HSBC Manager’s Heart Attack Prompts Viral Post

She is with us on the phone in New York City. Lenin, I'm so glad we were able to get you on to talk about this. So tell us about Johnny frost Ick. So, Johnny is um, someone who is a sort of regulatory I T guy at HSBC. He's a contractor and a couple of Sundays ago, he had a heart attack and the first few things he thought about were work related and it wasn't until the fourth thought he had was oh,

what about my wife? Maybe she'll find me dead? Um. And so he wrote this viral LinkedIn post that has just completely caught fire on LinkedIn because you know, everyone is thinking about overwork and burnout right now, and it just really touched a chord not just in finance, but just around the world in terms of people who are getting ground down by work. Right now, all right, Well,

first of all, Johnny's doing okay. Correct, Yes, he's doing okay. Thankfully, he's doing okay and well enough to have given an exclusive interview to us. So, um, he's very philosophical and you know, very very much re reprioritizing his life. Right now, Well, talk to him a little bit more about the conversation you have, because what's interesting is he actually chronicled right his near death experience, as you write, in a viral LinkedIn post that has been viewed almost seven million times.

That's as of Tuesday, so I'm sure it's higher than that. He what did he write about and what did you want to talk to him about? So, first of all, he wrote in very colorful language. So when you read our story, we do include a link to the original post because it is very much worth reading on its own. Um, he talks about the fact that you know, he kind of prioritized all of these things like being on zoom calls for twelve hours and just you know, working and

putting up with a lot of crap at work. He honestly did not wanted to put up with anymore just really going to overboard in terms of not taking care of his own life and health, and you know, just going too far in and too deep into work without

really taking care of his own health. And he also talked about the isolation of remote work, which is something I feel like, Lennon, we are talking a lot about, have talked about a lot over the past year, especially for people we know in New York who lived alone or felt really isolated. It can be after a while not so much fun. Yes, exactly, And I think that was one of the points he made when we were talking.

He said, you know, normally when you go to work, you have a kind of wind up when you go in your commute and you kind of prepare for work and get ready getting work mote, and then when you come home you decompress. And right now those boundaries are just completely obliterated, and so people are just finding themselves working all the time and not setting their own boundaries, not saying okay, now it sounds to shut off, do

other things, you know, and take care of your life. Yeah, it's interesting too, And listen, you've been covering this as many of the members of our Bloomberg News team, you know, just writing about whether it's investment bankers on Wall Street. We know it's not easy, especially if you're starting out in the industry. If you're a junior investment banker, you know,

you're working around the clock, you're working weekends. We are hearing increasingly where workers are speaking up and that senior executives are looking at ways to maybe ease the situation. Is there really a change going on? Well, I think certainly in Johnny's case, he really wants to drive this conversation. He's, you know, what I think would be a middle manager. You know, he runs a team of maybe twenty plus people.

We don't manage people. And one of his priorities in discussing this was to really talk about this, you know issue, to talk about the fact that people are not taking care of themselves and that they're not good workers either. If you don't take care of yourself, um, and you can't really be particularly productive either. And so he's just trying to open up this conversation about work, about flexibility and about making sure that people are sort of balanced,

balanced individuals and balanced workers. You know, it's interesting too and I feel like we are having a more broader conversation too about companies, CEO s leaders who say, let's deal with you know, in equities in society, let's deal with racism. Let's talk about people being overworked. And I do wonder how much of it ultimately leads to actions and a real change and how we do it or once we get back to quote unquote normal after the pandemic, do we all be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that work

life balance. I gotta get this project done. You know, it's a tough one, Carol, And I think it's it's down to individuals, but of course it's down to companies as well to understand that people have changing expectations that you know, young people for instance. You know, I'm stunned by the fact that, you know, young Goldman associates it would be so bold as to write a deck that

says they're overworked in their mental health is suffering. Right, That's not something we would have seen even maybe a year ago. And so this is a huge conversation. You know the fact that almost eight million people now have have read this post. There are two hundred thousand likes. You know, this is really driving a conversation. All of our main competitors have picked it up and have cited our reporting as well, so it's definitely touched a nerve

thanks to Johnny's post, not to our story. It's it really just did grab people. And uh, it's a really colorful read as well. I wasn't able to use the expletives that he didn't post to go and read the original source. Darn. Anyway, it is among the most read. As I said, this is what people in the financial community are reading big time. Lenin great reporting is always lenan new in finance reporter here at Bloomberg News.