations - All of the above translates to incongruous self-expectations by the individual. chasing bonuses and elusive promotions they succumb to inhuman hours of working

In my current firm, the unstated expectation is to put in anywhere between 70 to 80 hours worth of work in a week. I have been in situations where I worked 14 to 15 hours through weekends in prep for a client discussion. My first thought when I landed up at my current firm was of John Grisham's novel "The Firm". The culture is exactly like that - billing crazy hours and backstabbing one another all in the name of revenues and profits

Today I am extremely wise. I push back hard on such obnoxious deadlines stay late and take calls, the folks from Americas can get up early to handle calls as well.

Most consulting firms are in a similar situation with southerly winds impacting their top line. The labor practices really need to change to enable a healthier work atmosphere.

Superb set of submissions.
The poor young person who passed. My own friends have children of that age group and some who work in these firms. I can only feel sorry that there is this kind of pressure.

1. I agree with your point about deadlines and fishing for info. Unrealistic deadlines are a by product of bad planning and bad prioritization. Fishing for info is a fact of life and many big organizations on the ‘buy’ side do it. However those on the ‘sell side’ or ‘service side’ are unable to say No. This leads to a self perpetuating vicious cycle.

2 & 3. Bad supervisors and Managers and Peer Expectations - these chaps probably are having some hangover of the idiotic pressure they underwent in their Business School years with the unrealistic demands of ‘Night-Outs’. This results in a kind of ‘ragging’ at the work place also. Again a self perpetuating vicious cycle. This is more prevalent in America, China, Eastern World and India. Such a culture in my observation so far does not manifest itself in the EU.

4. Self expectations. We just have to learn to love ourselves and care for ourselves because honestly very few others will.

The last para - I am glad you are taking wise decisions and making wise choices. I hope more people do that. I encourage folks in our organization to take their allocated leave and enjoy their weekends etc. This makes for a healthy work life balance. (And then you have rank idiots like that Bhavish Aggarwal and Lord NRN and so on, who go on record saying they do not believe in work life balance and all that!)

I completely resonate with your analogy of John Grisham’s The Firm. I also thought of exactly that when I read the title of this thread. And indeed I have seen some level of that kind of pressure especially amongst folks who work in these VC/ PE firms.

I am 100% with you on the point about time zones. All time zones need to be sensitive to each other.
I too do get on a few calls early morning and later evening to accommodate some of our customers far away in South America or Pacific Time Zone etc but they are all unfailingly appreciative of this and are most delicately apologetic too, perhaps we are just blessed to have such fantastic customers. And truth be told even for them, it is an odd time so it all evens out.

Regarding the last point. Most consulting firms here in India are Services Organizations. They are in a sense little more than delivery practices and body shops because of the relatively inexpensive cost of skilled resources. To be blunt and impolite, we have created a self perpetuating system of digital sugarcane plantation slave labour and Lord NRN is amongst the largest culprits of that.

Fact is, this is one of the by products of unbridled capitalism. There will always be a class of ‘downtrodden’ folks and there will be only a few who reap the benefits of their labour. And this is the essence of what I like to refer to as the Tyranny of the Perpetual Treadmill.

Some of us may elect to take some choices for ‘Life’ rather than ‘Work’. But most of us cannot, because we do not have the luxury of Economic Independence. And as long as we continue to seek the above, and build towards that Economic Independence, we most probably will never be able to hop off the ‘treadmill.’

[DDIS_RE650]

Originally Posted by Noctis

According to an open letter from her mother, she had undergone medical tests shortly before the tragic incident, with the cardiologist clearing her of any issues but giving a warning about the sleep deprivation she was facing.

However she continued to be overworked with uncharged/unassigned tasks from her manager even on Sundays and was unable to take rest as recommended by the Doctor.

I've personally heard of these kinds of stories from those who have worked at EY Bangalore, so none of these feel surprising. Apparently no one from EY even attended her funeral.

My wife used to work at EY- Bangalore RMZ office. It was dreadful 4 years, at the end she resigned without holding any offer. Life is more precious than stressful jobs. The place is full of arrogant mid level managers who are regionally biased based on language and religion. This may not be true for all the projects but where she was working it was clearly evident.

[Noctis]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

We all can fully understand the distraught mother's letter and struggle to find answers for this tragedy. But we must wait for the facts to come out before blaming anyone. Social media has given each of us the power to publicly blame or shame someone with limited or even no facts and like with our accidents the bigger vehicle takes the blame.

Maybe I'm a bit jaded on these matters but frankly not expecting anything more than a highly polished PR statement that won't take any actual responsibility nor seek to address the underlying cultural issues.

