Congrats on the ROs. I Still Don’t Know Which One You Were

Another summer class survived and I think I’ve officially reached the stage of my career where everyone under 25 looks exactly the same.

A few days before the end of the summer, I woke up in an inexplicably good mood. Dog had finally taken a solid shit after several days of gastrointestinal warfare. Beautiful weather. Deals weren’t exploding. Life was good.

Walked into the office feeling unusually charitable and realized summer reviews were due.

Called one of the summers into my office and, completely seriously, had to ask: “Remind me what deals you’ve been working on with me?”

He tells me.

“Great. And you’re the analyst, right?”

Associate.

Excellent.

Anyway, gave him a great review.

Started going through the rest and realized I had basically no negative opinions about any of them. They didn’t burn the building down and were generally pleasant screen names on Zoom. At some point I apparently entered my Oprah era. You get an RO. You get an RO. Everybody gets an RO.

Fast forward and they start calling me individually: “Hey, just wanted to let you know I got the return offer. Thank you so much for everything this summer, really appreciate all your support.”

And I’m sitting there responding like a proud father while internally thinking, “That’s fucking awesome. Which one were you?”

It ended up creating this wholesome little RO lovefest where apparently I played a meaningful role in several young people’s lives because my dog happened to have a healthy bowel movement at the right point in the review cycle.

Congrats to all the summers getting ROs. And if you’re hitting the desk full-time now, some free advice: proactively reintroduce yourself to your VPs.

We like you. We fought for your return offer.

We have absolutely no fucking idea who you are.