Monkeys, I think it’s time we had a serious chat about a quintessential part of the Wall Street, working-world game: getting chewed out by your boss, regardless of whether it was your fault or not. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, rest assured: it’s coming, and it happens to everybody.
If it’s happened to you lately, you know it won’t be the last time either. How do you deal with a dressing-down? What do you think your boss was thinking? Can this be a good thing depending on the office environment you’re in?
Whether we think it’s fair or not, and how to approach it, has been discussed pretty extensively in UFO’s “Pulling Rank at Work” thread.
During one of my undergrad jobs (making alumni phone calls—yes, I was that guy), I got my first dressing-down as an employee. In this case, it wasn’t my fault—there had been a technical issue with my headset, which led to a prospect hanging up in disgust when all they heard was silence from my end.
Anyway, my supervisor at the time was pretty angry and thought I hadn’t been paying attention, so she called me into her office and let me have it, hard. My explanations were cut off and brushed aside with accusations of “not producing”—even though I was one of the better callers on the floor. Believe me, that was frustrating.
And unfortunately, when the other person outranks you, there isn’t much you can do at that point except grit your teeth and bear it. Tempting as it may be to snap back with a line like, “Would you shut up and listen to me for a second,” that isn’t an option (especially at the junior level) and you pretty much have to just sit there and take it.
When the rant ended and I returned to the calling floor, I channeled my irritation and went 5 for 5 on the next series of calls. I took a little risk after the shift and gave the boss a little-smirk, raised-eyebrow face that said, “Don’t ever doubt me again.”
Now, some would argue that since that outburst motivated me to go on a hot streak, it was a good thing. And you’d be correct to a point. But there are also instances where an over-the-top reaction could terrify someone into being afraid to report mistakes or ask questions, fearing that you’ll blow up. Naturally, that would be bad for the organization.
I think the lesson here is that you learn how you might want to manage people in the future by dealing with what you hated when you were at the bottom of the totem pole first. You get to know what you really want by dealing with what you don’t want.
Marines get yelled at and humiliated and become killing machines. If you cannot handle getting your ass handed to you by your boss you should probably look for work elsewhere.
Contrary to public belief, killing people and instant obedience do not fall under an investment banking analysts job description. Decisions are not life and death. Disagreeing with someone who outranks you will not cause a mutiny.
The comparing the two is asinine .
You\'re right. I was comparing banking to going to war /sarcasm. Dude, people get yelled at and they deal with it. Grow a thick skin.
No one is talking about bein degraded like an animal. We are talking about fucking up and being reprimanded. Nor is simply disagreeing on a point the topic of discussion. This is about you screwed up and you are being yelled at.
But whatever. Everyone can have an opinion. Just don\'t expect to last long with tissue paper skin.
ANT: your statement on Marines applies to bootcamp. After that, the real assholes get fragged. I know officers that have sent problem soldiers to their death.....because that\'s really the only solution.
If you fuck up, you get yelled at. If they\'re yelling all the time for the hell of it, look for a new job. It\'s that simple.
I once quit a job on the spot to return fire, and while it WAS gratifying, you\\'re better off just replacing them. This goes for bosses, girlfriends/spouses, friends, family, whoever. Some people are just assholes, and life\'s too short to put up with their crap.
Some people really don\\'t get it, but EVERYONE is replaceable. Personally, I find it hard to respect people who throw temper tantrums and are too ignorant to make an effort at some base level of diplomacy. If you\'re not being respected, find another situation.
correction: you knw officers who have TOLD YOU that they have sent problem soldiers to their deaths
dont be so fucking naive to believe everything ppl tell you
Chewings out should be public. None of this let\'s bring in hr pussy shit.
See, I agree with you. That being said you deal with it and move on. Some people break down or go HR on things. Yeah, it is bullshit and people look stupid for losing their cool, but being able to deal with it is a good quality.
Honestly, I just try my best not to burst out laughing whenever I\'m yelled at for something stupid. I have a few times before and it made for a rough few days.
As UFO pointed out, it\'s really hard to take someone who has temper-tantrums every half an hour seriously. It\'s not that I can\'t deal with it, but it does mean if I ever have a question, I\'m sure as hell not going to that person.
Side note: What\'s with WSO and contractions?
Got my ass chewed two times the last week. All my boss\' are on their toes due to cuts and bonus time coming. Which leads to the junior (safer) guys being easy targets for rants, ass chewing and/or scape goats here on the trading floor.
