Biggest Office Pet Peeves

State your grievances, a couple of my big ones:

The person who makes every meeting run over because he interrupts after every other sentence to ask for clarification.

Working with someone who is so type A that they make small changes to your work just to feel in control.

That manager who just assumes whatever you're working on is unimportant and randomly calls you into his office and gives you new projects that you can't exactly see the significance of.

When you're in a meeting with a known long-winded speaker and you finally think it's over but one of the Ivy Leaguers has to ask a question that sets the speaker up for another 20 minute soap-box spiel on a subject that no one is genuinely interested in.

Being told that a certain project is extremely time sensitive only to present it to your superior the next day and realize that they will probably never use the information you've gathered them in any way.

Sitting in the cubicle between two people that yell at each other from across the office all day.

83 Comments
 

I'm in consulting and I im on a rather large team, but i'm a first year and my friend (another first year) went on vacation. long story short he did a project completely wrong and now I'm on the hook for why its not done and I'm gonna be in the office all night. Manager basically blaming me for his wrongdoings.

Normally I would be okay with it, but I was supposed to go on a date with a girl thats way out of my league and i have to cancel. Wonderful

 

The doomsday Debby downers who sigh very loudly all day to let you know how bad their day is.

People who are so desperate for attention they will tell the same story multiple times until someone acknowledges said story.

 
  • When other people suck up so blatantly in public, and I think to myself: Am I the only one seeing this?
  • (Along the same line) Super loud fake laughing
  • WGLs
  • Company Profiles
  • People making me do extra work, because they're afraid to think

... yeah it's been a bad week

 

First one can backfire. I heard a story about a lady who worked in education, who got so busy trying to suck up to a new administrator coming in that she lost one of the kids she was supposed to be teaching.

 
Best Response

Intentionally public displays of work - CC'ing unneccesary parties to make yourself look better. Sending out team-wide emails displaying the work for the same reason.

Meetings that run over every time.

Meetings that are schedule for 30 minutes but take 14, then whoever is running the meeting drags on / talks in circles / brings up unnecessary questions to fill time.

Waiting for people to leave meeting rooms from their meetings running over.

People with kids that use them for every excuse known to man.

People with kids who talk about their "accomplishments" at work.

People with kids who talk about their kids and refer to them in the first person. -"My weekend was great, took Christian to a soccer tournament"

The fact that i have to ask that question and listen to that answer on Monday.

 

Had an MD who would schedule meetings, then leave the 3 or 4 of us outside his office while he made a big show of making small talk with someone for 10 minutes in full view of us (and vice versa). One of the most insecure people I have ever met. (He also got passed over for promotion about once a year).

 

Office gossip, I still have a hard time understanding why people can't keep negative thoughts to themselves. Very poor look personally, and even poorer professionally.

"A man can convince anyone he's somebody else, but never himself."
 

Granted I've had analyst experience on only a couple buyside auctions at a mid-market (small-market) firm, but I'll put in my 2 cents. Unrealistic projections (hockey stick) that cannot be supported by broad industry trends and/or a completely bullshit market share projection always piss you off, and often aren't revised down until the Oh Shit meeting (first board meeting after the closing). Frankly in my analyst role, I didn't fucking believe one thing the bankers fed me (immediate 10-15% downward revision on all growth rates in our models), but these were wannabe schmoozeball bankers from some chop-shop. Comp analyses were also (from my viewpoint) clearly manipulated to exclude some outliers that probably should have been included. It would have been refreshing for the bankers running to deal to be forthright about the challenges of the business (every dog has at least one flea), give me accurate fucking source data, and let me run my own valuation, not patronize me by trying to spoonfeed me some doctored valuation.

 

For those of you with comparable portfolio companies, don't forget about all the synergies that you can realize when you buy our client's business. I'm sure your portco's accounting staff wouldn't mind doubling their workload after our client eliminates every accounting and back office position. Eh, it doesn't matter if the HQs are on opposite coasts...it's all electronic these days, anyway, right? I'm sure there'll be a seamless integration on the MIS and reporting side--probably no implementation costs on that front. And don't even get me started on the cross-selling opportunities, volume purchase discounts, insurance, audit, bank fees, and employee benefits savings...no, of course our client's employees don't mind if you freeze their defined benefit pension plan--don't worry, management doesn't think it'll stay underfunded forever. The company's counsel also tells us they think that pending asbestos litigation is a non-issue, no worries. Insurance will cover any damage awards, I'm sure. By the way, we've also added back those legal fees.

Once more into the breach, dear friends.
 

Highlighting synergies when youre on the sell side is common practice, but both buyer and seller know that no smart buyer will ever pay for these. If there is competition, the buyer will bid more, but adding in synergies makes no difgference whatsoever. Any mention of synergies from a sell side adviser usualy means you skip to the next section.

"Living the dream 24/7 on http://theallnighter.blogspot.com"

____________________________________________________________ "LIVING THE DREAM 24/7 ON http://THEALLNIGHTER.BLOGSPOT.COM" ____________________________________________________________
 

Yeah, we usually don't expect buyers to give us much credit on the synergies, but every so often we'll find somebody who'll at least split them down the middle and give us half credit for some of them.

Once more into the breach, dear friends.
 

