Coffee Chat Horror Stories

"Wanna hit a joint after?"

Summer of 2023, I was at one of the biggest domestic banks in India, as a part of the ECM team. I was graduating in dec 2023 and was networking for FT gigs. One of the shops that I was having great conversations with was HL. One of the senior associates was kind enough to put me in touch with the VP in Dallas with the healthcare team. The call was scheduled for 4:30 AM local time in India. I had returned home at 1 after reading a million pages of DRHPs in progress, post which I ended up dozing off. I was fortunate enough to have woken up maybe 15 minutes before the call but was extremely disoriented. 

I hop on the call, and start off with a top tier cringe statement ("thanks for taking out the time to talk to me today, I know you are extremely busy considering HL has executed x# of deals so far in 2023 and are topping the deal league table") post which we had the most noticeable awkward silence. I proceed to build the convo and this is where things go to shit. For whatever reason, I cannot speak clearly. The entire call (stretched out due to my desperate efforts to ensure that the call at least ends well) is full of broken sentences. Not a single sentence that I spoke that morning made sense. I just forgot how to talk in English. Even by non native English speaking standards it was abysmal. To add salt to my wounds, a couple of days later, HL starts posting openings for 2024 analyst roles. I shamelessly and desperately reach out to the VP in hopes that I have something going my way, but needless to say I did not get the R1. I may have just been under-qualified for the role, but I do spend time thinking that had I had a good chat that day with the VP, maybe he could have pulled some weight for me, but alas! 

Had a AC at a firm and person I'd reached out to prior offered to call the night before the AC for any tips etc. Was super weird because she seemed kinda tipsy/drunk and she was pretty condescending about any questions I asked.