The first time is kind of scary, but unless you\'ve f*cked up bigtime (and know it) you\'re in the clear in 10min. This just happened here an hour ago and people only vaguely remember it. Just brush it off and come back stronger.
I’m sure Eddie and other military-fetishists will come out with shit like “don’t be a pussy you need to learn to take it” but I disagree. I screwed up pretty big time at work once and my boss was letting me have it (even thought I acknowledged my mistake and said sorry) but I straight up told him “Hey, I admit that it was my fault but you aren’t really helping to fix the problem this way. Let’s work on getting this fixed.” I thought that was a good mix of standing up for yourself but not being immature/too reactive.
So now I\\\\'m a military \\\\"fetishist\\\\"? I\\\\'ve been called a lot of things, but I can honestly say that\\\\'s a new one.
Office reamings were pretty much a daily occurrence when I started because we had a commission board like a Jumbotron in the middle of the office and on the home page of every Quotron. There was no escaping it, so all your co-workers knew how much you were making to the penny, and management regularly ran over those who were lagging in front of the whole office. It was hilarious to watch new guys blow a gasket because they weren\\\\'t experienced enough to just blow it off.
Bottom line, it builds character. Some people cannot handle it, others can. Either way, it will not stop happening.
I think the effects on the yellee depend on the relationship between yeller and yellee. If you know someone genuinely cares for your development and well being as a worker and is effectively trying to bring you back in line then I think taking a stern reprimand can be beneficial. The analogy that comes to mind is a football coach that's stuck with you a long time and loses it if he sees you dogging a play because he knows you're capable of better.
However, this is very rarely the case in the finance / corporate world. Usually the chew-out occurs because the person above you is (i) afraid of looking bad and is in self-preservation mode or (ii) does not understand something (you'll find that senior people do not like wading through complex analyses and will become frustrated quickly if you do not distill things down into super basic, easy to understand concepts for them). This kind of chew-out is damaging to you because at its core it is basically someone shitting on your face and trying to throw you under the bus. They are essentially trying to make themselves look better at your expense. It increases your stress and lowers your testosterone. It also engenders resentment towards the person yelling at you - you want to "get even" rather than correct the deficiency. Most people take this, bottle it up, and get back to work. They then take it out on their spouses, kids, and others who don't have power to fight back. The shit, in other words, rolls downhill until everything around you stinks.
I\'ve never been chewed out, nor have I ever had to chew out a subordinate. Am I the only one?
I've said it before. Chewing someone out in public is counterproductive if your business relies on teams to be able to work with one another and for employees to give a toss about your firm's success.
If you are going to criticise, do so privately and focus on business objectives that need to be achieved. If the exercise has more to do with your ego than the business, than it will backfire.
and whats with the \\\ whenever someone types an apostrophe?
fixed, sorry about that guys
UFO, I agree with A Posse too. The War on Terror is bad but not Vietnam bad.
when i was an intern patrick yelled at me for accidently copying and pasting a porn url in the twitter thing :/
LOL
you know i rule with an iron fist....if you step out of line, i will crush you.
actually blastoise, you were surprisingly pretty responsible. I think I "yelled" at you once because you did something else ridiculous. more like "wtf were you thinking?" over email...
I've had a few of those emails...
OH NOES! Did he take your bonus away or something?
Also: Damn it feels good to have 1000 bananas. :)
i think it got most responses though so thats uber
Stress management is pretty vital. Nothing worse than working with someone who blows their stack every 5 minutes because they got their feathers ruffled by a superior.
Got chewed out by my first wall street exec at the age of 12. That was the last time I EVER left the tv on when I was supposed to turn it off.
You need to read dale carnegie's book, How to win friends and influence people. Screaming is useless, bosses need a little more wisdom
oh i got snaped on in college
i asked the professor a question and then i checked my text messages half way through his boring response and he stoped and snaped at me for like 10 minutes in front of whole class
never did that shit again though
VP that yells in the bullpen is generally the "dumb" one no ones want to work for... at least in my experience and my buddies' experience.
Comparing IB to the Army is makes sense: - Hierarchy - Pressure - Dumb orders coming "from above" are executed without a blink over the weekend - Stupid "code names" - ...
But the public office chew-out is an unproductive management "tool" and only results in breaking the squad/ team's unity, tensions between junior members, employee turnover and in 99% of the time the "end-product" will be negatively impacted by this tension and lack of communication.
