Signs You're getting fired and reasons for being fired
anyone want to share stories they've seen, heard, experienced?
..excluding comments about bear, lehman and the like
anyone want to share stories they've seen, heard, experienced?
..excluding comments about bear, lehman and the like
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Career Resources
I wont get into too much detail, but once a conversation had gone down like this between someone that had been recently hired (2nd week) and my boss
After looking at some of the person's work Boss: Why would you even do that?!? Employee: I was trying to...well, its not my specialty Some hardcore grilling continues for a few minutes Boss: Here, we work hard... its sink or swim Employee: I understand Boss: Do you, really?! Long pause Employee: Do you want me to come in tomorrow? Silence
Was packed up and out within 10 minutes. No more words were exchanged. Guess thats the best sign you can get. There was also some crying involved. BTW, this was at an HF.
yikes,... I'm wondering what the work involved specifically
"Long pause Employee: Do you want me to come in tomorrow?"
Was this a smart move?
Holy shit dude... was his work really that bad? I can't imagine it to be too terrible if he got hired into a HF in the first place... Regardless, that's overkill...
Citadel?
Easily
I worked at Citadel. Fired after 7 months. My mentor at GS before Citadel was global head of IBD Strats and he told me I had to meet Laszlo Korso who had just joined Citadel from head of Uber's data analytics team. Look up his LinkedIn... fired after three months.
Lunatics.
If the person bombed out that fast it is more of a reflection on the management for hiring someone who wasn't right for the job than anything negative about the person.
Good point Anthony, the work assignment may have been vague, or the "boss" may have been upset about something else and taken it out on the employee.
Rumors start floating that you're "leaving" (unbeknownst to you) and some idiot decides to call and wish you good luck on your departure and asks where you're going... clearly you answer in amazement and get the idea that the rumor was improperly passed, you're actually getting canned...
I was working at a summer job in retail when a security guard introduced himself and told me that I could only trust a couple people in the store. Two hours a later I was let go, because people (whom as the guard said I couldn't trust) thought I wasn't performing well. This was three days into the job.
I got fired from the same firm a number of times. I'd get a call a couple days later and my boss would scream at me for not being at work. It became a sort of running joke.
The time I knew it was for real was when I showed up to work one day and two security guards were waiting at my office.
THAT IS JUST CRAZY. IF I WERE YOU I WOULD NEVER GO BACK THERE EVEN FOR GOOD PAYING JOB.
My bad. Asked a question you asked below.
Edmundo, that is hilarious. Why were you ultimately fired?
The earlier times were for things I would chalk up to excessive ridiculousness (coming in drunk from the night before, looking like I dove on a wrinkle grenade to save the whole office because I'd slept in my clothes, being a horse's ass during IPO dog and pony shows, etc...).
What got me fired for good was something really bad that I did. I'm not willing to go into it. Suffice it to say I was lucky that getting fired was all that happened. (Come to think of it, they sued me for $14 million - the suit was later dismissed - so getting fired wasn't all that happened.)
Good times.
My first guess was SAC. Did he get peed on too?
Trader (while on phone with client): “My wife is on line 3 I’m jammed tell her I’ll call her back” TA: “That’s not what I was hired to do” Trader: “Pick the fuckin phone up and tell her I will call her back” TA: “You can call her back when you’re done” Trader (to client on the phone): “Can you hold” Trader (to wife): “Sorry honey, I was busy making arrangements for us to go out to dinner tonight…yeah…our new intern is having his last day and he got me a gift card with all the money he made selling porn videos of him fucking himself in the ass…mhm…I’ll tell you later…ok bye bye” Trader (to TA): “Go get me a sandwich and never come back.”
Yeah, this would have infuriated me beyond that which I could handle. I think I would have had security not just escort this punk kid out, I would have had security beat him in the back alley, too. Damn, pissed me off just reading this.
Have security pick him up and open the door with his head, like a battering ram. Remember Casino?
Anytime there are meetings with everyone in your group and you are asked to "stay on the desk and watch the phones"... here's your sign.
Conversation between me and my boss at an unpaid internship (working part-time 4 days/week):
Me: Hi Bob, I won't be able to come in today because I have a midterm to study for. Bob: Hmm ok you should tell me in advance next time. Me: I also won't be able to come in tomorrow. Bob: You know what, don't bother coming in at all anymore. hangs up
Receive email 2 minutes later: Drop off your key at the front desk ASAP.
Did you feel like shit after? How'd you do on the midterm?