There is really nothing much in that letter that you wouldn't hear from someone working there in audit/tax/consulting. But even if an official investigation is launched it will likely get buried and forgotten as the public moves on to other things.

Originally Posted by DDIS_RE650

My wife used to work at EY- Bangalore RMZ office. It was dreadful 4 years, at the end she resigned without holding any offer. Life is more precious than stressful jobs. The place is full of arrogant mid level managers who are regionally biased based on language and religion. This may not be true for all the projects but where she was working it was clearly evident.

The same story I keep hearing, and hence why the letter feels rather believable.

[atulsian]

Originally Posted by DDIS_RE650

My wife used to work at EY- Bangalore RMZ office. It was dreadful 4 years, at the end she resigned without holding any offer. Life is more precious than stressful jobs. The place is full of arrogant mid level managers who are regionally biased based on language and religion. This may not be true for all the projects but where she was working it was clearly evident.

This work culture is same across all the big 4s'. I was part of one of the firm. 60-70 hours a week is normal (Mon- Sat) and 2000 hours per year is minimum for 90% of the tax/audit team. They work smartly by not mentioning no of hours on paper ( offer letter/email). Offer letter says 11-8 shift but in practice, it is more than 12 hours. However, it is not the same when you are onshore with the team. Work life balance is better even during so called busy season.

[kushagra452]

Really sad to read about this incident. Consulting and banking are usually considered two of the most taxing (no pun intended) career paths for any individual. Yes, the compensation is high but the hours are brutal.

Moreover, I suspect with the advent of LLMs and other AI tools the Consulting industry itself is at the cross roads. Plain vanilla strategy projects are hard to come by. Customers are also getting smarter and a lot more demanding. This in turn has increased the stress and toxicity across several consulting firms. In order to bill the client for more number of hours and thereby meet their sales targets, the leadership is asking a "resource" to work non stop. It is also observed that "resources" within a project who grind hard are loaded with ever more work.

I hope theses firms do some introspection and work towards a better work life balance for their employees.

[akhil_007]

Tax/Audit teams at Big 4 are known for this "grind" as it is evident in Reddit and Fishbowl. I have heard of Non-Indians undergoing this grind for 1 or 2 years, move on to the Industry for better Work-Life balance and decent pay. They just need the "Pedigree" of Big 4 on their resume.

Originally Posted by subraiyr

1. Deadlines - Many of this is manifested thanks to account leaders who do not or cannot push back clients. We have clients who float RFPs for large-scale transformation and expect responses within a week. This is nonsensical in my opinion and such clients are just fishing for information

2. Supervisor expectations Many leaders who have done candle burning expect their juniors to do the same. However, times have changed and peoples' priorities have changed. They do not realize this

Today I am extremely wise. I push back hard on such obnoxious deadlines and work pressure. I say no to calls beyond 8 in the evening irrespective of which geography it is.

Very beautifully articulated. There should also be soft-skills training on "How to Say NO and push back on unreasonable demands". One only needs to do it once with an explanation. Post which, the supervisor pares down the expectations from his team

Some supervisors and parents also have this mindset "I put in extreme hard work and struggled to get to this position. Why do you want it easy?". The end goal should be to solve the problem at hand instead of trying to change personalities. Draw clear boundaries and be flexible within these boundaries.

One of my colleagues had this mindset- If I put in all the extra effort and time to please my supervisors, I get x% hike. If I perform to just meet the expectations, I will get (x-3)% hike. Why slog for this 3% when I can enjoy my life and be happy. Of course he would showcase his superpowers whenever he wanted "Promotions"

[dragracer567]

The big four are probably one of the most convoluted white collar companies in the world. I’ve worked with them as our clients while one of my cousin worked for one of these companies.

I’ve worked with some really big entities as clients and these are the worst. In a particularly bad incident, one of their middle managers called me up directly bypassing my manager asking for information saying ‘your manager said you’d provide the information’. When I responded that I’d have to check before I provide anything, I was threatened that they would complain about me to my manager and they would look for another sub contractor etc etc. I held my cool and I was right, my manager never agreed to anything of that sort. They pulled the same with my manager, saying I had promised to share information but he saw through it as well. At one point, I just stormed out of the office and went to the roof due to the pressure from these clowns - that too when I’m the kind of person who generally has a cool head, thankfully, my manager had my back then and the project was too small to break an arm and a leg over. If this is how they work with their contractors, can’t imagine what their employees endure.

These are certainly not the ‘Google’ or ‘Apple’ of consulting.

[Chetan_Rao]

Sleep deprivation is arguably the most potent killer, because it's co-morbid with a condition we all suffer from: being alive.

Poor young woman. Worked so hard to start a potentially great life, snuffed out before it even began.