Mod Note (Andy): Best of Eddie, this was originally posted in October 2013.
Like many of you I'm sure, I was a bit shocked to hear of Simon Warshaw's retirement from UBS on the heels of the massive Vodaphone deal. Part of me says he's just going out on top after 27 years, but another part of me thinks it doesn't add up. I mean, why leave months before bonus season when you've just closed a monster deal?
Evidently I'm not the only one to think that. According to Sarah Butcher, it may have been office politics that drove him out, and she goes on to wonder if UBS has become the most political bank on the street. That got me thinking about office politics and how it affects all of us on some level.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a team player. Well, let me back up a minute. If my team is comprised of intelligent, driven individuals like myself, then I imagine I could pull it off. I just haven't encountered that scenario in the corporate environment. And because I don't always play well with others, I've often borne the brunt of office politics.
You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's always struck me that those who are best at office politics are the same guys who routinely can't bring the heat in a pinch when it's necessary to get a job done. Conversely, the guys who are best at what they do generally don't give a shit what other people think of them. And that can get problematic around bonus season.
I worked for a software startup for a little over a year. This was back in the days before VC money was just sloshing around the startup ecosystem and anything could get funded, so we were under constant pressure from our burn rate. I got a call from my boss before work one Friday and he told me they were letting me go. He subsequently got reamed by the CEO for tipping me off, but as he explained in his defense, I'd made it perfectly clear when I was hired that if I were ever going to be fired on a Friday that he'd better tell me first thing because if he got a whole day's work out of me and then fired me, I'd destroy the office on my way out.
Anyway, I logged into our system for one last time just to check some stats. My sales were double my boss's sales for the year. And I was the one being let go. I'm sure part of the calculus was that I didn't really need the money (the CEO and I used to share real estate deals, so he knew I was pretty liquid) and my boss was living hand to mouth trying to feed his litter of kids (once again, someone else's piss poor life choices affect me). But I also know part of it was that I just wasn't part of the "team". So what should have been an easy decision in my mind (if someone has to go you fire the guy with the lowest sales) went the other way. All politics.
So I was kinda hoping to hear some horror stories from you guys. Who has the most toxic shop from an office politics standpoint? What no-account shitheel has risen to the top in your firm based solely on his or her smarmy, obsequious nature? What talented studs have paid the price for be unwilling to play the game? And most important, if you have been a victim of office politics, have you changed the way you do business?
I'm sorry, but if you were really the top sales guy and they let you go, you must have been a huge pain in the ass to work with. That's a good lesson for everyone here and myself included: its all about results but make sure you're lifting everyone else up too.
I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a pretty terrible employee and I give zero fucks about people's feelings in the workplace. If you're the least bit incompetent, you're probably going to hear about it (and publicly) from me. So yeah, the decision to let me go was not driven by the bottom line.
Probably didn't help that I beat the head of IT in 9 moves during a game of Yahoo! Chess and then pinned a copy of the results to every employee's monitor.
I like your style.
The bottom line > people's pussy feelings.
So you were fired for being an asshole? Sorry Ed, I like your writing style, but that's not a horror story about politics.
I'll accept that, but you can't say it wasn't politics. I was one of the only revenue producing employees in a company starved for revenue. It might be nice to put people before profits, but it's rarely good business.
I'm at a pretty small shop and I would say that office politics have helped a few underperformers keep their jobs (either indefinitely or longer than they should have). I haven't really seen it negatively affect me (not skilled with politics) or anyone else, although it's difficult to tell what goes on behind the scenes. I've always felt that ultimately my job performance speaks for itself.
The problem is that people aren't logical, and they aren't going to work to hunker down, make a buck and then get the hell out of there. Therefore, people care less about firm performance and more about having their ego stroked.
Don't want to be a douche but since you basically write for a living, I think you'd want to know that you should be using affect, and not effect.
From my perspective in REPE...I find politics at the junior-ish levels tends to be somewhat muted (analysts/associates). Where the Machiavellian drama comes in...is at the VP level+...goddamn it's ruthless because that's where the real money gets put on the table.
The Vodafone deal had been assigned years back. The VOD team at UBS was only maintained until the deal was closed. UBS has a lot of politics...
From my experience, larger firms were much more politicized than the smaller shops I worked/interned at. The more employees a firm pays, the more bureaucratic things need to be simply from a managerial and logistical perspective, which I feel is the root of said inner-company political scheming.
At my old shops, teams were small and communication was thus frequent and honest, obviating the need to go behind anyone's back--when there were issues affecting performance, they were addressed forthrightly. Efficiency was high. At my current job (much larger company), if I, or anyone else, makes a mistake, you will be passively called-out in a group email chain to management regardless of how inconsequential or irrelevant it was before you even realize what happened. Communication is generally much shittier, which I think leads to a lot of distrust and politicking.
If you're really "too good", everyone's gonna be trying to take out your knees in a mid to large size corporation. After all, no one has enough equity in the company to benefit from your all-starness. Unless of course you're doing special projects for the CEO, like getting him pussy on the side or something equally valuable.
This.
VP got fired once the regional CEO changed. F500.
Politics at my place are pretty standard. Don't be stupid, don't get stuff wrong, and don't be a dick about challenging people on stuff....if you're right, that's what gets done. My personal observation is that, just like the bar business, chicks get through the door and the entry level ranks with less trouble than dudes but then have a harder time moving into the power player roles. There's no shortage of female MDs, but most of the power lifters are dudes, and they're political brutes as well as revenue powerhouses.