Maybe I'm being too reasonable but I wouldn't fire an intern (especially unpaid) for that. Shit happens, yes it was unprofessional, but it's not like an unpaid intern does anything extremely time sensitive or important anyways....I would say tell me ahead of time the next time and move on.
i would fire u too for that.. unprofessional and and a waste of time for everybody else.. as an intern you highest aim should be to make things easier for everybody around you ( and if u fail in that, try at least not to make things more complicated)
^^^ Couldn't agree more. This kid had an alley-whippin' coming. He's lucky he just got fired.
And by the way, here's a story of how one guy got fired from a firm I worked for a few years back. Let's call him Bob.
Bob had a bit of a temper and was notorious for letting it show sometimes. He got into an argument with a co-worker over something really stupid and threw a stapler at the guy's foot. Although he could've gotten sued and screwed for it, he got off with a slap on the wrist.
A few months later, the company was going through some hard times and Bob hadn't been paid in a few months. The firm said he would get paid soon, as soon as they could sell off some assets and turn them into cash. A week went by and Bob still had no payment, so what does he do? He comes in early on a Sunday when there was no one around (this was a small firm) and takes ALL the files related to the big project he was working on, and deleted them. He deleted the backups on the server, the files on his desktop, everything. He didn't even save them on a usb drive or anything.
Needless to say, he was out of a job the next day.
The biggest sign that a pink slip is on the way is that the work you get slowly trickles to a stop.
You get a call from HR to schedule an exit interview. Surprise!
yah its the little things. you get staffed on less deals like genius says and you get asked to upload some critical information which is normally your forte to someone else. youre asked to do more leg work at the office and not staffed to travel anywhere for a bit. then one day your access to certain drives on the system goes down. you dont think twice about it and just call tech to check it out. soon you get a call from your MD whos never there asking if he can see you for a minute. and by the time you get back from your "fireside chat" with the boss theres a security officer at your desk with a box.
i mean, at least that was how they fired one of my senior associates when i was in banking. on his way out he called us analysts all a bunch of traitors. i waved and smiled. no joke. he deserved it. this guy was a prick and a pathological liar, but worst of all his work product sucked @ss. good riddance.
the other time i knew someone was getting the boot was was uncanny.
im sitting there on a random weekday morning next to my prick of a boss (who would threaten to fire me and hire from the mcdonalds around the block all day every day). so anyway, lets call him bullwinkle. i know something is up b/c a few minutes before the numbers come out our MD calls and asks if i could tell bullwinkle hes needed back in "the office". k. so nb: whenever the guys in the office call for you somethings always up. technically it could be good, but to do it like this, i had a bad feeling about this one. i fantasize that maybe hes getting the shaft. i laugh at myself.
but then im sitting there and this dude is gone for like a whole freaking hour. no call. no check in. nothing. im bewildered now. no ones EVER off the desk that long. i start to think, wait a second maybe this tosser really is getting bounced??!! but i stop myself cause i figure its just wishful thinking for all the berating i get, and i keep my wits about me cause i figure im gonna get creamed if i fk something up before he comes back.
finally a couple minutes beyond an hour, i look up and i see him walking back to the desk with the best poker face ive ever seen (in hindsight). he doesnt say a word to me when he gets back. keep in mind i sit six inches away from his elbow on a daily basis. instead he goes over the the garbage bin, lifts up the plastic bag in there and takes one of the spare ones the cleaner left (how the fk he knew that is beyond me) and starts to go through his draws. im sitting there dazed and confused. but i wont dare look at him. my MD comes out and calls him back to the office again. im thinking, wtf is going on???
meanwhile nobody else is noticing this chain of events but me. so i cant even look at someone else for some kind of knowing or speculating glance. i stay focused on not letting the book crash. ten minutes later my MD comes back out with bullwinkle. watches as bullwinkle puts his family photos and other personal stuff into this clear plastic garbage bag and then escorts him straight off the floor and out of the office. at this point people are starting to notice. the minute the two are gone my bloomberg starts blowing up and people are leaning over asking me what the heck just happened. im thinking now theyre asking? i knew this from the minute he went back there!
anyway it was good riddance for that one too. i guess their lesson from my career was "dont fk w/ wintonH, hes protected from on high". but seriously, those were the two worst people i worked with and they both happened to get fired. and no i had nothing to do with either case.
ive prolly totally given myself away here, but the story had to be told.
ha ha man these stories are so intense.
How frequently do you think analysts get fired for failing to produce good work? I'd assume it would mainly be the first year ones who are applicable because you should have your shit together and be entrenched (kind of) by year 2 or 3.
when you get back to your desk and can't log in. ur getting canned when you get to the office and ur security badge doesn't work. ur getting canned when you are told that you have two weeks to improve your work performance. ur getting canned
From my job in '08: There was a BBQ planned at a partner's house for the entire HF (only about 25 people) -
one week before the event was supposed to go down, they cancelled it...
Instead of the party, myself, along with half of the fund got canned that following week.
