Extreme Jobs (and the people who love them)

Sunday, November 7, 2004, was a slightly more energetic workday than usual for John Bishop, an investment banker on Citigroup's global energy team. After working until 10 p.m. the previous night, the 31-year-old rose at 6 a.m. and headed to Staten Island to run the New York City Marathon. Three hours, 49 minutes later (a time good enough to rank him 6,363 out of 35,562 runners), he dashed over the finish line in Central Park, then headed home to sack out for a few hours before heading back to the office for a 6 p.m. conference call. An important presentation to a client in Houston the next day kept him grinding through documents until 1:30 a.m. But after misplacing some research materials, he was back at the office copy machine by 4 a.m. before heading to the airport for his 5:30 a.m. flight. By 9 a.m., in Texas, Bishop met with the client, then headed back to New York, returning to his office by 7 that evening for a few more hours of work. Feeling a little weary, he decided to knock off early. He clocked out at 10 p.m.

Sure, this was a little over the top, even by the notoriously excessive standards of investment banking, but it wasn't so far off the charts that it earned Bishop any medals for heroism. "I might be a little skewed to the workaholic, but realistically, expecting 90 to 100 hours a week is not at all unusual," says Bishop, wantonly pausing for a cup of coffee late one Friday afternoon at a cafe near his office.

Time was when toiling 60 hours a week signaled that you were a corporate warrior, willing to put work at the top of your life's priorities. Now, with corporate downsizing forcing staffers to shoulder the load of fallen colleagues, and a job market still so frosty that workers know they go home early at their peril, folks far down the corporate food chain are often logging grueling hours, less because they're passionate about their work than because they're scared not to.

But the implacable effects of globalization, technology, and competition have also combined to create another class of jobs whose demands have amped these requirements up by several degrees. Investment banking certainly qualifies; management consulting, with its relentless travel, typically fits in this league; and a whole range of jobs that require constant communication and coordination with the Far East -- from manufacturing to software development to media -- are now joining these ranks.

Like daredevil athletes, the workers who gravitate toward these jobs often thrive on the challenge. Bombarded by information, tethered to technology that links them to global partners, vendors, and customers around the clock, they labor extraordinary hours, log staggering numbers of air miles, and juggle mind-boggling schedules. Their jobs are often high stress and high risk -- the corporate version of an upside-down double spin on a half pipe. Sure, the money's a big part of the allure: These people don't exactly live paycheck to paycheck. Still, many of them are happier than a snowboarder in a foot of fresh powder. Welcome to the world of extreme jobs.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy at Columbia University, coined the term after a discussion with a woman from Deutsche Bank in London. The banker, Hewlett says, was a fan of Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air, in which a group of climbers brave extreme conditions while scaling Mount Everest (albeit with disastrous results). She thought her job was similarly high altitude and risky. "Two elements in the word 'extreme' spoke to her life and the activities in her business," says Hewlett. "One was the intensity -- the feeling that you were pushed to the limits of your intellectual and physical endurance -- not in a brutal, but in an exhilarating way. The other was that it's alluring. She told me, 'I'm profoundly turned on by my life.' "

"I can count on the fingers of one hand the days in my career when I didn't want to come to work."

In the realm of extreme sports, Chuck Carothers is a champ. One of the world's leading motocross riders, he has broken 21 bones in his career. Yet he keeps competing, describing the rush he gets from sailing through the air on a motorbike as a "complete addiction." In a weird way, Irene Tse, the 34-year-old head of the government bond-trading desk at Goldman Sachs -- Jon Corzine's old job -- understands Carothers's passion. "I've done this for 10 years," she says. "And I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of days in my career when I didn't want to come to work. Every day I wake up and I can't wait to get here."