Morning Coffee: Big Four manager with lifestyle aspirations unhappy with firing, 24-year-old trader's incriminating search history

efinancialcareers.com:

While thefocus for the moment is — rightly, on the long working hours of juniors investment banking divisions after the death of Leo Lukenas (whom Bank of America says didn't work long hours, but whom a headhunter now says was seeking to find a new job for that very reason), there were reminders yesterday that young bankers aren't alone in being expected to grind. 

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Firstly, Financial News reported that buyside traders are suffering. 20% of them say they're having a «tough time now» and over half said they knew of traders who'd left their jobs for mental health reasons and burned out.

Secondly, the issue of overwork in the Big Four has appeared again. Konrad Jeczewski, a former EY business consulting manager in Australia whom we estimate to be around 35, says he was unfairly fired after returning from a one-month-long holiday for his wedding and honeymoon.

Like various otherBig Four employees before him, Jeczewski says his working hours before his holiday had been intolerable: he claims he'd been working 80-hour weeks and was asked to cancel all personal commitments for a new project. He also claims that he was told it was «not acceptable» when he took a full week off for the flu. 

Jeczewski complained about his80-hour week, whereuponhe says EY cut his workload (surely a good thing), cut his communications with senior managers (probably a bad) and fired him (not the intended consequence). He's now filed a court case against EY saying that his firing was not fair.

EY, in turn, says it was fair and that it came upon the decision to fire Jeczewski — who appears to have aspired to a lifestyle involving personal time, long holidays to mark major life events and protracted