There's three types of awesome: 1. I'm awesome 2. I'm aweseme and you suck 3. I'm awesome and I want YOU to be awesome too!
Type three tends to end up running things, type one is a loner, and type two tends to get knifed about as often as the 'nice guy'. Note, there's a difference between the "nice guy" and the "good guy". Nice guys are wimps, good guys are tough without being jerks for no reason.
Awesome taxonomy - absolutely agree
Had a dinner recently with 4 lawyers and an ex-judge. From what they told me, law is pretty brutal in big firms. Everyone's trying to steal your clients.
Same goes for judges. If you want to become one, you have to know the right people.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113941/big-law-firms-trouble-when-mo…
Specifically, "Helman’s plan may have worked too well. Ever since it went into effect, partners have competed aggressively not just against lawyers at other firms, but against one another. Chicago partners would fly into New York to poach clients from their Manhattanite counterparts, holding clandestine meetings in which they would pitch themselves as less expensive and a mere two-hour plane ride away.7 When the New Yorkers invariably caught wind of these plots, they would remind clients that they were far more efficient than their Midwestern cousins. "
They also told me that big firms encouraged them to buy luxury cars to impress clients.
There's an analyst at the boutique I interned at for over a year that literally does nothing. Maybe 5-10 hours of real work a week. The MD that hired her brings in enough revenue, and refuses to let them fire her because in his mind that would reflect poorly upon him.
I've never seen anything like it. I would routinely joke with this particular banker and the other bankers in our shop about it, but nothing ever happened and she's still there. I would get literally get emails from Analyst B (B for Bozo) along these lines "Dear Holygrail, On Monday when you get to work, please change the date of event X on schedule of events Y to Monday the 9th rather than Tuesday the 10th" or my personal favorite "Mr. Holygrail, when you get in to work tomorrow can you please order more red pens? I placed one of my favorite kind on your desk as an example to save you time."
Needless to say, my responses to Analyst Bozo overtime became more and more aggressive to the point that Bozo quit emailing me.
Your style sounds a lot like mine Eddie haha thank god at my current shop there's only fucking smart people so I don't get frustrated lol.
You see tons of politics in banking at all levels, there's always some top rated analysts who couldn't balance a balance sheet to save their life but are just very good at sucking dick (sometimes literally lol).
.
The politics at my firm are horrendous. There's lots of cursing, belittling, yelling, phone smashing, undermining of coworkers, plots to get people fired, and the like at my firm.
I'm the source of 95% of it. I love my job.
Horrendous politics here too, this place is toxic. It is however an amazing motivator to get out and into S&T as while finance related I'm not in S&T quite yet..
Isn't this a wall street forum. Who grumbles over office politics on wall street when there are deals to be done. Think you got the wrong forum here.
...someone didn't get the memo that who works the deals can be driven by office politics.
there are so few of me on wall street that we're not staffed regardless of office politics. good luck to you miss curious!
I don't know if this qualifies but I got in trouble about 8 weeks ago for leaving on a Friday at 1pm. I work for an integrated O&G Major.
There's about 60 people in my particular office, and about 50 leave by 11, and all but 2-3 leave no later than 2.
I left at 1 since I hit the 40 hour mark already and didn't want to accrue overtime with no work due, was planning for a road trip and figured it'd be great to beat traffic. I hear on Monday, I take "no initiative" since I left at 1 from my CFO.
Meanwhile a co-worker has been logging 70 hours +, half of which are pure BS, the CFO still knows she's doing this and has NOT fired her or confronted her. She claims she has a CPA, MBA, etc. but she does not. She's not pretty, so that's not helping her. It's just politics making people viewed differently. They think cause of my skin color that i'll be a work dog, or so what I've heard from around the office(i'm half indian). I'm young and understand to be a grunt worker, but get blatantly disrespected, reprimanded for the smallest of things.
Well, thankfully, I had two offers come by yesterday and expect two more by end of next week. So fuck that place, pone of the worse run places ever with extremely high turnover and incompetent staff that's racist & sexist. If I could ever get in writing that he thinks cause I'm indian, I should be a work dog and i should be skipping lunch I'd go to a lawyer.
I wonder how the politics are in politics.
At my old gig, we had one person who routinely logged 70-80 hrs, most of which was BS. (Running 8-5 but marked down 6-8.) Clearly didn't know stuff but because she was kissing tons of ass and her hours made her look like she was hardcore, she managed to leapfrog from analyst level to VP (skipping associate), bypassing every one who's been waiting for a VP spot to open up.
I was relatively new compared to my seniors, but damn hell of an eye opener to play the game if you wanna make moves.
The worst is when inactive partners hire a new CEO and the guy lays off half the team and brings in his own washed up friends..
Sorry to derail the conversation a bit, but I'm curious, how is UBS's investment banking division in the US these days? I mean I know it hasn't been rosy in the last little while, but has it improved or is it still a place to stay away from? If the latter, is it mainly a matter of the (in)stability of its IB presence and therefore lack of job security, or bonuses...? Is it still a situation where one should take a job at a MM like a Jefferies, RBC, etc over UBS, or just any BB vs. UBS? (and no, it's not a ranking request - just to get a rough idea of how the bank is doing now)
(I've been out of the continent for a little bit so have been out of the loop with the latest...)
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