Thats the spirit. The key is finding a guy who's a giver and then get all the mileage you can:)

"Living the dream 24/7 on http://theallnighter.blogspot.com"

____________________________________________________________ "LIVING THE DREAM 24/7 ON http://THEALLNIGHTER.BLOGSPOT.COM" ____________________________________________________________
 

in the middle market (which i am), it's all about finding a sucker who's willing to pay the premium. as long as you find a buyer (strategic or financial) who likes the company/asset you are selling, it's all golden.

i mean sure i had some moral qualms about it early on, but who am i to care if the VP's happy?

 

every finance/econ exam I have ever taken was absurdly different than the material given in class or on the practice test. Your teachers give you the same practice exam with changed numbers. What a joke.

And as to your argument about teachers coddling target students and that you need to bust it through 100+ person lectures, that is an argument against you. That shows the quality of the education is lower, and thus so is the product (you).

I too agree that too many ivies stroke themselves too much. It has been shown countless times that success is not based upon where you went to school. But lets be a little realistic and stop thinking that people that go to state schools are even on the same planet as the top students at an ivy (those which get the ib offers... its pretty competitive here too.)

 
ke18sb However, do not assume you are superior, more deserving or would be more successful than top public kids.

They don't assume, they KNOW this from the fact that they are more sought after by recruiters.

That being said, I think the top public kids that actually do manage to break into IB are mostly on a level playing field.

 

"But lets be a little realistic and stop thinking that people that go to state schools are even on the same planet as the top students at an ivy."

Haha, it's funny (mind-boggling) that some people are so exclusive in their thoughts. There are plenty people in state schools as apt as those in ivys. You cannot generalize these sorts of things. You will find geniuses and their opposites at both. The probablity may be higher at ivy's, but there is no need of this separation that the two are not even on the same planet.

 

Again, I'm not saying that the ivy kids are not smart or that top public kids are as smart as them. I am not saying that top public kids are better/worse recruits or which institutions provide a better education. My post was just in response the numerous posts that claim ivy kids would dominate at top publics which, in my opinion, is not the case.

Also, on a side note, most of my econ classes did not have homework or practice tests. You would go into the test blind. There would be one midterm and one final and that was that. I'm not saying this is the best way to learn by any means but to consistently get A's under these circumstances is very difficult.

 
ke18sbat Harvard 50% of the students receive As.

Get your sources right, and don't make assumptions about Harvard if you don't go there. Most large social sciences are curved around a B+, and the more generous courses might be curved around an A-. Many Harvard classes, especially econ classes, are notoriously large. Economics 10, the intro course, has well over 500+ students enrolled. I know enough smart public school kids, there's no disrespecting them at all. But I'm sure that 90% of Harvard students would do exceedingly well at UVA or Berkeley.

 

The term Ivy is overused. Though it may be true that some BB recruit at Brown or Dartmouth, the advantages at said schools are paltry compared to HYPW -- the W is for Wharton, Penn in general is not in the same class as HYP.

So when we use Ivy here, I think we should mean only HYPW. The rest of the Ivy League is just a (bad) sports conference.

 

Before your piss all over yourself in righteous anger do some research on Princeton. And yes, I'm sure most Tigers would kick your ass. Harvard is overrated.

 

is getting ridiculous. Half the threads are now low-IQ non-targets attempting to make themselves feel better about not getting into a top school. We need to start a site with a ibanking focus that is only open to Ivies.

 

The problem here is that "state school" is too generic. Yes, UCLA, Berkley, UNC, UM, UVA, etc are all going to have top students there too (which is why banks recruit there). It's the other state schools where a 3.9 can be a joke.

 

Isn't this iBankingOasis.com... not CollegeConfidential.com?

All these Iyv vs. State threads seem to piss a lot of people off without adding any banking/recruiting value for anyone. I wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that this kind of thread (and the ludicrous sh*t people say to each other) is what keeps new users from joining iBankingOasis.

 

justanotherbanker, i've been trying to decide what to do with these threads. moderation I think has improved a lot over the past few weeks (since I gave out moderator privligegs to about 5 users) but we can always improve. i've also been distracted working with this IT team to try and get a bunch of upgrades done for the site.

I think what i'll end up doing is locking these types of threads after they run their course so that they don't go on and on and keep getting bumped to the top.

 
IlliniProgrammerSo call them maybe.

lolz

Baby you're the perfect shape, baby you're the perfect weight. Treat me like my birthday, I want it this way and I want it that way. It makes a man feel good baby.
 
ULNWIDubstep and shitty EDM that kids seem to be blasting these days is quite annoying.
dumbass krapstep kids forgot about dre
 

Hopefully they have headphone jack that faces them (i.e., if they're looking at their monitor, they can stare right down the headphone jack).

Step 1: Get a a fancy pen with an aluminum ink cartridge, or buy one from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Monteverde-Capless-Ballpoint-Refill-P422BK/dp/B00…)

Step 2: Pluck out the plastic plug in the back

Step 3: Plug the ink cartridge into the headphone jack.

Step 4: Crank the volume up to the max.

Step 5: Sit back and wait for that fucker to turn their music on. If its a decent enough computer that has a reasonably powerful transformer, the aluminum tube will short out inside the headphone jack sending a spark out of the aluminum tube... the tube however, will be plugged with ink, which will be violently ejaculated in a fairly entertaining fashion.

Or you could bite off the tip of a headphone jack and jam it in their Audio-Out jack and their speakers won't work anymore.

It goes without saying that the first option is far superior.

 

Note to self: don't fuck with @Marcus_Halberstram

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 

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Move along, nothing to see here.
 

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