Associate trying to get me fired - imminent resolution needed

Associate I work w/  - she hates me.

Wlays looking to pinpoint mistakes that often times are blatantly her fault. 

Was advised to insist that there is a paper trail disproving the claims.

Associate is now methodically building a paper trail of emails of her "pointing out mistakes that have occurred multiple times.".

Most of these alleged mistakes are simply the associate giving (purposefully) unclear directions or just blatantly lying (there is no mistake).

Appreciate the input. Appreciate WSO.

47 Comments
 

Only via call. Thinking to just go to manager and explicitly tell that this is getting out of hand.

During the call, I said "I was made aware of your feedback and don't see how it's completely accurate. I would like to close that gap."

To which they responded "Happy to talk more but I'm just stating what happened as the manager asked me".

Option 2 is to go to senior contacts the firm (hardcore nepotism - I am definitely on that wave etc) and make a deal to get her fired asap. 

 

Go to that senior contact you have at the firm. Before you go talk to that person, make sure you have a well-prepared case for why you are being framed. Otherwise, that senior contact might interpret your case as some petty argument between you and your supervisor who annoys the hell out of you.

Make sure you have at least close to adequate paper trails to prove your case to your friend/relative. There is no shame in pulling connections in this world. If I know Trump on a personal level, guess what, I'm gonna ask him for a rec letter into Wharton. 

While that Associate might not get fired, you will get an easier time afterwards. Set your expectations on a normal level. If she's been underperforming, then she might get fired. 

 
Controversial

I've never heard of this happen. Banks need people who can work fucking hard.

Maybe you actually do suck at your work? I read posts on this forum and question if any of these posts are people who actually worked at EB or BB IB analyst positions.

Every investment banking analyst I know, got completely murdered in terms of hours / workload.

Maybe you are not actually holding up weight to the standards the bank wants. 

IB hour / abuse standards are really fucking something else man. You are paid 200K not to look pretty, but to be the biggest bitch.

You do not hear the stories, but every analyst I've spoken to had hell stories, at a legit shop (top BB / top EB)

Posts on WSO are not representative of Investment Banking IMO at all. It's like 90% is high school students who never stepped foot in a investment bank, and shills from Big 4 who think they're equivalent to Goldman. lol.

IB at BB / EB is suppose to be hell - why the fuck else are they paying you 5x more than the average income at 21? Why the fuck does majority of the class leave ?

Does sound like a very toxic environment tbh--  my suggestion is to stop making fucking mistakes, and realize your in investment banking, not some chill corporate finance gig paying you 60k/yr.

Again, I'd like to reiterate, every 1st year analyst I know, got completely absolutely murdered in terms of hours / workload. Like abuse after abuse, to the point it is fucking psychotic.

That is investment banking, not the bullshit the shills here talk about.

My advice is stand your ground. Learn. Ask questions. Stop making mistakes.

 

Kind of sounds like the analyst is making mistakes (which is normal, ain't nobody perfect), the associate isn't catching 100% of the busts (or at least the glaring ones, that should be obvious to her if she's reviewing carefully - so not just marking up the PDF, but getting off her ass and tracing/diligencing the excel backups), which are making it through to VP/D/MD review, they're catching those mistakes, and all faith is effectively lost on the junior team and stress/bust paranoia is through the roof....

Sounds like the associate is passing the blame onto the analyst (dogshit associate move here - VPs/Ds/MDs should notice that immediately; can't say if they would call out the associate for that or not) to cover her own ass in front of her bosses.

 

Yeah - this girl may be burying herself w/ the "paper trail".  If it's work that you've sent directly to her that has had mistakes that she's flagged before it goes out to seniors, that's your problem.  If she's emailing you mistakes that she noticed after work went to her for review, then went out to seniors, that's on her and is a much worse look for her than it is for you. 

I assume that I'm not the only one who feels this way, but reviewing an analyst's work who hasn't demonstrated (through lack of working together) that they're very good is more stressful than actually doing the work yourself (obviously, have to let them do it and prove that they can though).  Reason being, you're never as close to the work product as the person who produced it and any error in that work is squarely on your shoulders.  The reason that analysts run stuff up the chain to an associate is because they're not as experienced and it's the associate's job to find / remediate any errors before the VPs/MDs get a look. 

Hopefully this blows up in her face - sounds like a real bitch. 

 

Are your seniors cool at all? Do they like you or show any clear signs of being annoyed with said associate at times? They might be able. I wouldn’t take my advice over the more senior people on this thread, but if I felt the way you did, I could see my seniors sticking up for me in a situation like this.

 

Hmmmmmm, just a question real quick about the mistakes being made again and again. Are they of the same nature (I.E - simple formatting errors, missing out on edits etc) I know that stuff happens quite a lot at the junior level and I was fine with letting it slide all the time, but I know some others w/ a stick up their ass tend to not let it go. If so, make a few post-it notes, put on your monitor so you remember to double check. 
 

the other mistake is “not learning fast enough” which is a stupid, very fuzzy term. For that it’s mostly asking clarifying q’s, but it’s also a communication issue on their part.

really sucks you’re going through this. Good luck and hopefully you get through. 

 

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