A good management is NOT driven by fear - a good management is driven by ethic & professionalism.
Have been yelled at and chewed out numerous times, can say it's a two edged sword. Some instances where I get yelled for screwing something I shouldn't have or at the very least for something I should've been more aware of, those have facilitated kicking my ass up the learning curve and have been pretty impactful in helping me be better at my job.
Conversely, when the ear rape-ings where for all intents and purposes personal attacks on my raw intelligence, it's degrading to your self worth and do nothing but harbor pent up anger and resentment and really just make me dwell on beating the living fuck out of the person and never push me to do better.
If you need to chew someone out, do it for a meaningful reason. If you feel the need to get snarky and be dick head to prop yourself up, just get the ball rolling on trying to fire the person and get them out of the office if it's that bad. It doesn't do anyone any good to resent a subordinate and hold a grudge. You're still not getting what you want from them and it'll just decrease their standing in the eyes of the group, thus having a worthless body in the pit dragging down the office P&L. If you need to tear someone down, go pick a fight at a bar or something.
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Constantly blowing up over stuff, whether it's called for or not, can indicate bad stress management to me. You can't take mistakes from your subordinates personally if you expect to be taken seriously as a manager.
got chewed up a couple of time back in banking. i was the only analyst handling the group so any mess-up ultimately falls on my shoulder...this include the VP's or associate's faults . Just grind your teeth and go on, your boss won't fire you unless you did do something stupid and learn from your mistakes.
one time my vp sent the client the outdated memo...and he blamed me for having two documents in one folder while it was clearly labeled with dates such as xxxx 1.5.2010 and xxxx 1.10. 2010........
You see, that shit would not fly in my office.
Let's say hypothetically that I had a higher-up chew me out of for a mistake that was clearly his. In such a situation, I would then chew out the higher up for his stupidity (that's called "managing up"). Would doing so get me in trouble? Fuck no, the entire team would back me up, I have absolute confidence in that. And that particular higher-up would lose office cred, people on my team would be very concerned about behavior like that.
You guys must work in some garbage offices to think that "chewing out" subordinates is an acceptable way to manage people.
You see, that shit would not fly in my office.
Let's say hypothetically that I had a higher-up chew me out of for a mistake that was clearly his. In such a situation, I would then chew out the higher up for his stupidity (that's called "managing up"). Would doing so get me in trouble? Fuck no, the entire team would back me up, I have absolute confidence in that. And that particular higher-up would lose office cred, people on my team would be very concerned about behavior like that.
At my firm, if you or someone else makes a mistake, you acknowledge it, fix it, then move on.
You guys must work in some garbage offices to think that "chewing out" subordinates is an acceptable way to manage people.
Public chewings out are vitial to the development of young moneys.
Most of us are trying to work in finance, not a shitty record label. I'm not really sure how this applies. I'd much rather be a g-unit, even if it means getting shot.
[Ignore redundant double post, website wont let me Edit for some reason]
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Epic film and scene... I knew a real estate developer who recommended watching Glengarry Glen Ross to his sales team!
If you really genuinely screwed up, you shut up and take it like a man. Now if on the other hand you have a boss who is just nit-picking over asinine shit, start looking around. No need to make an argument about it--that's not going to be productive aside from stroking your own ego, but if your boss is just a douche, bounce when the opportunity arrives.
You want motivated employees, discipline in private (unless it is a rampant issue). Sit them down, explain it, and work out how they don't do this in the future. Be hard, but not an ass - but the same mistakes shouldn't be happening over and over. Dish out decent assignments when they are available fairly.
I'm really lucky, my "coach / manager's" specialty is training and development / performance management. I've never been so well focused on all the tiny things that make an excellent consultant as now. She lives and breathes making the most out of talent and I can say the improvements I've had were pretty impressive (and I was already a subject matter expert).
People are adults - treat them as such. Responsibility and accountability, and respect. Take it away if people make the same mistakes over and over, but otherwise do your job (manage) and have them do theirs (do). Stuff gets done and people don't hate being there, which means you get to keep your talent and don't need to buy more expensive talent.
@"Tyler-Jones" any chance of a post on this. This is non-existent where I am - I'm guessing you are MBB
The management by fear / chewing out hazing stuff doesn't make sense to me. But I realize that's just the way it is and arguing back is like arguing with a cop....you're at a severe disadvantage, so what's the point? Take your lumps with as much dignity, move on...
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