Dealing with an analyst I am having trouble working with (as a virtual intern)
Hey guys, need some advice for a situation I have been facing at work (rising junior).
I have been working at a firm with 2 different teams at 2 separate offices for my virtual internship this summer (internship ends end of December). I will be a 2021 SA at a BB/EB but the firm currently does not know this, as they think I am trying to come back again next summer & for full-time, and I haven't had the discussion about my next summer plans with anyone yet.
The plan was my time would be allocated 80-20 between the 2 different teams. However, since the start of the internship, the team that was supposed to only require 20% of my time (we will call team A and the team that was supposed to require 80% of my time is team B) has been consistently hogging most of my working hours. They are run pretty lean and have a lot of backlogged work they need manpower to get through. As result, I have been working double the amount of hours compared to the initial plan of the internship. This part I don't really care because I thought it's good prep for next summer anyway. The work with team B is also really interesting, and while team A work is quite mechanical and mind-numbing, again I thought it was good prep so I don't really care.
The problem is that the analyst I directly report to on team A has been really bothersome to work with. He has a lot of double standards regarding the work I submit, such as requiring some formatting rules that no other team in the company does and which he doesn't even follow for his own work. He also gets mad really easily and it has been stressful for me because it literally feels like walking on eggshells after I submit work to him. Perhaps it's because we are always discussing the work over text so I can never see his reactions in real life, but every time he is asking me to explain decisions I make regarding a model/smth I literally feel like I am getting interrogated and my heart beats extra fast. He sometimes thinks I made an error in a model, gets mad, then we redo the numbers and he realizes I was right. The part that made me really go "this needs to stop" was this week, when I stayed up for a call that we were supposed to make before a report gets sent out and he takes a week off for his holiday. This guy forgot our call and just went to bed early, so I stayed up to rush work for nothing and this guy is still on holiday, so the report is now delayed till next week (it's an internal deadline he set up, I am just mad I had to stay up for no reason).
During all this time I have been speaking with some members on team C who have been really nice and that I have been helping out with small tasks here and there. I genuinely think the projects on team C are really interesting and (I think) they also have a really good impression of me. I would like to switch from team A to team C if possible. I was wondering how you guys would go about doing this?
For context, the head of the department (oversees team A, B, and C) who hired me and is in charge of my program works directly with team A, and from what I understand he has a pretty good relationship with the team A analyst. So, I feel like it's out of question for me to bring up my issues with the analyst to him and switch. I have considered asking to switch because "I find the work on team C much more interesting and vibed really well with the members on that team" but the thing is, team A really needs manpower so I feel like that request would just get denied. Plus, I am worried that the analyst would start saying things to the head of dept once he realizes I am trying to switch teams.
How would you guys deal with this situation? It feels so stressful to work for him that it legit sucks all the fun out of this job for me, even though I really think the stuff I get to work on (for B at least, and C) is very interesting.
You said it yourself, you already have an offer next year, much makes whatever you do next less risky.
That being said, you need to learn how to stand up for yourself or people will walk over you in, even in BB. I strongly recommend you schedule a call with the MD, and in a political way bring up that the work split of 80/20% has been out of whack, and that both teams are requiring a lot of your attention, putting you in situations where you have to meet tight and overlapping timelines on both teams.
You should definitely bring up the analyst's attitude but in a polite and political way that doesn't make you seem like a cry baby. For example: Emphasize you're really busy supporting both teams, and that the analyst scheduled a call that he forgot, and is creating arbitrary timelines that prevent you from helping the other team that requires 80% of your capacity. Emphasize you stayed up very late to wait for the call and waited and waited to get a response. (No matter how much the MD likes him, this will make him look really bad, and he deserves to get a fucking spanking)
I would also say something along the lines of analyst A has been really emotional and gets angry very often and out of the blue. He'll get angry at me for something that he thinks I did wrong, only to discover that my work was accurate. These calls sometime span from 30 min - an hour and I am unable to do any other work.
OP - You need to learn to defend yourself, no one will do it for you. You have a gig lined up, so take advantage of this internship and learn how to defend yourself and speak in a political manner. If you have a good reputation with the other teams, that will help you tremendously in giving you power to push back. Additionally, in your shoes I would stop submitting the spreadsheets in the format requested by the asshole analyst. If he asks you to fix the format, say that you have to jump on another task and push back as much as possible. I would give this guy little respect(since you know his meetings are arbitrary and that he doesn't respect your time, I would push back vigorously on the timelines and never agree to late meetings by stating something along the lines of "I don't have capacity to have a meeting at that time, and go to sleep instead).
Thank you for the comment, I guess I just feel bad since I used this internship's brand as my way of getting my next gig, and I feel bad for jumping ship as well. I think what I will do is first finish my backlog (so that no one on the team can get mad at me for not finishing what I started) in the next couple of weeks while pushing back on any new work, and then having the call with the MD afterward to address the concerns in the same way you stated and ask for the switch. I am just a bit worried that the MD has already heard bad things about me from this analyst and may have a biased perspective already. I know the other team really likes me, but they work in a completely different office and I am not sure if it will be the best look to ask them to vouch for me in a work complaint like this.
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