Cue nervous laughter here. My group's annual barbecue happens in mid-August every year at the big boss's house. Except four days before the big day this year, his secretary moved it to mid-September.
At the time, I didn't give it much thought, but now I call shenanigans. Who the fuck barbecues in mid-September?
Obviously, if there are firings, I'll dutifully report all the bloody business to you guys. Unless it's big enough to hit the news, and then obviously I won't confirm or deny a damn thing.
word. so we basically had about a 1.5 - 2 good years after 2008/09 before this shizz started popping off again. so much insecurity no matter where you go nowadays
great stories.
You get a call from "Conference Room xx"
just curious, as an analyst , what type of behaviors will get you canned? obviously not following what to do, being late, never produce any good work will do the trick. But as an incoming analyst , I honestly dont know much. Do people expect you to fuck up at first then?
Thanks
Pretty hard to get fired as an analyst ... i've NEVER seen an analyst get fired for making mistakes (and this includes fucking up apresentation and putting the wrong clients name)
but usually shit like
1) being directly responsible for fucking up a mandate 2) sexually harassing / offending a coworker 3) doing something illegal (i.e insider trading, dealing drugs)
i heard of an analyst from bear who emailed an internal email from james cayne to dealbreaker. it was in response to the article in the wsj about him toking.
Jimmy Cayne wake-and-bake, baby!
Never talk to the press unless you are a designated company spokesperson!
Classic example: the Trinity laxer's wisecrack about Bear in the Journal:
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/46648/
ouch...
I guess getting laid off is different. I was called into my boss' office via our instant messaging system (internal). No big deal. And then was let go. I was pretty surprised. This was in 2008 though. Life is good now.
And then there's the story of how Ping Jiang got fired...
Uhhhhh and PJ made him take birth control pills and wear women's clothing in the office. You wonder how far people would go to be a model employee for their boss.
1 sign: You stop getting work to do. Any interaction either positive or negative is better than no interaction IMO
A guy that I worked with got told by his PC. He tried to log on in the morning and his PC told him all his rights had been revoked because yesterday was his last day in the organisation. He thought this admin screw-up was hilarious, but his day quickly went down hill from there.
You make a video about how you can roll up at nightclubs with models and bottles cuz you're a financial analyst at a large investment bank
I don't listen to hip hop...
nm
Seems like getting fired as an analyst for poor performance or something illegal would destroy any legitimate career in finance
yes, on the something illegal part (i.e. insider trading). but not being able to work in finance should be the least of ur worries if you get caught for that.
however, "poor performance" would not destroy someone. in banking, some first years are horrible just because they've never had a job like IB before. i know first years who suck at my last my firm, they were laid off and then found jobs at other companies/ibs. the project management/finance/presentation/just general work performance they developed working over 100 hours/wk and doing really well at their current finance jobs.
^ LOL.. wait.... this is serious?
I have never seen this article... forgive my ignorance, but who the f*ck would do this?? I can see someone being so screwed in the head to try this, but who would actually listen to their boss and do this?
There are some sick people in our business, unfortunately.
You're forced to sign a Performance Expectation Plan. Sign it. And when nobody returns your meeting request to meet in a month to review your progress, there's a strange feeling that comes over you.
wow... great post... any more recent stories to share?
Let this be a lesson to all. I never, ever keep personal crap at my desk. I used to keep sunglasses and car keys at my old old job. Someone could tel me I am done and I would just walk out the door, screw it.
I'll tell you how I was recently fired.
Had to miss two days due to a car accident which broke my foot. Pretty good reason right? Well I hadn't sold anything in a week (slow month).
I showed up, and my manager wouldn't make eye contact with me. Instantly knew what was going down.
HR lady hovering around our area, instantly instantly knew what was about to happen.
We had a floor meeting about what it means to be on the MVP team, blah blah, manager still avoiding eye contact.
Got back to my desk and my manager said, come with us (director) and had the sit down, explaining performance. I brought up how I 2X'd quota the month before, said that even with my 2 days off (unlimited PTO lol) still in the middle of the pack. Just said, too bad.
Walked out by manager who still wouldn't make eye contact with me, said he'd give me a reference if I needed it. So moral of the story, if people start to not look at you, you know its coming.
Signs include:
1) Your responsibilities become "shared" with another colleague at the same level 2) You get a bad review 3) You are staffed less often or replaced from a deal team 4) You played the office politics wrong 5) You beat your boss in golf 6) The dreaded things out of your control - market conditions, poor company performance etc.
signs: 1- less responsibility and they don’t charge you any new work , being asked to be reviewed by your peers ! been notified a month before that the company isn’t happy with performance and they maybe get you laid off 2- Ethical Problem - HR WhatsApp you to tell you this is your last day and drop your badge etc
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